Sneak Peek! The Pravana VIVIDS Contest Winner at Her L.A. Shoot!
This was the third year that Maria Santana of Snips Salon in Riverside, CA entered the Pravana “Show Us Your Vivids” competition, and this time, she had her heart set on taking third place. Instead, she took first place, and her prize was the opportunity to create an exclusive look at a photo shoot at Pravana headquarters, mentored by the one and only Pravana Guest Artist, Danny Moon!
BTC popped by while the shoot was in progress, and though we were sworn to secrecy about the finished look (it will be revealed in an upcoming issue of BTC’s On Paper magazine) we were allowed to take some tantalizing teaser snaps!
Maria’s winning look was all about fire—a sizzling combination of reds, oranges and yellows. So this time, she decided to take her creativity in the opposite direction, and created a look featuring cool, muted tones of silver and blue, with a deeper base and pastel ends.To prelighten, she used Pravana Pure Light + 20-volume developer. For the base color, she used Pravana Chromasilk 7AA + a drop of Ash Blue additive. Her two accent shades were Pravana Chromasilk VIVIDS Silver and Pravana Chromasilk PASTELS Blissful Blue + Silver (8:2).
Danny—who served as one of the competition judges, along with Pravana Artistic Color Director, Vadre Grigsby—believes Maria’s color and placement choices are right on trend. After years of working with vibrant color, he says, it’s important to start to focus on the integrity of the hair. This means lower levels of developer, darker base colors that require less pre-lightening, working with high lift colors instead of bleach when possible, greater attention to timing, and creative toning. “My challenge with many of my clients now,” he says, “is to lift less and tone with the right shade so that you don’t have to push the hair too far. We also have to relearn what our Pravana colors can do when they’re no longer going over wide open bright hair, but rather over deeper roots and toned ends.”
And although we can’t reveal the finished look just yet, we can tell you it was all about the braids, ‘bout the braids, ‘bout the braids! “I’ve been obsessed with braids for some time now and experimenting with all sorts of shapes!” says Maria. “So I decided to go for braids!”
