Color Your Hair Simply, or Turn It Blue — Salons Can Do It All (Published 1974) (2024)

It may be called frosting, Creaking, highlighting, naturalizing, tinting or coloring. The words are euphemisms for hair dyeing, a term avoided by hairdressers. (“We never like to speak of dying,” misspells one hairdresser's brochure.)

Clairol, the giant hair color manufacturer, wraps up the whole business as “color experience.” A survey made for the Company last year states that 40 per cent of American women have Constant or repeated color experiences. Half of these women are more than 35 years old, the survey conMitres, and 70 per tent of all women have tried hair color at some time in their lives.

Women hase come a long way from the days when “bleached blonde” was a derogatory term and coloring was done almost secretively so that truly only her hairdresser knew for sure whethor she did or didn't.

These day women sit nonchalantly in beauty shops with gobs of blue paste on their hair, or look like so many Topsys with strands of their hair wrapped in foil, as the chemicals for streaking do their work.

Blonde Still Reigns

The blonde still reigns, hairdressers report. Whether she has more fun or is preferred by gentlemen could be debated by such definite brunettes as Elizabeth Taylor. Still, hairdressers say, most of their customers ask for some degree of blondness because they feel it makes them look younger, or more outdoorish.

“Women still, want to be blondes,” says Rose Reti, a color expert. “I sometimes have trouble convincing dark brunettes that a drastic change is not a good idea. But they say their husbands like blondes.”

Red hair, colorists report, is becoming more popular, possibly due to the rediscovery of henna, a nonchemical substance that also is supposed to give by to the hair. Virtually all the specialists interviewed like warm brown hair with blond dappling. What the gentlemen (and ladies) do not pre fer is the all‐one‐color blonding that so many older women ask for.

Advances in the chemistry of hair colors has given the tintera a great deal of scope to achieve different effects. A woman with hair changes in mind can have a range from simply covering up her gray hair to tinting her locks green or blue.

Techniques and prices vary from salon to salon, according to the artistry of the operator, the length or quality of the hair and the time it takes to achieve a particular effect. A simple retouch can take 20‐minutes and cost $10, but one salon is introducing a French technique that can take as long as six hours and cost up to $150.

There are hundreds of saIons in New York, most of them offering color services. The following is a check of the popular midtown salons: their specialties, prices and time that must be allowed. (In each case, price and time is for color alone, exclusive of cutting, setting or anything else done to the hair.)

Rose Reti, 128 East 56th Street.

Mrs. Reti is probably the dean of New York colorists. She has been in various bocations (including the defunct Revlon salon) for 33 years. A soft‐spoken, Hungarian blonde, Mrs. Reti has attracted such customers as the Gabor women, Dina Merrill and Joan Crawford.

Mrs. Reti likes sandy blond colors, sometimes adding rose to blond tints to make them less yellow. One color all‐over is harsh and passé, she says. She prefers shading, using as many as four colors: light at the hairline and darkening toward the back.

Two hours should be allowed for color; prices range from $22.50 to $95, depending on length.

The World of Leslie Elanchard, 19 East 62d Street.

Mr. Blanchard has been a consultant to Clairol for 15 years and often lectures to other colorists about technigues. Many women in the bublic eye (Barbara Walters, Joan Fontaine and Alexis Smith, among others) are regular clients.

Mr. Blanchard's world is strictly color and conditioning. He shares his townhouse with the Aurelian Lintermans salon, which provides cutting, setting and other services.

Mr. Blanchard has a firm routine: a new client must have a consultation with him (free). She is told what the cost will be what the upkeep entails and what is best fore her. Secondly, he requires that the woman have a scalp and hair conditioning, treatment ($15) a day or two before color is done. (If the customer is changing her hair style, he asks that cutting be done before color.)

Currently, Mr. Blanchard likes camel‐colored blond (“What you want is lightness and fairness, not blondness per se”), copper‐penny red and tortoise shell brown.

A first‐time customer, may require three to four hours and the tab will be between $75 and $100. A retouch ranges from $25 to $40 and may take up to 2½ hours.

Rosemary at Saks Fifth Avenue.

Rosemary Sorrentino, whose silver hair is very much her own, was Kenneth's lead colorist for 12 years before she moved to her large, light‐filled coloring room at the Saks salon. Before Faye Dunaway went back to her natural brown hair, she was a Rosemary blonde. Now the most visible Rosemary client is Gloria Steinern of the long, dappled hair.

Highlighting—the effect sun has on hair—rather than definite streaking is what Rosemary is doing these days, often applying color to get the effect, rather than bleaching out the streaks, In that way, red highlights can be added dark hair, too. An increase ing number of women are switching to red hair completely, Rosemary says.

Coloring here takes two to three hours; the fee is between $20 and $50.

Kenneth, 19 East 54th Street.

Thomas Morrissey presides over a staff of six colorists and he says the fadtfor henna is still strong. Still, most customers want blonding, he says, and the ideal way to look is “as though you've been in Mexico for two months.” That means faint, delicate color, rather than definite streaks, and it's done with as many as four colors. A woman going gray doesn't have to pass up the pleasures of this highlighting “You can tint the entire head brown, say, then highlight it,” Mr, Morrissey said.

Color may take as long as three hours and cost, $45 to $65.

Cinandre,. 11 East 57th Street.

One of the most spectacular demonstrations of the colorist's art was carried out here the other day.

Dale Weston, a professional model with shoulderlength brown hair, arrivedat the salon at 1:30 P.M. Seven hours later, Miss Weston declared she looked fantastic, with a lightening of her hair so subtle that it could fool a practiced eye.

What went on in between had even the salon staff agog.

The shop has imported a young man named Yvan from the Carlta salon in Paris to do what he calls a “balayage au cotton.” Starting at the nape Yvan lifted, out fine strands, and applied a lightening paste with a thin brush. Instead of the initial foil wrapping, he tucked pieces of cotton wadding to support the strands in process and keep them from the rest of the hair.

When he was three ‐quarters through, he had used 1,000 feet of cotton stripping and Miss Weston looked as though she were wearing an enormous white wig.

The idea of the balayage (the word means sweeping) is to lighten fine stands of hair, rather than add color. Therefore it works best on women who were blondes as children and darkened later. The fee is $100 to $150, but a woman might, be consoled that it needs only twice yearly touch‐ups.

The salon does lees timeconsuming, and therefore jess expensive color jobs. ($45 to $60, taking an hour, to an hour and a half) A favorite trick is leaving the hairline natural, while coloring the rest of the hair, so that dark roots are not so obvious as they grow out.

Bergdorf Goodman, salon.

Marie McGrath, who presides over a color room here says, “I love browns, with highlights around the face. I hate those spaghetti streaks and I refuse to do them. They're harsh and make a woman look olden”.

Another thing Miss McGrath hates is solid light color—“except for the very young.” She thinks of herself as an artist and does each woman differently, sometimes using as many as 10 shades on one head. Firsttime color takes at least two hours and costs $35 to $50.

The, salon has another specialty that it calls naturalizing, and the, expert for the technique is Remington Foster. The salon manager, Jerry Duval, has had his own hair “naturalized,” and nobody would quarrel with the effect (“It makes you look as though you have better brown hair”).

Naturalizing takes at least two hours, costs from $45 up and needs infrequent retouching.

Pierre Michel, 6 West 57th Street.

The color staff includes colorists who were formerly with Saks and Cinarldre. Since the salon is agent for the René Furterer hair treatment, products from France, conditioning is done as routine along with color. Here, too, one‐color hair tints are anathema; every head is naturalized or dappled, with several colors.

Color takes one to three hours; prices are from $40 to $75, including the Furterer treatment.

Monsieur Mart, 22 East 65th Street.

The color area is small, but Madeleine, the sweet‐tempered Frenchwoman who presides here, has a loyal following of the social upper crust.

Madeleine likes warm shades of brown and blond “that are not so light, more golden.” She paints on color with at brush, concentrating on the front of the hair. She's also an expert with henna, getting coppery effats rather than brash reds. Allow one toy two hours; the color bill will be between $25 and $70.

Jon Guenter, 5 East 57th Street.

Mr. Guenter's shop bills itself as “haircolor specialists,” although other services are available in the new, spacious salon on the second floor of this office building. Mr. Guenter is Swiss, has worked in his native country as well as Vienna and Paris. He is adept at most of the techniques, but prefers, highlighting or Streaking.

Prices range from $15 to $40; a touch‐up may take 45 minutes, complete color, half a day.

Adventuresome types‐who are tired of hair‐colored hair might try the flights of fancy some of the young salons dream up.

At La Coupe, 694 Madison Avenue, they'll be happy to put in streaks of green, blue or bright red or tint an entire head wine ted or navy blue. At Davian, 21 East 74th Street, Michael Casey is fond of such non‐hair colors as apricot, pink or mahogany.

Note: Some women are allergic to the chemicals in hair coloring products. Reputable Salons will do a patch test before they attempt color. If the salon does not suggest it, the client shouldinsist.