New Guests

Where your individuality is the starting point.

Because your hair should look like you, not like everyone else’s.

If you’ve been looking for a colorist who will take the time to truly understand your hair — not just follow a formula — I think you’ll find what you’re looking for here. My studio is built around one idea: that your hair is individual, and your color should be too. I don’t work from templates or trends. I work from you — your natural tones, your grays, your lifestyle, and the result you’ve been hoping to find. Every guest leaves with color that feels entirely their own, and hair that still looks polished six weeks later.

My Approach

Every new guest appointment begins with a real conversation before anything else. I want to understand your hair history, how you spend your time, what “low maintenance” actually means for your life, and what you’ve loved or wished were different about your color in the past. From there, I build a personalized plan around soft dimension, gray camouflage, and blended color that grows out beautifully — not a look pulled from a trend board, but one designed specifically for your hair and your life. This is not a high-volume studio. Appointments are one-on-one, unhurried, and focused entirely on you.

Who This Is For

My services are a great fit if you:

  • Want to enhance your natural color — not step away from it

  • Are looking for dimensional highlights, lowlights, or seamless gray blending

  • Want gray camouflage or coverage that feels natural and grows out beautifully

  • Value a calm, private, one-on-one appointment over a busy salon environment

  • Are looking for a long-term relationship with a colorist who knows your hair

  • Are comfortable investing in personalized, ongoing color care

Who This Is Not For

To make sure every guest gets exactly what they’re looking for, my services are not the right fit if you:

  • Are looking to stop coloring your hair and grow out to fully natural gray or silver

  • Want a gray transition or corrective grow-out service

  • Are seeking vivid, fashion-forward, or dramatically transformed color

  • Are looking for a standalone haircut appointment without color

My focus is on enhancement — helping you look and feel like the most polished version of yourself, without changing who you are.

Gray Blending — What It Really Means Here

Gray blending is one of my most requested services — and also one of the most misunderstood. So I want to be clear about what it is and what it isn’t.

Gray blending is a dimensional color technique that uses highlights, lowlights, and toning to soften and camouflage grays — weaving them into your overall color so they become part of the look rather than a contrast to it. The result is natural, lived-in hair with beautiful movement that grows out gracefully between appointments.
What gray blending is not: it is not a transition to gray. It does not move you toward silver or fully natural hair. It is a way of continuing to color your hair beautifully while allowing your grays to blend in rather than stand out. It is best suited for guests with early to moderate gray who want a polished, low-maintenance result — and who want to keep coloring their hair.

  • A hairstylist using a blow dryer to style a woman's hair in a salon, with shelves of hair products and plants in the background.

    Review New Guest Sessions

    I want to make your first visit with me as effortless as possible. That is why I have created New Guest Sessions to take the guess work out of your investment with me.

  • Hairstylist drying a woman's hair in a salon while another woman sits in the background getting her hair styled.

    Submit your New Guest Apointment Request form

    After I receive your New Guest Form, I will reach out to you within 4-8 hours (Monday through Friday) by email. I will review which services I think best fit you and your goals. I will provide dates and times available. These dates are only held for 24 hours.

  • Hair salon or spa with styling chair, hair wash station, shelves with hair products, and salon decor.

    Arrive at Kathleen Collingwood Studio

    Arrive to your appointment confident that you will experience a relaxing, one on one appointment, tailored to your hair goals. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, or check out my FAQs page.

New Guest FAQs

  • This is one of the most important questions to answer honestly: no, I don’t. My focus is on color that enhances — dimensional color, gray blending, and coverage that works beautifully with your natural hair. Full gray transformations and multi-step grow-out corrections require a different kind of specialization, and I want every guest to be in the right hands for what they need.

  • Gray blending is a soft, dimensional technique that uses carefully placed highlights and lowlights to gently diffuse and camouflage grays — so they become part of the overall color story rather than a contrast to it. The goal is a natural, lived-in result that grows out gracefully and reduces the frequency of your appointments. Gray blending is not a transition to gray — it’s a way of working beautifully with the grays you have while maintaining the warmth and dimension of colored hair.

  • Gray blending is best suited for guests with up to 50% gray who want a natural, low-maintenance result that softens and blends their grays rather than covering them completely. It’s a particularly good fit if you love the idea of your grays becoming a seamless part of your color rather than something to fight against — but you’re not ready or interested in transitioning to fully natural gray.

  • No — and this is an important distinction. Gray blending works with your existing color to soften and integrate your grays, creating a natural, dimensional result. It does not transition you to an all-gray or silver finish. If anything, it’s the opposite — it’s a way of keeping the warmth and richness of colored hair while allowing your grays to blend in gracefully rather than stand out.

  • If your goal is to grow out or transition to fully natural gray — especially if you’ve been coloring darker for some time — that process involves corrective work that I don’t specialize in. It’s a significant undertaking that deserves the right expertise, and I wouldn’t want to take you through a process that isn’t my strength.

    What I can offer guests with higher gray percentages is gray coverage or gray blending that enhances and works with your natural hair as it is now — if that feels like a better direction, I’d love to talk through your options.