Vale Salon

Where good hair begins.

Zoomed out vs. zoomed in 🔎

Hair color is meant to be seen as a whole—but when you get up close, you can see all the tiny details that create the finished result.

From a distance, everything melts together: soft, dimensional, blended. Zoom in, and suddenly you can see the individual ribbons of brightness, the natural depth left between them, and the placement that makes the color look the way it does from afar.

Same hair. Same lighting. Same moment. Two completely different perspectives.

Sometimes you have to zoom in to appreciate what makes the zoomed-out picture so pretty.

Vale Salon | Rochester, NY 📍

Meet Ruby, the 17-year-old employee who contributes absolutely nothing financially to Vale Salon. 🖤

Ruby was born March 15, 2009, and somehow at 17 years old, she still doesn’t act her age.

I found her at a pet store in Waukesha, Wisconsin, crammed into a bird cage with four other little black kittens. Out of all of them, she was the most rambunctious—and naturally, I knew immediately that she was the one coming home with me.

She’s been by my side ever since.

Ruby has quite literally been with me for almost my entire career as a hairstylist. She’s been there through different salons, different chapters of my life, moves, businesses, and eventually watched me build a salon inside our home.

Now she has officially appointed herself Vale Salon’s mascot. Her primary responsibilities include supervising the shampoo area, making herself comfortable wherever she pleases, and taking absolutely any opportunity she gets to crawl into a client’s lap for cuddles.

Seventeen years later, she’s still my rambunctious little black kitten. She’s just an elderly one now. 🥹🖤

HAIR COLOR THEORY 🎨

Hair color theory is understanding how colors interact with one another—what happens when they’re combined, which tones enhance each other, and most importantly, which colors neutralize unwanted tones.

That little color wheel we learned in cosmetology school? Yeah. We actually use it. 😂

Colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel neutralize one another:

* Green cancels red
* Blue cancels orange
* Violet cancels yellow

And sometimes, the unwanted warmth in someone’s hair isn’t just one color.

In this case, my client’s starting color had a significant amount of red warmth with underlying red-orange tones. Simply putting a neutral or cool brown over it wouldn’t necessarily make that warmth disappear—and depending on the formula, that red could still shine right through.

So I formulated with green + blue + ash tones to counteract the warmth that was already present in her hair and create the rich, cool brunette you see on the right.

This is why professional color formulation is so much more than choosing a pretty swatch and putting it on someone’s head. You have to formulate for where the hair IS before you can get it where you want it to GO.

Hair color is chemistry, color theory, and a little bit of ✨ witchcraft ✨ all happening in the same bowl.

Vale Salon | Rochester, NY 📍

just a hairstylist and a few of her essentials.

Vale Salon | Rochester, NY 📍

I spent 3 hours JUST FOILING this head of hair. 😮‍💨

Why? Because Jasmine wants to be blonde-blonde — and getting this much brightness while still maintaining dimension, softness and the integrity of her hair takes time.

Since Jasmine first sat in my chair back in January, she has done exceptionally well taking care of her hair between appointments. Because of that, creating this level of blonde for her wasn’t out of the question.

Healthy hair gives me options. ✨

This wasn’t about cramming in as many foils as humanly possible just to make her lighter. Every foil was placed intentionally to give her maximum brightness, a bold money piece and enough natural depth between the highlights to keep the finished color dimensional instead of looking like one solid sheet of blonde.

Three hours of foiling. One very blonde Jasmine. Worth it.

Vale Salon | Rochester, NY 📍

A bag full of essentials and a chair waiting for you 🤍

Vale Salon | Rochester, NY📍

Micah | blonde education Framar L'ANZA UNITE Hair Kenra Professional Prada Minerva Beauty

Audrina is ready for back to school! ✏️📚

For her appointment, I added a bright money piece + gave her a much-needed haircut, and LOOK at that smile. 🥹

I give my younger clients the same attention to detail that I give my adult clients. My philosophy doesn’t change simply because they’re little — they deserve to feel special, cared for and confident when they leave my chair, too.

I think there’s something valuable about teaching children healthy self-care from a young age. Not that they need their hair done to be beautiful, but that taking care of yourself, your hair and your appearance can be something you enjoy and feel good about. Those little habits can help create a healthy, realistic relationship with self-care as they grow up. 🤍

Vale Salon | Rochester, NY 📍

Today’s menu : blondes + caffeine

10 years of being Sydney’s hairstylist 🥹

A whole decade of hair appointments, different colors, different lengths, different eras of life — and somehow she still keeps coming back and letting me do whatever I want to her hair. 😂

There’s something really special about realizing I’ve been behind the chair for so many chapters of someone’s life. Clients like Sydney are the reason this career has always been so much more than just hair to me.

And after 10 years… I’d say we’ve gotten pretty damn good at knowing exactly what looks good on her. 🤌🏼

Happy 10 years to us, Syd. 🤍

Vale Salon | Rochester, NY 📍