This week we had the absolute honor of having a private zoom education class with Sheree Knoble of Bixie Colour which is located in Caringbah just outside of Sydney.
Sheree specializes in ‘lived in’ blondes, effortless balayage and creating beautiful beach babes, she is also very well known for creating Jen Hawkins signature look and her Queen of instagram title was cemented when she won the Australia Hair Fashion Awards influencer of the year in 2019.
She is an incredible educator and I have been lucky enough to experience one of her classes first hand and she does not disappoint.
In the world of balayage nothing is more important than the face frame. That pop of colour that highlights all the key points on the face, the eyes, the cheekbone and the jawline.
Sheree nails the face frame every time and we were lucky enough to learn her techniques for creating the perfect pop of blonde.
Sheree’s beautiful model Lily had grown out colour a very long regrowth but still some lightness on the ends but the blonde had gone a little bit murky from a lot of swimming.
The goal was to refresh, brighten and still keep that lived in vibe with a bright pop of colour around the face. Lily had a shoot the next day so there was no room for error and the colour really needed to look natural and seamless.
To create this look Sheree used a combination of foils and freehand paint. She started with a curved section from the part to just behind the ear on both sides of the head.
A curved section will help the foils blend seamlessly when the hair lays flat. When foiling the hairline it’s notoriously a tricky spot you can really nail or fail it.
Sheree prides herself on her hairlines, no stripes allowed!
The key is to follow the shape of the hairline and always keep your weaves and slices nice and fine. This will create a seamless blended hairline, think sun-kissed goddess.
Also not going too far back into the partline when foiling can make a huge difference between creating e-girl bangs and a natural lived in colour, both are fab but it's all about what the client wants and needs.
The next step was ‘tipping out’ the face frame. This term means colouring the hair left out between the foils through the hairline.
This can be achieved with a few different techniques from dropped foils to free hand painting but really helps you achieve a difference between the front and the back so that your face frame has that pop.
Sheree then moved to the back and started to clean out the ends of her models hair with an open air free hand paint. This technique is perfect to use over existing blonde.
She was careful to leave pockets of darkness throughout the hair to create dimension and shadow. The beauty of doing this is that lighter colours when placed next to darker colours create contrast and that means your blonde will really stand out.
Once the colour was finished Lily was left to process and we got to talk about all things social media.
Sheree really is an incredible presence on Instagram, both her personal page and the Bixie colour page have thousands and thousands of followers and are curated to create an eyegasm of beautiful hair images.
Sheree has a number of Bixie ambassadors that are social media influencers and models who help push the brand into the forefront of the public arena and are really walking billboards for her and her teams incredible work.
She has really built an amazing tool to promote her business and attract new clients. The standard of work coming out of Bixie is absolutely incredible and the Instagram really does promote that to its fullest ability.
One thing I love is that Sheree herself still finds the time to reply and put a personal touch to all of her Instagram interactions which I think adds an extra level of care on a platform that can sometimes feel very impersonal.
Lily was now ready for toning which the team at Bixie take very seriously; each client at Bixie receives a gloss over their colour which helps keep the hair looking shiny and grounds the colour to create that true lived in look.
It can also eliminate unwanted tones exposed by the pre-lightening service.
Sheree was careful to explain that her foiling and balayage techniques were really the most important aspect of the colour service as toners or glosses can fade so that foundation of a seamless blend really needs to be there in the beginning.
Lily’s hair did not need much toning. Sheree's foil work was perfect and the blend was beautiful and even throughout the hair. She only blended the fresh foils on the hairline for a natural look and kept the ends a bright creamy blonde.
The finished result on Lily was breathtaking.
For what looked like a small amount of colour it really made a huge impact. It was natural but bright and really enhanced her fresh faced look.
It just goes to show that placement really is everything. Sheree knows exactly where to place her colour to create maximum impact and that skill takes years to master.
The final step was to capture Lily’s colour for social media which once again was awesome to watch. The Bixie team really knows composition and the images they create stand up to some of the best hair work on social media.
Natural lighting is one of the top tips Sheree had to offer as well as knowing what styling techniques work for each head of hair and colour to create the best image possible.
Watching Sheree and Lily work together to create images felt like a behind the scenes look at a professional shoot for any top fashion magazine or runway show but that's just a normal day in the life of Bixie Colour.
After a few hours of watching and talking about colour with Sheree I know the entire team, myself included, were itching to get their hands on a head of hair to try out all of the new techniques we had learnt.
We cannot wait to be back in the salon creating amazing lived in blondes with the perfect face frame thanks to Sheree and the Bixie team.
Author - Jessica Burt is an Artistic Director at Chumba's Windsor Salon.
JESSICA 'STYLE ICON' BURT
Meet Jessica, she is what we refer to as a ‘True Blood’. Born into the Chumba Hair family from her very beginning of her career she has lived a closeted life with the walls of our Hair Asylum. All that has resulted in a freak hairstylist full of Chumba magic hair tricks and is crazy good in her skill sets.
Blessed with a calm that anchors the entire team she is a foundation stone of the Windsor Salon.
When you mix the styling skills and the technical prowess of Colleen Stanford and the magical energy of Chris Gratton you get this - you get Jess the culmination of all of her mentors all wrapped up into one Super Star person.