“Balayage just means we hand-paint the lightness where the sun would naturally hit, so it grows out soft and lived-in with no harsh line, and you’re not stuck in my chair every six weeks.”
Nonia Wolf
Blonding
The process of lightening hair to a blonde shade. Depending on your starting color, it can take more than one step and usually finishes with a toner.
The activating cream mixed with hair color or lightener. Its strength changes how much the product lifts or deposits, so your stylist chooses it for your hair.
Double process
A color service done in two steps, usually lightening first and then applying a toner or a second color.
Gloss
A light, translucent treatment that adds shine and can refresh or adjust tone without a big change. Some stylists use the word interchangeably with toner.
A 1 to 10 scale for how light or dark hair is, with 1 as black and 10 as the lightest blonde. Stylists use it to plan how far to lift your color.
Lightener
The product that removes color from hair so it can be lifted to a lighter shade. People often call it bleach.
Regrowth (grow-out)
The new growth at your roots that shows as your natural color grows in under colored hair.
Tone and undertone
The warmth or coolness of a shade. Warm tones lean gold, copper or red. Cool tones lean ash, beige or violet.
Toner
A treatment used after lightening to shift hair toward the tone you want, such as cooler or more neutral. It does not lighten hair.
In the chair
“Toner is the step that makes your blonde go from ‘just lightened’ to your shade: it cancels out brass and sets the tone, but it fades over time, so think of it as the glow-up you refresh, not a forever thing.”
Nonia Wolf
Smoothing and styling
Blowout
A wash and blow-dry style that smooths and shapes hair. It is temporary and lasts until your next wash.
Individual strands of hair attached to your natural hair with small keratin tips that are bonded on with heat.
Move-up
The maintenance appointment where extensions are moved up toward the scalp as your natural hair grows. How often depends on the method and your stylist’s advice.
Tape-in extensions
Wefts with an adhesive strip that sandwich a thin section of your natural hair.
