ADRIANNA HARRIS-2019
ADRIANNA HARRIS — A SUNCATCHER© Transformation
This one's about Adrianna, and how a chance meeting on a street corner turned into one of the most fun,experimental pieces of work from that whole period.
A model was needed — after being out of the industry for so long, there was no client base left to draw on, even in an area worked in for years before. That kind of gap has a way of erasing you from people's radar entirely, no matter how long you were there before. Starting again meant starting from ground zero — genuinely, as if walking out of college for the first time, with nothing built up to lean on. There's no getting away from being rusty after that long out, and no way around how daunting that is, terrifying even, stepping back in fresh with nothing behind you. Given time — a matter of months, staying close to your own niche — the feel of it comes back, the way riding a bike does. But that first stretch, right at the start, asks a lot of anyone. It felt like something worth changing regardless. So the only sensible option seemed to be going out onto the street near the salon and just looking.
Adrianna was waiting for a bus, on her way to see her mum, when we crossed paths. She still had the fading remnants of green through bleached hair — clearly someone who wasn't afraid of bold colour. I asked whether she'd be willing to model for a hair transformation, completely free of charge. She said yes.
Her hair was in fairly typical condition for someone who'd been lightening her hair— A little dry but that said she had the textured hair that leant itself to dryness regardless of any lightening processes.
With a long regrowth section of natural hair, lifting wasn’t going to be quick. The exact colour removal method used at that stage isn't something I can recall with total certainty — likely either a direct-dye colour remover or a Crazy Color-style removal process with warm water — but what stands out clearly is getting her onto a proper in-salon Olaplex routine afterwards. Regular visits followed, all of it free, both to nurse her hair back into condition and to build the working relationship further and our friendship. She made me howl and that time was brighter for knowing her.
Lightening her out was a slow job. The regrowth line was long, and her natural hair carried a good amount of underlying pigment — more warmth means more work. — so this was never going to lift to platinum blonde all over not to mention any green that was still too stubborn to come clean out. That was never the goal anyway. There wasn't a strict plan going in — that's not really how this kind of work happens. Something gets tried and we worked organically with the results as and when they happened whilst keeping the hair at its best strength. A clean blonde would never be the endpoint and we both understood that from the start ( Which helps ellininate further anxiety on both parts )
Adrianna would have found a clean platinum blonde far too boring. Vivids were always going to be the destination, and the warmth already sitting in her hair became part of what there was to work with, rather than something to fight against.
What it became was SUNCATCHER© I think that’s a perfect name — that scattered, broken-light look you get when sun hits a crystal chandelier: violets, blues, and teals moving through pastel pinks, yellows, and golds, colour shifting depending on the light rather than sitting flat, but never falling into the neat, conventional rainbow banding you see everywhere. The lighter, pastel end of that palette faded within weeks, as pastels do, and the ends settled into a soft pinkish- ombré. But the effect while it held was exactly the shimmer that looked beautiful.
She loved it. It wasn't her usual palette, but it suited her completely — and it suited her personality just as much. Adrianna was genuinely funny, easy company, and during that time, calling her a friend would have been fair. It was fun. Trying something new always is, when there's someone willing to go along with.
Suncatcher faded out beautifully in the weeks after — the pink regrowth held its colour longest, as expected, but the rest settled into a lovely pearlised blonde, with the natural wave in her hair.
Contact was lost in person after that, both lives simply carrying on their own way. During that time, she had a baby — which was lovely news to hear.
If you're reading this now, Adrianna — thank you. Thank you for saying yes to a stranger on the street, for trusting the process even when there wasn't a fixed plan, and for being genuinely lovely to work with throughout. It meant more than you probably realised at the time.
A note on the photos in this post: the original images were taken in the salon's ordinary lighting which was blue light ( I detest blue light) I've edited them to bring them closer to professional lighting and clarity given they were taken with my mobile phone.
Nothing of significance altering Adrianna or the hair colour itself. It's a matter of equity, really — a model photographed by a photographer would have had exactly this kind of minor correction done as standard. Adrianna like the others deserves the same presentational care taken with how the work is shown. Worth mentioning too: this particular colour genuinely looked different in every single light it caught, and that comes through even in these photos.
