Velvet Fringe ©️

Aubergine, Espresso & Cyclamen — Hair That Moves Like Fabric

VELVET FRINGE© is named for what it looks like, not what it's made of. A deep aubergine base with magenta flashes running through a precision-cut bob produces a surface that reads as velvet — rich, dense, and shifting in tone depending on the light. In some conditions the base reads as deep espresso coffee with magenta catching through it. In others, the aubergine comes forward and the whole piece glows with a purple warmth that's unmistakably fabric-like in its depth and sheen.

The wig itself started life as a preloved human hair piece — nothing special to look at beforehand — and was transformed through colour and cut into something that looks as though it cost a hundred times what was actually spent on it. The bob is clean, structured, precise: a full fringe falling across the eyes, the sides graduating into a soft shape. The colour does the rest.

The Technique

The base colour was Wella Colour Touch 44/65 — an intense medium brown with a violet-mahogany undertone from the Vibrant Reds range. Applied globally as a demi-permanent formula, it sits in the space between dark plum and aubergine, with enough red-violet warmth to stop it reading as flat black. This is the colour that gives Velvet Fringe© its name — that dense, light-absorbing depth that reads as fabric rather than hair.

Selected sections were then lightened with a low-volume developer to create the lift needed for the direct colour overlay — placed through the fringe and sides to catch the light and break through the dark base, giving the piece its dimension.

Over the top of all of it went Crazy Color by Renbow, No. 41 Cyclamen — a vibrant semi-permanent magenta, applied globally once the base and lightening were complete. On the unlightened sections it adds a rich magenta sheen without dramatically shifting the depth. On the pre-lightened flashes, it reads as vivid, bright magenta — hot and alive against the dark ground. It's the combination of these two behaviours on the same head that creates the velvet effect: depth and flash working together.

"In some lighting the base reads as deep espresso coffee with magenta flashes. In others the aubergine comes forward and the whole piece glows with a purple warmth that is unmistakably velvet."

There was no model available for this piece, so I wore it myself for the final shots, with pearls to finish the look.