If you're considering a creative hair color — something unnatural like a mermaid blue or a rose gold — it helps to come to the appointment with material inspiration; a photo of someone whose look you love and want to try to emulate.
For Lauren Shin, the star of this week's episode of Refinery29's YouTube makeover series Hair Me Out, the inspiration to dye her hair bright pink comes directly from one of the buzziest actors of the moment and the star of the hotly-anticipated Gossip Girl reboot, Evan Mock.
"I'm taking inspiration from one of my favorite influencers slash fashion icons, Evan Mock," Shin explains, adding her hope that dyeing her hair from black to bright pink will have a similar effect on her overall aesthetic. "I think his look is really, really cool; and it's something that I want to try for my own kind of self-expression."
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For her hair transformation, Shin books an appointment with Victoria, a freelance colorist based in New York City, who will help take her from an ombré black and blonde to an edgy, dimensional, rose-gold pink.
The first step in any black-to-bright color is bleach, a careful, layered foiling process that takes about two and a half hours from start to finish. After the bleach has lifted Shin's black hair to a white blonde, Victoria strips off all the foils and washes the hair using cool water and Olaplex shampoo and conditioner. From there, the pink dye is painted all over Shin's hair, from root to tip, then sits to penetrate the hair for about thirty minutes before it can be washed, blow-dried, and styled.
In the end, the pink is exactly what Shin was looking for. "It looks amazing," she exclaims, looking at her reflection in the mirror and feeling instantly cooler and more confident. "I feel like I've always needed to have this hair; the color, everything, is exactly what I wanted. I'm an extroverted person, so I think this hair color represents that. Also, Evan Mock, I hope you see this because I think you're super freaking cool."