With pastel hair growing from a trend to a staple over the last few years, anyone who hasn't tried it has probably at least been tempted to. But with the necessary first step of bleach all but guaranteeing damage and the promise of near-constant maintenance, even the biggest fans of cotton-candy pink and baby blue can find an excuse to take a hard pass. But the hair team behind Mary Katrantzou's London Fashion Week show on Saturday proved you can get the look without the commitment. In fact, they proved you can get the look without even combing your hair.
Redken's global color creative director Josh Wood clearly loves pastels as much as the rest of us: He was responsible for the "anti-unicorn" hair on the Marc Jacobs runway last year. And now he found a new way to work dreamy colors into models' hair to go with the gorgeous shades of Katrantzou's collection. This time, none of the models had to make a long-term change, thanks to extensions painted with Redken City Beats in shades like coral, pink, and faded teal and attached to look like sporadic streaks.
"We used our hands to blend the intense colors together, to create a 'color cloud' effect on the hair’," Wood told Elle U.K., explaining that Katrantzou wanted him to create a color pattern for the hair that picked up on the fabrics in the collection. "We wanted to make it look like color was breaking through the models' own hair, with the vivid tones peeking out for a surprise burst of color."
He told Elle U.K. that in addition to a "color cloud" technique, he also used what he calls a "horizon" technique, in which he created a reverse dipping effect that would emerge from the models' hair, styled by Anthony Turner to look purposely unkempt.
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The result — and I realize I may be dating myself with this reference — is Lady Lovely Locks gone grunge. Actually, both Turner and the show's makeup artist, Lyndsey Alexander, referred to the beauty look on their Instagram posts as "grumpy." Perhaps it's not the first adjective that comes to mind when you think of pastels, but based on my experience with people who've had pastel hair, they're as moody as the rest of us.
More hair-color ideas:
- Halsey Defied Her Fans With Her New Hair Color
- Winter Berry Hair Is the Easiest Way for Brunettes to Rock Purple
- These Are the Hair-Color Trends You'll See Everywhere in 2019
Now check out 100 years of hair color:
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