Portsmouth Salon Uses Tarot Cards to Demystify Hair Colour

South coast hair salon, Tony Wood Hairdressing have unveiled ‘HAIRVOYANCE’, a new way to help clients understand different styles of balayage.

Working with illustrator and tattooist Chrissy Hills, salon director Liam Fry and colourist Tanahya Nash have developed a set of four Tarot-style cards to help demystify an aspect of hairdressing, which Liam says has become warped by social media:

We’re calling it ‘a remedy for the noisy beauty expectations of the digital age'. Over the past few years, Pinterest and Instagram have certainly helped people choose the hair they want. The side-effect of that though, is blurrier lines between varied balayage techniques. A lot of people don’t quite know what ‘balayage’ means.

Liam also cites filters and Photoshop as sources of confusion for many clients:

Whilst there’s been an encouraging rise in anti-edit mantras among many hairdressers, much of the content we’re fed every day just doesn’t quite line up with reality. All these attractive pictures rarely come with advice on upkeep, either.

When we first started thinking about how we could give the concept of balayage some structure, I got the idea of Tarot cards designed to envision the future of our clients’ hair! We already knew Chrissy’s work, and it suited that astrological vibe we wanted perfectly. Together, we created four looks: ‘Wands’, ‘Cups’, ‘Pentacles’, and ‘Swords’.

Now, clients who visit Tony Wood Hairdressing in Portsmouth for their colour consultations are presented with the four cards, which use shading to showcase how colours will be applied to their hair. ‘Swords’, for example, is a ‘classic ombré’ that transitions from dark to light, whilst ‘Cups’ features cascading ribbons of strongly-defined colour.

Each look comes with a few key points: what are the advantages? Who is this fitting for? What kind of after-care is needed once the client leaves the salon? ‘Wands’, for example, is a quick but vibrant style that strives to match up to what most clients think balayage is, and the softer shades of ‘Pentacles’ makes it an ideal choice for anyone who wants a soft regrowth with no harsh lines. Liam adds:

We’ve also begun retroactively defining each balayage service we’ve completed before. When return clients aren’t quite sure how to ask for ‘the same style as last time’, we give them the relevant Hairvoyance card. Whenever they need to check how to care for their hair at home, that information’s instantly available to them.

The vibrant illustrations now have pride of place in the windows of Tony Wood Hairdressing’s clocktower home - a century-old building that was built at the close of the Victorian era in 1903, and just minutes from the sea.

Find out more about Hairvoyance here.