Why We Ask You to Book the Cut Before the Color
The cut sets the shape; the color follows it. You cannot paint a shape you have not decided yet.
When you book a cut and a color in the same visit, the order matters more than most people expect. We ask for the cut first, every time.
Book the cut before the color. The cut decides the shape your hair falls into, and hand-painted color is placed to follow that shape. Color the hair first and you risk painting light onto the very lengths the scissors are about to remove.
The cut is the foundation
A haircut decides where your hair falls, where it bends, and where it catches light. Color does not decide any of that. It responds to it. The cut is the foundation; the color is the makeup that enhances its shape, movement, and personality.
Paint the light first and you are guessing at a shape that does not exist yet. Cut afterwards and you may remove the very lengths the color was painted onto.
Should you cut your hair before or after coloring?
Before, in almost every case where the two happen in one visit. A precision cut establishes the lines your color will live inside, so painting comes second. The rare exception is a maintenance gloss or a root touch-up with no shape change, where the length is already set and the order stops mattering. When in doubt, we settle it in the consultation, in daylight, before anyone picks up a brush.
What that means for hand-painted color
This matters more with balayage than with foils. A foiled highlight is placed on a section. A hand-painted highlight is placed on your hair, in the specific place light would fall on it, which depends entirely on the shape it has just been given.
Cut first, and your colorist is painting something real. It is the difference between color that was applied to your hair and color that belongs to it. If you are weighing the two techniques, balayage and highlights part ways precisely here, and our French balayage on the Upper East Side is built around this exact sequence.
Tell us how you actually live
Share your lifestyle with your stylist. How much time you have in the morning, whether you air-dry, how often you want to be back in the chair. We would rather design a cut and color you can maintain at home than one that only works the day you leave.
Before you come in
Arrive with completely clean hair and no product, so we can read your true texture and condition in daylight. Bring a photo of the color you envision, and a few images of shades you have loved before. A little more on that in how to arrive at your consultation.
Then let us start with the shape. Everything else is built on it. Our studio is at 130 E 65th Street on the Upper East Side, by appointment Tuesday through Saturday.
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