Article: How to Choose a Colourist
How to Choose a Colourist
Choosing a colourist is a bigger decision than choosing someone to cut your hair. A cut grows out. Colour lives in your hair for months, sometimes years, and the wrong call can take a long time and a lot of money to undo. So the bar is higher, and the way you go about finding the right person matters more.
Start with the people you trust. The best way in is, and has always been, a personal recommendation. Great colourists build their chair through referrals — and the women they attract tend to share a sensibility. Everything a colourist puts out, from the work itself to the conversation, the consistency, the honesty, the way the salon feels when you walk in, shapes who keeps coming back and who recommends them onward. When you walk in on a friend's recommendation, you're inheriting a whole network of taste, not just a name in a calendar. So start with the friend whose colour you've always quietly admired. Ask who does it. Ask how the colour holds up between appointments. The depth of her answer often tells you everything.
Then spend ten minutes on their work. Once you have a name, look at what they actually do. The salon's feed shows a brand, but the individual colourist's portfolio — usually on their own Instagram — reveals a hand. Look for before-and-afters that match where you are starting from, not where you want to end up. If you're brunette dreaming of blonde, a feed full of already-blonde maintenance work tells you nothing useful. And look at the hair itself, not just the colour. Glossy, healthy results mean the colourist isn't sacrificing integrity for shade. Brittle ends in beautiful photos are a red flag.
Book a consultation, in person if you can. Fifteen minutes in natural light, with the colourist's hands in your hair, is worth more than an hour of DMs. A good colourist needs to feel your hair's condition and density, look at your skin tone and undertones, and ask about your hair history in detail — and that's where most colour disappointments quietly begin. Tell the truth about everything that's been in your hair. The box dye from three years ago. The henna in your twenties. The previous balayage. The keratin treatment. The summer of swimming pools. All of it sits in your hair and reacts with whatever comes next, and a colourist working blind is how breakage and brassiness happen.
Bring reference images — and the rejections. Three or four photos of colour you love, and two or three of colour you absolutely don't want. "I love this softness around the face, but please, never anything brassier than this, and never this much contrast at the roots." The images you reject are often more useful than the ones you love, because they map the boundaries. Hairdressers process "don't go here" far faster than "go somewhere in this direction."
Ask the right questions, and notice the ones they ask you. From your side: is this achievable in one appointment, or will it take more than one? How will it grow out, and how often will I need to come in? What will this cost me over a year, not just today? What home care will I actually need? From theirs: a thoughtful colourist will want to know your routine, how often you wash, what heat tools you use, the colour you've loved most, the one that went wrong. If they're not asking, they're guessing — and colour is the last place you want anyone guessing.
Value the colourist who tells you the truth. If you've got box-dyed dark brown hair and you want to be platinum by Friday, the right answer is no, not yet, and here's how we get you there properly. A colourist who agrees to anything isn't the one you want. Honesty in a consultation is the rarest and most valuable thing you can find — and the foundation of every long colour relationship that ends well.
By the end of fifteen minutes you usually know. Trust it.
At Bruneblonde, every colour service begins with a complimentary consultation — in person, in natural light, with the time to talk through your history, your references, and your goals. It's the foundation of every colour we do.
