Stories: Manuela and the Back of the Colour Chart

The colour that wasn't the one on the chart

Manuela is 46 and has run her own salon in Bern for fifteen years, in the Länggasse district: four chairs, two colleagues and Jana, an apprentice in her second year. For a few months she has been working with Code Zero Vibrant Color, and her clients are happy.

Almost always. On Friday afternoon Sabine had come in: natural base 6, she wanted a bright light blond, "like that strand there". Manuela had chosen 8.0 from the chart, and the result came out warmer than expected, with an orange undertone. Sabine didn't complain. Manuela did, to herself.

That evening Jana asked her: "Why did it come out different from the strand?" Manuela had no answer she could teach. She had experience, a good eye, habit. But not a rule to explain to an apprentice.

A Monday morning search

On Mondays the salon is closed. With a coffee and the Vibrant chart on the table, Manuela picked up her phone and typed: Farbkarte Haarfarbe Tabellen lesen.

Among the results was the cliCHair guide to Vibrant Color. Its first lines stopped her: the chart doesn't only show strands, on the back it says how much each shade lifts and on which bases it works. She turned the chart over. The three tables had always been there.

The three tables

The guide explained them one by one, and the Vibrant Color Chart page transcribed them in full, shade by shade.

Field of Application Table. For each shade, the bases on which it works, rated very good, good or fair. 8.0 is very good on bases 7 and 8, good on 6. Sabine's base was inside the field, but at its edge.
Bleaching Power Table. How many tones each shade lifts natural hair: 8.0 up to 2½. From 6 to 8 is two tones: it could be done, but it needed the right volume.
Color Index. The colour wheel: every reflect is toned down by the opposite sector. The blue of the .1 ashes sits opposite orange.

Then the Oxidizer table: 20 vol for tone on tone and to cover white hair, 30 vol for more lift.

Manuela went back over Friday. She had used 20 vol, which according to the guide lifts one tone. And while lifting, the orange of the base had come through, with nothing to balance it.

Practising with Jana

On Tuesday morning, before the first client, Manuela sat Jana down with the chart open at the back and the guide on the tablet.

Read the base. First the natural base and the percentage of white hair, then the previous colour.
Check the field. Does the chosen shade work on that base? If the base isn't listed, it isn't the right shade.
Check the lift. How many tones are needed, and can the shade get there? For two tones the guide gives 30 vol, always within the lift of the shade.
Think about the reflect that will come through. Lifting two tones brings out the orange of the base. For a neutral result the guide suggests adding up to a quarter of the ash shade of the same level: for Sabine, 8.1 in 8.0.
Mix 1:1. 50 ml of cream and 50 ml of Oxidizer.

Jana asked: "And the client with coloured lengths who wants to go lighter?" The answer was in the same table: no shade lifts hair that is already coloured. First the bleaching powder Level Out, 1:2 with Oxidizer, then the shade with 10 vol, the volume the leaflet gives for bleached hair.

When she had a doubt about a mix, Manuela asked clichAIr, which answered with a link to the product page.

Sabine, six weeks later

At the retouch Manuela prepared the bowl calmly: 8.0 with a little 8.1 and 30 vol on the regrowth, as she had decided with the chart in her hand. For the last 10 minutes on the lengths, already coloured, she prepared a second bowl at 10 vol, as the guide suggests. This time the blond was the one Sabine had pointed to on the strand.

Colour is always a matter of craft: the base, the white hair and the history of the hair all count, and the chart doesn't decide for the colourist. But now Manuela has a method she can teach. Jana uses it in every consultation and, before mixing, turns the chart over.

To reorder, Manuela uses the Quick Order: she searches for Vibrant, enters the quantities of the shades she uses most and of the Oxidizer volumes she needs, and pays at checkout.

"Fifteen years with the chart in my hand", she told Jana with a laugh, "and I had never turned it over."

The tools in this story

Code Zero Vibrant Color: how to read the chart, choose the shade and the Oxidizer volume: the complete guide, from the codes to the mixes.
Vibrant Color Chart: the 106 strands and the three tables on the back, transcribed shade by shade.
clichAIr: the AI consultant that answers on protocols, mixes and INCI, at any hour.
Quick Order: the whole catalogue on one page.