Test strand before dyeing: how will it help the colorist?

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 Prize, will answer these questions and share his experience.

I really like to talk about the test strand, because still not all hairdressers do it before coloring. Ignoring such a technical point leads to irreversible consequences. At a minimum, this is extra (and thankless) work for the master; subsequently, the client will not get the desired result.

A test strand before dyeing is a small analysis, a diagnosis of the client’s hair, which helps the hairdresser to correctly structure the work process and gives an understanding of how to work with a specific structure.

Every client, like their hair, is different. Therefore, the same product that the colorist works with will not always “work out” and appear the same on different hair. Each client's hair story is different, and not everyone will tell the truth or remember what happened to their hair over the course of a year, two or five years. In this case, the test strand becomes the colorist’s first assistant: it will let you see what can help the client and what cannot be done. Unfortunately, the client’s “I want” does not always coincide with the master’s “I can”.

At my master classes, I teach hairdressers how to make a test strand, which provides many advantages for the colorist’s work:

1. Reduces operating time.
2. Gives a clear picture of the technique's capabilities.
3. Gives an understanding of how the client’s hair structure will change after lightening.

It is always important to remember: clients who come with a request to make their hair lighter are not always ready to lose their quality. But bleaching without loss of hair quality does not happen, despite various additives and complexes. Bleaching = loss of hair quality.

A test strand will come in handy, even if we are not talking about bleaching, but when working with softer products. If you are working on darkening (dying your hair a darker color), also do a test strand. When we dye our hair a darker color, the dye may not show up correctly on the hair structure, become darker or turn green just because the hair structure is very damaged. In order to choose the right color for dyeing, I recommend doing 3-4 strands with different cocktails on different parts of the head and comparing which mixture works best and which is more rational to dye the client’s hair.