The kit on the trolley: what all those salon tools actually do

Most of the salon tools on my trolley do one specific job, and that is the whole reason a colour appointment takes as long as it does. We swap between eight or nine of them in a single head of foils. Clients ask me what half of it is for, so here is the honest run through.

Nothing on there is for show. If a tool has a spot on the trolley it is because the alternative either makes your hair worse or makes you sit in the chair longer.

The short version

Tint brushes apply colour. Wide for full heads, narrow for roots and fine sections.

The pointed tail comb sections hair. That is what creates a clean foil line.

Cutting combs are narrow. Detangling combs are wide. The wrong one snaps wet hair.

Foils hold colour and heat. They are how highlights lift evenly and stay separate.

Every tool that touches your scalp gets disinfected between clients.

The salon tools that put the colour on

The black brushes are tint brushes and there are usually three widths sitting there. A wide one covers a full head of tint quickly and evenly. A narrow one gets into the root line and picks up fine sections without bleeding colour into hair we are deliberately leaving alone.

The bowl matters more than people think. Colour and developer get measured by weight rather than guessed, because the ratio is what makes the result predictable from one appointment to the next. A root tint with us is £40 to £47, and most of that time is careful application, not mixing.

For balayage we often swap to a flat board and a paddle brush. The board gives us something to press against so the colour sits exactly where we want the soft bit to begin. A full balayage is £70 to £85, a half is £55 to £65.

Combs: there is a reason we keep swapping

The pointed one is a tail comb. That long thin end is purely for sectioning, and clean sections are the difference between a sharp foil line and a smudgy one. It never touches a cut or a detangle.

The wide tooth comb is for wet hair. Hair is at its weakest when it is soaking, so pulling a fine comb through it is how you end up with breakage through the mid lengths.

The narrow cutting comb holds hair flat and at an even tension while Sabrina or Sheree work through it. Tension is everything in a cut. If it slackens halfway across a section, the line drops on one side and you will see it the second you get home.

Foils, and why a half head costs less

A foil does two jobs. It keeps each coloured section away from the hair around it, and it traps a bit of heat so that section lifts evenly from root to end.

That is why the count drives the price rather than the colour itself. A full head of foils is £70 to £85 because the whole head gets worked through in sections. A half head is £55 to £65, a partial is £40 to £60, and if you only want a few brightening pieces around the face, single foils start at £5.

Whatever comes out of those foils usually still needs a toner to take it from yellow to the shade you actually asked for. A toner is £35 to £40, or £20 as an add on to another service.

Scissors, shears and the ones we never share

The scissors are not the pair from your kitchen drawer, and they do not get shared between stylists. We each have our own, sharpened on a schedule, because a blunt blade pushes the hair instead of cutting it and leaves you with a frayed end that splits within weeks.

The ones with teeth along a blade are thinning shears. They take weight out without taking length off, which is how we get bulk out of thick hair while keeping the shape. Used heavily they cause more problems than they fix, so we are sparing with them.

A cut and finish is £42 to £55 and a restyle is £60. The tools are the same either way. What changes is how much of the shape we are rebuilding.

The boring bit: everything gets cleaned

Anything that touches your scalp is disinfected between clients. Combs, brushes, clips, the sectioning tail, all of it. Scalp infections such as ringworm pass between people on shared combs, brushes and towels, and NHS guidance on ringworm sets out how easily it moves on shared items. It takes two minutes to clean a comb and a lot longer to sort out the alternative.

The same applies to the patch test bowl. We patch test every colour client at least 48 hours ahead, and that gets a fresh bowl and a fresh stick every single time.

So when you are in the chair wondering why I have picked up a fourth brush, that is the reason. Each one is doing something the last one could not.

If you want to know what a service involves before you commit, the full list is on our pricing page. Call the salon on 01582 730381 or book online. We are at Shop 660, Jansel House, Hitchin Rd, Stopsley, Luton LU2 7XH, open Tuesday and Wednesday 10 to 8, Thursday 10 to 6, Friday 10 to 3 and Saturday 10 to 4:30, closed Sunday and Monday. Klarna is available if you would rather split the cost.