How good is that feeling of walking out of a salon with freshly coloured hair, sunshine falling on expertly coloured highlights, wind lifting up strands to reveal multi-dimensional tones while soft, healthy hair shines in the afternoon glow?  It’s an incredible feeling yet for so many it’s often unreachable. This kind of hair perfection is something women dream about, yet struggle to reproduce in real life.How many times have I walked out of a salon just to realise my hair is now more brassy, I’m not happy with the overall colour of my roots and my highlights look stripy and unnatural? Too many, way too many times.

Knowing the lingo of hair colourists is, let’s face it, difficult; yet there I am every time saying: “I want foils but you know, not stripy foils, maybe balayage would be better, or how about hand painting some highlights?” And then, “I’d like my roots darker but not a lot darker and my tone cool. Just so it all looks natural but better than natural… you know what I mean right?” Meanwhile the colourist is scratching his or her head wondering which of these clues they should follow exactly.

the scary before shot

As part of my series of experimentations with the exciting new world of Wella’s products and services, I was asked to try out the transformative, next generation Wella Colour Contouring service. Used in conjunction with Wella Professionals’ colour care products, this technique is heralding to enhance natural skin tone and eye colour via expert freehand and highlighting techniques, using a completely customised approach of utilising the artistic skill of the Wella colourist as a real life editing tool; playing with light and shade to sharpen and pull focus to your favourite features while softening and blending imperfections into shadow.

The way it works is that dark colours are used to shorten and narrow face shape and light colours help to add length and width, changing the appearance of a person by defining and contouring their features. The stylist takes into account your style, personality and complexion and then comes up with a completely unique result designed to play down imperfections and celebrate strengths. The wonderful Wella Professionals ANZ Colour Creative Director, Marie Uva, from UVA Salon in Melbourne, was responsible for my perfectly subtle and transformative change. She instantly saw my hair had too much warmth and suggested a further darkening to my roots to match my eyes and bring a few subtle higlights around my face to lift my skintone. The result? An incredibly delicate yet significant change that looks natural and works wonders for my features. Thank you Wella  for a truly illuminating experience.

To experience the magic of Colour Contouring , log on on to www.wella.com and find your nearest Wella Salon.