Colour Hair Extensions in London

The studio has a dedicated colour lab, where the AV Extension team physically blends strands of different shades under controlled light and creates tones that exist in no ready-made catalogue.

Most hair extension salons in London work from a supplier catalogue. You order number 8.1, you get number 8.1, and if your hair happens to sit between two numbers you will be offered the nearest one and told nobody notices the difference. Everybody notices the difference. Colour matching is the part of hair extensions people underestimate most.

Some of the better known extension salons in London are open about sending you elsewhere for colour, to a partner salon next door or down the road. Nothing wrong with that as a model. It simply is not ours. Everything happens here.

A medical grounding is not there for treatment. It is there for understanding what hair is made of, what developer does to it and when the work needs to wait.

Colour hair extensions are work on living tissue. Five years at medical college left one habit that turned out to be decisive in this profession. Looking at hair as living tissue rather than as material for styling.

Hair is built in layers. On the outside the cuticle, scales lying over one another like roof tiles. Beneath it the cortex, where melanin lives, meaning your natural colour, and where the bonds responsible for strength are found. Every chemical lightening service works the same way. An alkaline agent lifts the cuticle scales, developer enters the cortex and breaks down the melanin molecules so the hair becomes lighter.

The trouble is that developer does not choose its targets. Along with the pigment it catches the protein bonds, and with the cuticle raised the hair loses its ability to hold moisture. Once is survivable. Repeated every eight weeks on the same sections, as balayage upkeep requires, it accumulates, and one day the strand snaps exactly where it was lightened most often.

Medical training adds a second thing. The scalp. We look at it before any work, always, because irritation, flaking, scratch marks or inflammation change the decision completely, and a stylist without that habit simply will not notice and will fit bonds over the top of a problem.

On honesty, separately. We do not provide medical services, we do not diagnose and we do not treat hair. If we see something that belongs to a different field, we say so and refer you to a trichologist or a doctor. Extensions remain a cosmetic service, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as it is said openly.

Clients come to us with any colour, including natural, and the colour is assembled in strands over the top of it.

Many London salons ask you to arrive for extensions with a colour you are already completely happy with, and to visit a colourist for balayage beforehand. There is a logic to that advice, because salons like that match strands only to what they can see and do not know how to work any other way.

Our approach is different. Your natural colour is a full base, not a problem to be solved at a colourist first. We build the gradient in strands over your base, so the extra colourist appointment, the extra lightening and the extra money are not needed.

If you have coloured recently and you like the result, that is fine too. We will match to it.

Every complex colour technique needs its own selection logic, and the right shade for balayage will be the wrong shade for ombre.

Roots are the wrong reference point. They are usually darker than the rest of your hair and the extensions never sit there, so matching to root colour produces a set that looks correct in the mirror and wrong in every photograph. At AV Extension we match to the mid lengths and ends, which is where the extension hair actually lives.

Hair is matched unwashed and in its natural state. Freshly washed hair sits lighter and shinier than it will for the rest of the week, and matching to it gives a set that reads too light by day three.

Where your hair falls between two available tones, the lighter one is the better bet, because a slightly lighter strand reads as a highlight while a slightly darker one reads as a mistake.

Keratin is activated at 200°C and pressed flat into a disc afterwards. No metal, no glue, no tape and no wefts. A bond holds for 2 to 3 months and is released with a dedicated solution, without damage to your own hair.

Single tone hair extensions can be fitted mechanically, section after section. Colour work cannot. The stylist checks the map each time, takes the right shade from the right pile and places it at the assigned point, and where six or eight tones are in play there are six or eight sets on the bench at once, and they cannot be confused even once across five hours. Slow. One visit though.

Brassiness appears when bleached hair loses its toner and opens up its own warm base. In extensions there is no bleached base.

The classic story. Lightened, toned to a cool ash, and a month later the ash has gone and yellow has come up from underneath. That happens because toner sits on the surface of porous hair and washes out with every shampoo, while the warm undertone raised by developer in the cortex went nowhere and was simply waiting its turn.

In extensions the pigment is sealed under an intact cuticle at the factory. It has nowhere to go, and there is no peroxide prepared warm base beneath it that could come through. So a cool blonde on bonds stays cool for the life of the set.

Anyone tired of redoing balayage every six weeks, anyone whose hair can no longer take lightening, and anyone who wants colour and length in a single visit.

Colour hair extensions in London suit you if chemical balayage washes out faster than you get used to it. They suit you if your hair has gone dry and brittle after several lightening services and your colourist is asking you to wait. They suit you if the base is dark and you want light ends and are not willing to pay for it with the condition of your hair. They suit you if you have had an allergic reaction to dye.

Colour hair extensions also work on fine hair, where ordinary colouring takes away the last of the density. If that is your case, see our page on hair extensions for fine hair. If your hair is curly, the colour is assembled to a different logic, which is covered on the curly hair extensions page. The invisible bond technique itself is explained on our invisible keratin bond extensions page.

Sulphates strip pigment. Hot water opens the cuticle and speeds up the same thing. Cool water and a mild sulphate free shampoo solve both problems at once.

In summer add a UV protection spray. Sun lifts extension colour more slowly than chemical colour, but it lifts it all the same, particularly light ends and pastel strands.

Every few months a deep clarifying treatment is worth doing, because styling product build up weighs the strands down and dulls the shine. Better done with us, at a refit.

Keep oils and heavy masks to the mid lengths and ends. They never go on the roots or the bonds, since an oily film weakens the attachment. Detangle wet hair with conditioner in it, working from the ends upwards, holding the strand near the bond. Sleep on a silk pillowcase. Refits every 2 to 3 months, and at each one we check the condition of your scalp, your own hair and the colour.

Any question during wear is answered on WhatsApp around the clock.

A trial fitting goes into your hair for real, five bonds. You walk outside and look at them in daylight, come back indoors and look again. No promises taken on trust.

The online WhatsApp consultation is free and available around the clock, and if you would rather show us your hair live than send photographs, we also offer a free video consultation.

What the cost is built from. The number of shades, because every additional tone means a separate set of hair and separate time to lay out. The number of bonds. The length of the strands. The complexity of the pattern, since ombre with a defined line takes more calculation than a soft balayage. Whether lab blending is needed. The amount of baby hair along the hairline. And a mobile visit, if you want one.

Colour work is quoted separately from the fitting itself, because it is separate labour. Anyone who tells you colour costs the same as a single tone set is quoting you one of the two things and will find the other later.

There is no ready price list, and that is deliberate. Two people with the same hair length can need entirely different quantities of hair and different numbers of shades, so a published figure would either understate the quote and grow on the day, which is the most common complaint about salons, or frighten you off where there was nothing to be frightened of. Your quote is fixed in writing before booking and does not change. There are no hidden charges.

We bring colour hair extensions to you, along with the colour matching equipment and the full stock of shades.

The same standard as the studio.