Curly Hair Colour Techniques that inspire crafty creativity

Curly hair requires a completely different approach to colouring straight hair. Hairdressers need to consider the variations in texture and elasticity can greatly impact the effectiveness of colour placement when selecting the best technique. I love colouring curly hair in the salon and I have always told every colour hair client how much I love it to encourage them to feel welcome to come back to someone that not only can colour curly hair but also loves to do so.

In case you missed the last episode of the Colour Kristina Talks Podcast I was chatting with Curly hair lover and Frizz Advocate Tara Walker about dry hair cutting and other curl and coily hair strategies, which is why I wanted to follow on with this episode to inspire you to colour curly hair with finesse and leave the frizz to the natural texture styling and not because you have over bleached hair.  

Colouring curly hair should enhance curl vs making it fluffy or damaged. Think gloss. Think texture. Think differently. Be open to try crafty methods as opposed to classic colour methods and the wild world of texture awaits you. Your curly clients will thank you!

Show notes for episode 33

less is more when colouring curly hair

Just like Tara shared in episode 32 that cutting curly hair is a lot like trimming a bonsai, which means it might look a little crazy to the untrained eye but you need to remove pieces visually to allow air in the hair for curls to find their home – this is the same approach for colouring curly hair.

Key considerations:

• Ask your client to arrive at the salon with their hair styled natural
• It is best to cut curls before the colour, thus allowing you to paint pieces you want to enhance
• Don't comb the curls out before colour unless you want to apply an onscalp belach or global colour
• Think about painting curls in a painterly method that encourages you as the Hair Painter to paint less pieces of hair to enhance areas you and your client love. It's better to build the colour as opposed to going too strong or heavy at first.
• Less is more – 10 well placed foils for example, could be more effective and beautiful than 100 slices that could make hair look fuzzy and damaged.

Freehand Hair colour for curly clients

My mission when colouring curly hair is to in fact make the hair look curlier. This means I paint ringlets, or I like to paint horizontal bands in hair if creating dimensional effects. Imagine you are painting in the corrugation on a flat surface. If you paint stripes into a ringlet, when the colour is processed and hair dryed this will look like light beams of the bends of the ringlet promoting a curly strand with shine.

Key considerations:

• Stop using the same sectioning you use for straight hair or classic foils. Mix up your weave highlight techniques to become chumky deep weaves or circlay pieces of hair dug out with a combas opposed to fine weaves
• Freehand techniques can be heavier like ombre methods, but remember that curls love mositure so any lightening must be followed by a moisturising or high sheen gloss toner
• Paint stripes into the hair… literally paint light and dark stripes in your chunky foils. Don't trust me with this one? Test it on some test stands and try curling the pieces before painting on a willing client. This will make hair look curly and the lighter stripes catch the light like glistening shine beams on curly, coily, wavy and frizzy hair types that usually can be hard to create shine

think outside the box when colouring curly hair

Something that you might not know about me is my love for textiles. In fact I left full time hairdressing about 10 years ago to study textiles for 3 years. I fell in love with resist dye methods often seen in Japanese design. These concepts are super exciting for curly hair colour techniques. Resist dye in japanese shibori is created by tying string around fabric and dipping it in dye, similar to tye dye. But also other tools are used for resist dye which is where my mind jumps over to hair.

Here's some fun things to try when colouring curls;

• Have you ever seen people painting plaits or braids with hair dye? Try this! Create a loose 3 strand braid and paint the braid with colour or bleach. The result is a beautiful ripple. Perfect for pre-lightening for high glos reds, coppers, brunettes, caramels or sunkissed effects in curls.
• Another idea that is incredible for Balayage on curls is to do a Dip Dye or Tie Dye method. Literally grab large circular sections of hair and secure with a large rubber band. Paint below the band. Stunning! 
• Curls love crafty colour techniques and are very forgiving for blends, so go for it and have fun!