We’ve already witnessed the emergence of balayage, tortoiseshell, Instagram-inspired and even pixelated hair this year, so it was only a matter of time before the next hair trend popped up.
The thing is, we weren’t expecting it to be quite so… practical.
Nicknamed ‘lived-in’ hair, it’s the speciality of LA hairstylist Johnny Ramirez and his team at the Ramirez-Tran Salon. The hook we love? The colour lasts six months without requiring a top-up, and you won’t get regrowth.
It sounds almost too good to be true.
Ramirez insists the style is neither balayage nor ombre, but rather a subtle, long-lasting way of highlighting hair. He uses a a blurring technique to apply a colour halfway between blonde and brown, which although look different up close, create a natural-looking waterfall effect when you take a step back.
It’s a technique that’s earned him a cult Hollywood following, including the likes of Jessica Alba, as well as more than 50,000 Instagram followers.
But there is a catch. In order to make the colour last for six months, you need to be prepared to sit in the chair for about six hours, while Ramirez highlights, lifts, bleaches, deposits colour, adds gloss and even creates a “fake root”. This involves replicating just a tiny amount of the colour on certain strands so the hair can match the colour of the “fake root” and avoid harsh, defining lines as it grows out. (Post continues after gallery.)
Six-month hair colour.
While Ramirez’s services are only available in America, it is possible to create a similar look at your salon of choice.
“Hair colour to last six months would be achieved by staying within a monochromatic colour scheme similar to the client’s natural base,” explains Kristina Russell of Edwards and Co.
“The secret to long-lasting tones is to ask your colourist to lift only one to three shades lighter than your natural base. In the salon, we create subtle variations in tone with freehand hair-painting or classic foiling techniques,” she says.
