Hair pigmentation before coloring

Alexey Baluev , art director of LONG & SHORT beauty salon and co-founder of LONG & SHORT hair academy, as well as the winner in the “Colorist” category of the International Stella Award, will help us understand these concepts.

When do we use pigmentation?

Pigmentation needs to be done when we are working with damaged hair or with uneven bases on its fabric, in order to correct all this and correctly reveal the necessary nuances. Roughly speaking, this is the foundation for the future color. Because on damaged hair, the color shade can be greatly distorted. For example, copper shades can migrate to red or red-violet, and beautiful beige will fade into gray. A green tint, undesirable for all hairdressers, may appear.

If we talk about the definitions of the terms “repigmentation” or “prepigmentation,” then there is no uniform presentation of information among hairdressers. Each school or cosmetic brand dictates its own information on basic color schemes and presents definitions differently. Therefore, there is often confusion in terms of hairdressers. Some people call working on bleached hair prepigmentation, while others call it repigmentation. And the situation is similar with the definition of work on gray hair.

In my opinion, the title is not as important as understanding the meaning of the work. This is the return of density to the hair, the substrate that will be ideal for further coloring.

Personally, I don’t stick to the names “repigmentation” and “prepigmentation.” I like the name Color Filler. It is used by Americans to denote the process of filling the hair with color and restoring the structure (to fill in the translation from English “to fill”).

Such substrates are an ideal option for creating complex shades that do not exist in their pure form. By layering a new color on a specific substrate, we get a completely new solution that is not in the palette of any brand. I really love this method because it makes each client unique.

The foundation in the form of pigmentation also “frees your hands” to create fantasy colors: long-lasting juicy blue or red shades. In addition, pigmentation allows not only to even out the structure and fiber of the hair, but also to ensure a long life of a beautiful shade on the hair.

If the color washes off, will the backing be visible?

It happens differently due to the individual hair structure, which gives and receives color differently. Indeed, it happens that the color of the base “peeps through” from under the main shade. But you need to understand that this is not the paint we use to paint fences. When we paint a color over a base shade, the dye reacts and creates a completely new nuance.

Does this type of underlay need to be done before each painting?

No, it should only be used when working with damaged hair or uneven hair, when there are several shades that need to be brought to a common denominator. Because if you put the same shade on different initial bases, it will appear differently.