My At Home Salon Experience

This pandemic has put a halt to a lot of beauty services that I would normally be looking forward to getting. As an esthetician, I am fortunate that I’m able to do a lot of my own beauty routines myself. I wax and tint my own brows, I give myself facials on a regular basis, and I do my own gel manicures and pedicures. But to get that feeling of a fresh haircut and color, I would normally enjoy going to the salon. I suppose we just need to get used to a new normal now. I’m sure that everyone has thought about giving themselves the COVID haircut at some point during all of this, but I was too afraid that I would mess things up and look ridiculous.

So when I heard that my friend Destinee Cushing, who happens to be a vintage hairdresser, was offering online services where she walks you through a haircut, I jumped at the chance. At the same time, I finally decided to try an at home hair color that I’ve been hearing so much about on various podcasts. I timed it so I would cut my hair and then color it the next day so I could get that same fresh cut and color experience.

I’ll start by telling you more about the at home haircut. I have a simple horseshoe cut with no layers. I also don’t have bangs, so cutting my hair myself was actually quite easy. I did have to straighten my hair to make easier to cut. In the photos below you can see what my last cut looked like unset.

Destinee was an amazing teacher, she had a mannequin head so I could mirror what she was doing. She was patient and very clear in her instructions. I even explained an issue I was having with my fringe area and she walked me through an adjustment to trim it and fix the issue. I am so happy with the service she offered and I now have a option for trimming my own hair when I need to.

Before the cut

After the cut

I trimmed about 2-3 inches off all the way around and reinforced the horseshoe or U-shape in the back.

And now for the color, I’ve been struggling with achieving a color that I love since I left Germany. A few times I saw a stylist here in Hawaii, the color was way too dark, so I ended up having to do a bleach wash to strip some of the dark color out, and that brought out a lot of the red color in my hair. I don’t mind the red so much, but the ultimate end result I got just wasn’t what I was going for. I felt kinda like Goldilocks, it was either too dark or too light, never the “just right” color I was looking for.

I haven’t colored my own hair for over 15 years, so I was a bit apprehensive to do it myself. I’d heard about a company called Madison Reed on a few podcasts and I found the website to be very helpful in finding the right color that I wanted to achieve. I chose the color Firenze Brown, which is described as a Medium Cinnamon Brown (I ordered an extra tube since I have so much hair). I also ordered the Professional Color Tool Kit. This made application so much easier than just using the normal squeeze bottle, and added a hydrating hair treatment as well. It was $56 all together, which I think was a great price. The hair color is $22 and $14 for the extra tube. I signed up for the subscription so they will be sending me my hair color every 8 weeks. You can choose when to send your color, but that’s typically the time frame that I color my hair, so that works for me.

And now for the reveal

I love the deepness of the brown and the auburn color peaking through. In the full sunlight, the red is still very visible, but I’m very happy with the color overall.

If you’d like to have a session with Destinee, contact her here:

Vinspire
instagram.com/vinspireme
facebook.com/vinspirestyling

Check out Madison Reed hair color as well:

Madison Reed
facebook.com/MadisonReedLLB/
instagram.com/madisonreedllb/