[ Airtouch ]
Airtouch or total blonde: which to choose
Which should I choose, Airtouch or total blonde, and which is less damaging?
If you're choosing between Airtouch and total blonde based on the strain on your hair, Airtouch is usually gentler: some of your hair stays natural, and it needs fewer repeat lightenings. Total blonde gives the lightest result but means frequent root touch-ups. The good news is that it isn't a choice for life: from Airtouch you can move gradually into total blonde if you want to.
What total blonde is and how often it needs refreshing
Total blonde means lightening from the root across the whole head. The colour is even and light, but regrowth shows quickly because there's a clear line between it and the blonde. To keep it looking neat, the roots usually need redoing roughly every 4–6 weeks, although a lot depends on how dark your natural base is and how fast your hair grows.
Every touch-up means lightening the root area again. The colourist has to apply lightener only to the new growth without overlapping onto hair that's already light, otherwise the line between old and new lightening gradually becomes a weak point.
How Airtouch lives day to day
With Airtouch, some of your hair stays your natural colour. I use a stream of air to separate the shorter hairs and lighten only the longer ones, which gives a soft gradient from your roots to light ends. There's no regrowth line, so a correction is needed roughly every 4 months if up to half of your hair is blonde. You can also skip corrections: the hair grows out softly.
There's a middle option too: Airtouch with a lot of blonde. It's almost total blonde with your own dark roots. It looks very light, but the line is more defined, so corrections are needed more often than with classic Airtouch.
Total blonde tends to suit people who love an even, light colour and are happy to come in regularly for upkeep. Airtouch is more often chosen by those who want light hair but value freedom: you can go away for a few months, skip a correction, and your hair will still look cared for.
Length matters too. With total blonde, every centimetre of hair was lightened from the root at some point, and the ends carry that lightening for years. With Airtouch, part of the length stays natural, so long hair is usually easier to keep.
Which is harder on your hair
The strain on your hair comes down to two things: what proportion of it is lightened, and how often that lightening is repeated.
With total blonde all the hair is lightened, and the roots go through lightening every few weeks. With Airtouch only some strands are lightened, and corrections are less frequent. So in terms of cumulative strain, Airtouch is usually lighter.
But any lightening changes the hair to some extent, and no technique cancels that out completely. The risk can be reduced: chelation before the work, controlled timing and strength, reconstruction afterwards, and the right care at home. I write about how reconstruction helps lightened hair in the article on hair reconstruction. I wear long blonde hair myself and test everything on myself, so I know how lightened hair behaves after months of wear, not just on the day it's coloured.
Moving from Airtouch into total blonde
I deliberately choose techniques that can be changed: ones you can safely move from into total blonde, correct in a controlled way, and still grow your length with. That's why I don't do classic highlights or micro-highlights. Highlights are hard to correct safely without losing hair, and fine weave micro-highlights are practically impossible to pick out when you want to switch to another technique.
With Airtouch the transition usually looks like this: at each correction the density of the light strands is increased slightly and the light is brought closer to the root. The hair has time to recover between visits, and you can see how comfortable you are with a lighter look. At some point you either settle on Airtouch with a lot of blonde or reach almost all-over light. I explain how each of these corrections works in the article on Airtouch correction. With good-quality products it's achievable.
What upkeep costs over a year
I can't work out a specific figure without seeing your hair, but the logic is easy to weigh up in advance.
Total blonde means frequent visits: root touch-ups every few weeks plus toning. Over a year, that adds up to a lot of appointments.
Classic Airtouch means a correction roughly every 4 months or even less often, with toning and reconstruction in between if you like. Noticeably fewer visits per year.
Airtouch with a lot of blonde sits in the middle: corrections are more frequent than with the classic version, but the line is still softer than with total blonde.
Choosing your option with me
My Airtouch service includes chelation, the technique or a correction, reconstruction and toning, from 3,200 UAH for all zones. Toning with reconstruction between corrections costs from 700 UAH.
Message me on Telegram: https://t.me/le2chris. Send a photo of your hair in daylight and tell me how light you'd like to go and how often you're happy to come in for upkeep. Together we'll decide where to start and whether it's worth working towards total blonde gradually.