Mirepoix or model, this girl's good. Part I

Wow, what a week! I have been working hard the past few weeks coming up with ideas for my portfolio photo shoot, and all that work recently paid off! I spent two days doing hair in Murfreesboro and a good 4 or 5 hours on set, and I couldn't have asked for better results. I pushed my own limits and really learned a lot. I'm really still processing some of it, what a whirlwind! I am lucky, because I have beautiful and talented friends that make this all worthwhile, and together, we all make an amazing team! I'd like to focus on each model specifically, because the amount of change all three of them went through is worth it, and I learned so much from each one.

Today, I'd like to focus on Lauren. Shes' a beautiful girl and an amazing cook. Here's a link to her blog, Mirepoix.  She's been a friend of mine for a long time, she has GREAT hair,  and she is adventurous enough to let me do generally whatever I want to her hair, which makes her invaluable. Here's a great picture of her before I got hold of her mane. She'd already made a great color choice for her complexion. I love the medium auburn on her. So for her "makeover" I really wanted to brighten that and add some dimension. I had put some blonde in her hair before. Blonde highlights, no matter how bright, against any warm red just look astonishing, so I really wanted to play with dimension, brighten up her red,  and pull some thick blonde all throughout.
After studying Wella's color line, here's the red formula I went with:

6R + 7R + 042 / 20v

 This, I was not happy with. The red was not vibrant enough and the roots were hot. I have come to realize that I just don't like Wella's reds after this adventure, and that's okay. It's hard... SO HARD... to find a good red line out there. I'm sure my hands will fall off after putting this out into the blogosphere, but I (apologetically) don't even love Paul Mitchel the Color's reds. Other things I discovered; I added the gold in order to make the red pop, but I think the 042, which is wella's pure gold pigment, desaturated the red too much.