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Going blonde from dark hair is rarely a one appointment job. If you are anything darker than light brown, you are looking at two or three sessions to do it properly, and the price reflects that work. I get asked about this every week, usually after a client has seen a Pinterest photo and thought it was one trip to the salon. It is not. The good news is the result is gorgeous when it is done right. The bad news is that anyone who promises it in one visit is either going to wre

A cut and blow dry at our salon includes the consultation, the wash, the cut, and the finish. It does not include colour, toner, or any chemical treatment. Cut and finish with us is forty-two to fifty-five pounds. A blow dry on its own is twenty-eight to thirty-five pounds. A curly blow dry is thirty to thirty-eight pounds. Plan for forty-five minutes to an hour in the chair. I get asked this almost every week, usually after a client has been somewhere that quietly added on t

Going from box black to brunette balayage takes three sessions, not one. Session one is the first lift and a base toner. Session two builds dimension six to eight weeks later. Session three is the polish. Trying to do it in one appointment is how hair ends up snapping. The reason it is a three session plan is that box dye colour molecules are larger than salon colour and bind harder to the hair shaft. Three or four times a month a client sits in my chair and shows me a Pinter

No, cutting your hair does not make it grow faster. Hair grows from the follicle in your scalp at roughly half an inch a month, and a pair of scissors at the end of the shaft cannot change that rate. What regular trims actually do is stop split ends travelling up the shaft, which keeps the length you already have. So your hair feels like it is growing more because you are losing less of it to breakage. If I had a pound for every client who told me they were booking a trim bec

The best haircuts for round faces are long layers from chin length down, a long bob sitting just below the chin, side swept or curtain bangs, and face framing layers around the cheekbones. Avoid heavy blunt chin length bobs and centre parts sitting flat against the sides of the head. The whole job of a good cut on a round face is adding a little vertical movement and letting the face breathe. I get asked this almost every week in my chair, so here is the proper answer. The sh

If you have never had your hair coloured before, here is the short answer. Book a consultation first, do a skin test at least 48 hours ahead, expect the appointment to take two to three hours, and budget around fifty to fifty-five pounds for a full tint at our salon. Now the longer version. I see at least one first time colour client every week. The questions are nearly always the same, so here it is written down. The short version Book a free consultation before the colour a

When a client asks me "who should I see for extensions?" the answer is always Ashleigh. She is the one in our team who lives and breathes them. I wanted to write something about how she got here, because most clients only see what happens in the chair. They do not see the four years of practice, the courses, the test heads, and the bad hair days that taught her what works. She did not start with extensions Ashleigh trained as a hairdresser the same way every junior in our sal

People ask me all the time how to pick a salon when they are new to the area or fed up with their old one. Stopsley has plenty of options now. A good hairdresser is not always the busiest one or the cheapest one. Here is how I would actually go about it if I was the one looking. Look at the work, not the website Most salons have a slick website. That tells you nothing. What you want to see is real client photos, taken in the salon, on real hair, in honest lighting. Have a scr

People use these two words like they mean the same thing. They do not. They are different techniques, they look different, they cost different, and they suit different people. I explain this about three times a day in the salon, so here it is written down. Highlights Use Foils. Balayage Does Not. Highlights mean your stylist takes sections of hair, wraps them in foil, and applies colour. The foil keeps the colour contained so you get clean, defined streaks of light through th

Extensions can completely change how you feel about your hair. More length, more volume, more confidence. But there are things I wish every new client knew before they sat in the chair for the first time. Your Natural Hair Needs to Be Healthy Enough Extensions attach to your own hair. If your hair is damaged, thin at the ends, or breaking, adding extensions can make things worse. We always assess your hair health first and we will be straight with you if it is not ready yet.

You know the feeling. Your hair is dry, rough, tangly, and no amount of conditioner seems to fix it. It snaps when you brush it. It looks dull no matter what you do. There is always a reason. Here are the most common ones I see. Heat Damage Straighteners every day. Curling tongs on full heat. Blow drying without any protection. Heat opens up the hair cuticle and eventually it stops closing again. That is when hair starts feeling rough and looking frizzy. Fix: use heat protect

Most people sit in the chair, get asked what they want, and freeze. They know they want something different but they cannot describe it. Or they have a picture on their phone but worry it will not work on their hair. This happens every day in our salon and it is completely normal. Here is how to make it easier. Bring Pictures. Even If You Think They Are Silly. A picture tells us more than ten minutes of description. Save a few from Instagram or Pinterest. They do not need to

If your hair feels dull and heavy no matter what you do, there is a good chance it is not your shampoo. It is your water. Luton sits in one of the hardest water areas in the UK. That means high levels of calcium and magnesium in the water supply. And it is doing things to your hair that most people do not even realise. What Hard Water Actually Does Minerals from hard water build up on your hair over time. You cannot see it, but you can feel it. Hair gets a coating that makes

Every week someone sits in my chair and asks me this. They have had a look online, seen five different prices, and now they do not know what is reasonable. I get it. Nobody wants to feel like they have been ripped off, and nobody wants to go cheap on their hair and regret it. So here is what I tell everyone. You Are Paying for the Time and the Skill Balayage is not a quick colour slap. Your stylist is painting every section by hand, deciding where the colour goes, how light,