After losing my mom to breast cancer
and going through a preventative mastectomy,
I just felt like it was a really good time to reclaim
my body and my appearance and feel like myself
again.
My name is Caitlin, and today I'm getting
a purple hair transformation.
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Throughout the years, my hair has been long
and really short and I've had bangs.
And this is the first time that I'll actually
be bleaching my hair and coloring it.
So I'm a little bit nervous, but I'm mostly
excited for this hair transformation.
My last haircut was maybe six months ago,
before my surgery.
A little over a year ago,
we lost my mom to breast cancer.
It encouraged me to go and get genetic testing.
I went and I tested positive for the BRCA gene,
and I got a preventative double mastectomy.
The reason I'm doing this hair transformation
today is because after everything that I've
gone through, I just wanted to do something
for myself and reclaim my body and my appearance
and my femininity.
Now is the right time to do this hair transformation.
My name's Liz and I'm a colorist
at Spoke & Weal in Soho.
I've been doing hair for eleven years.
Hi, I'm Liz.
Hi, I'm Caitlin.
Nice to meet you.
So we're doing some hair color today?
Yes.
Great.
Tell me a little bit about it.
So I want to do purple, a little bit darker in the roots
and then getting lighter towards the ends.
Great.
That sounds awesome.
What kind of purple are you thinking?
Any kind of purple that fades nicely
into a lavender would be great.
So we want some lighter lavender bits
in through the ends?
Yes.
So today we're gonna go ahead and balayage
your hair with some foils, get it nice and light.
We're also going to do a nice color in between
to get a really rich purple reflection.
We'll shampoo you out,
and then we'll do like a nice lavender color
all over everything.
How's that sound?
Great.
I can't wait.
We're gonna start with a full balayage
in Caitlin's hair with a lightening product.
We're going to melt a couple of colors in
together, just to give her a really seamless blend.
Then, between the foils, we're going to go in with
a permanent hair color to give a really
great purple reflection all over and deepen
her natural little bit.
When my mom was sick, she shaved her hair
and my mom would joke all this time that
she was going to dye it purple.
So this felt like the right color
to kind of honor her.
Hair to me is freedom.
The freedom to choose how you look
and how you want other people to see you,
the freedom to feel good in your own skin.
And I think it's a really beautiful thing
when anybody can take the power to do that
for themselves.
We're going to tone out any remaining yellow,
followed by a couple different shades of direct
dye to get a really nice blend and gradient color.
Great.
So we've got the color all rinsed out.
Let's get you prepped and ready for your
haircut with Karen.
Awesome.
It's been a long recovery.
I actually just got my reconstruction done
a few days ago, and now I just felt like it
was a really good time to do something
for myself.
Hi, Caitlin.
Hey.
So you're getting a haircut today?
Was there anything you had in mind?
Definitely a trim.
I want to grow it out longer,
but anything that's kind of low maintenance.
But I'm pretty much open to whatever you think.
That sounds good.
So let's go ahead and get started.
Great.
Ready?
Here's the moment.
Wow.
Oh my god.
It looks so good.
Every time I move it,
I see different shades of purple.
I think you picked the perfect mix of colors
for me that I probably wouldn't even have
been able to pick myself.
Liz, thank you so much.
It looks really amazing.
You did such a great job.
Of course.
My pleasure.
I really feel like I look outwardly how I feel internally,
and it just makes me feel
more confident and more like myself.
My experience here at Spoke & Weal today was
really amazing.
Liz made me feel so comfortable and confident
in her, and the whole experience was just
really great.
I think that my mom would just
be really happy that I was doing something
that was just for me and not for anybody else.
And I think that she would really love it.
And then she would probably want purple hair,
too.
Thank you so much for watching my video.
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