This Bold Winning Hair Look Was Created By Chiho Kihara With Hoyu Professional's PROMASTER Colour Range

Coloured hair is the way to go these days — and the bolder the better too, whether that’s a full head of ash blues, purples, and pinks, or even platinum blonde. Never mind what’s socially acceptable, let’s talk about expression, what makes you, you. So of course we love it when hair colourists get to flex their creativity, to create bold looks that are all about maximum personality, something like this:

You’re looking at the winner of the Hoyu Professional 2021 Hair Color Competition – for Overseas Design Award (Singapore), held by Hoyu Professional in Japan — in particular, a look created by Chiho Kihara from local salon The Fluxus House.

Her vision sees bold streaks of red and blue, a mix of warm and cool tones, for a look that’s lighter at the front and top of the model’s head, and darker towards the bottom. “I wanted to express flaming fire, likened to the brightness of the sun,” said Kihara. Bearing in mind the competition theme ‘Connect’, which seeks hair colour that expresses interactions with each other or the future, her interpretation showcases an optimistic sentiment of moving forward towards a brighter future.

Those vibrant colours draw attention to and lift the face, while the model’s hair was also prepped to accentuate those tones; her long hair was trimmed to varying lengths that help emphasise the colouring, resulting in a light, airy feel.

As for the Hoyu Professional Hair Color Competition, it’s one of the more celebrated ones in the industry. As a brand, Hoyu is famous in their home country Japan, and in fact, holds the No. 1 spot in the D-I-Y hair dye market for their consumer range — still, this competition goes beyond that, and aims to honour hair colourists and hairstylists at their best.

First started in 2016, all submissions are judged by 13 industry professionals from Japan. New submissions are welcome every year, usually during the second half of the year.

Ahead, we speak to Chiho Kihara on her winning look, as well as her experience with Hoyu Professional’s PROMASTER colour range.

INTERVIEW WITH CHIHO KIHARA

On her industry experience

“I have a total of 16 years’ experience in the hairdressing industry — 8 years in Japan and 8 years in Singapore. My forte is in changing my customers’ hair style because I want them to enjoy the new style. I specialise in creating short hairstyles, and I often propose design colouring to my customers since the performance of bleaching products have improved these days. My daily goal is to encourage them to change their style as much as possible for them to feel new and refreshed.”

On the inspiration behind her winning look

“For this competition, I wanted to test my skills and I also wanted my local staff members to enjoy the experience and to challenge themselves. The theme of Hoyu’s Color Collection 2021 was ‘Connect’. When I heard that, I had an inspiration of using a model that is representative of the locals in Singapore. After two and a half years of COVID-19, I decided to create a design using strong and vivid colours to express a brighter future.”

On the PROMASTER colour range

“I’m loving Hoyu Professional’s PROMASTER because of its rich colour line-up. The colour pigments do not remain in the hair shaft for the next hair colouring. As a hairstylist, this is very important and it makes a big difference whether there’s any colour residue in the hair from the previous colouring. In this regard, the hair colour products from Hoyu Professional are my go-tos.”

and who she’d recommend it to

“I would recommend PROMASTER to local hairstylists in Singapore who want to change their customers’ hair colour frequently and are confident in proposing different styles. It is also highly recommended for its ease of use.

In Japan, it is common to use different colours for the re-growth and coloured hair, but it is not a common practice for some local hairstylists. But with PROMASTER, it can be done easily, and I believe this is very helpful for local hairstylists as their customers will also like the results.”

Check out the video interview featuring competition winner Chiho Kihara here:

THE PROMASTER HAIR COLOUR RANGE

You heard it, the Manager of the Fluxus House House, Chiho Kihara calls Hoyu Professional’s hair colour products her “go-tos”, while she’d also recommend it to hair stylists — and people like you or I — who desire out-of-the-ordinary, richer and bolder styles.

After all, the PROMASTER range aims to give bright, vibrant and intense colour. But what makes it so effective in creating these looks without further damaging hair?

The answer: extensive research and development, with advanced technology from Japan that goes into maintaining smooth and shiny tresses. For one, new ingredient Lysine, a type of essential amino acid, gives a much improved anti-frizz effect to combat the loss of moisture during the colouring process. This smoothening effect is further enhanced by lanolin and beeswax; the former supplies lipids to the hair for hydration and softness, while beeswax is able to coat the surface of the cuticle, adding gloss and moisture to the hair.

Hoyu says that they’re able to achieve a “glass veiling effect”, thanks to the above ingredients, along with protective Taurine and L-Theanine. What all these do is give hair much-needed moisture and ensuring longer-lasting hair colour, while the added shine makes whatever hair colour we choose look new and extra refreshing.