Ashley Valentin Hair

Consider this your summer hair mood board. ☀️💋

Swipe through, find your favorite, and save it for your next salon visit. ✨

Rich, dimensional, and absolutely stunning. ❤️‍🔥

This is your sign to stop overthinking and schedule that hair appointment. ✨

Get to know me 🫧💗

Before ➜ After ✨

This is your reminder that curly hair deserves just as much love. 🫶🏻

A fresh cut, dimensional color, and the right styling brought these curls back to life—defined, bouncy, and full of shine. Swipe to see where we started. 💫

My Extension Journey~

This is a super vulnerable and scars out post.

We all know life happens; stress, being too busy, lack of sleep, and sometimes life hits you really hard.

My hair 6 years ago was at its peak of amazing. Everything was amazing in my life; work, stress minimal, happily married, great balance, and physically healthy. Then the universe laughed at me.

I had a big loss, ended up with health issues, grief so heavy, and my health last on my list. I ended up with gallbladder stones and needing my gallbladder removed. I joke all the time they took it from me. The reality is that when you suffer a great loss and grief takes over; your body just begins to hate you.

I was put under for surgery 3x in a 2 week period, 6 months later again, and then 6 months after that again for the last time. You can imagine the toll it took on my body and my hair.

I lost a lot of hair; i felt bald. I clearly wasn’t but my hair had never been that thin in my life. I felt insecure, i joked that i looked like a naked mole rat, and the worst part was it wasn’t growing back.

I wanted to tell this story; show you my before and after of my extension journey. They changed the way i felt, how i looked, and more importantly it helped me to feel better about myself overall. It helped me mentally to feel better internally which in turn helped my grief and depression.

Beyond Lightener: The Strategic Power of Lifting Crème

Stop reaching for lightener every time you see a dark canvas. Intentionality starts with your tool selection.

When my client came in wanting natural, sun-kissed dimension on her previously colored curls, I didn’t reach for bleach. I reached for Kenra Color Permanent Lifting Crème.
Why? Because traditional lightener is designed to strip pigment; Lifting Crème is designed to evolve it. Think of Lifting Crème as “White” on your palette—it provides a softer, warmer, and more controlled lift.
• The Lifting Power: On its own, Lifting Crème can achieve up to 3 levels of lift. For this client, that was the “sweet spot” to shift her base without over-processing.
• Controlled Warmth: For a natural brunette highlight, warmth is your friend. This exposes the underlying pigment in a way that looks “sun-drenched” rather than “bleached.”

Lifting Crème is the most versatile tube in my dispensary. Here is how I use it:
1. The Brownout: Perfect for decolorizing color buildup without the aggression of a full lightener.
2. Increased Insurance: Add it into your permanent color formulation for an additional 1/2 to 1 level of lift.
3. The Corrective Shampoo: Acts like a “Soap Cap” for a subtle tonality lift—less aggressive than a bleach wash, more effective for refining over-toned ends.
4. The Vibrant Booster: Mix with Red or Violet boosters for “Ultra Violet” results with serious longevity.
5. Resistant Gray Coverage: Use it for Deluxe Pigment Loading to ensure even the most stubborn grays take the color.

Lifting Crème and Lightener both have a seat at the table—it’s knowing when to pull which lever. Professionalism is choosing the tool that guarantees the most ‘insurance’ for the hair’s health and long-term integrity.

Is your Lifting Crème sitting in the back of the cabinet, or is it a staple in your corrective strategy? I’ve listed 5 specific ways I use this behind the chair—let’s talk more about these 5 ways in the comments! 👇