Yippee! My first day in my first salon. I had met with a couple of reps and organised for my new colour range, perm solution and retail lines to arrive the next day. After this, I made a coffee and really enjoyed my new "home" for however long it would be....

then out of the blue, the phone rang and it was a regular client to the salon wanting to book in that night for a colour. I should mention, the salon was very run down, businesswise, so fitting the client in at the last minute wasn't an issue. Making sure her tint was available was more of a problem.

I checked her card and saw that the colour was in stock so I agreed to do her hair that evening. After hanging up the phone, I read her notes which said that due to several blood tranfusions, her natural pigment had come out of her hair prematurally, thus she had a number 10 base and 20 vol applied making her hair look naturally blonde.

By the time the client arrived at 5-30pm, I'd had 3 light bulbs pop and made a total of $20.00 for the day! I sat the client down and caped her up and then I went to get her colour and mix it. ( This I had to do in front of her as my light in the back room was one of the ones that blew).

After mixing the colour, I applied it using a basic retouch application, starting through the centre. When I got to the top section, DISASTER - her hair was cobalt blue!!! Panic started to come over me. Had I grabbed the wrong tube? No. How on earth was I going to fix this with a limited supply of colours? Goodness knows!

I remembered seeing a box of colour remover in the back room so I went looking and found it. Incredibly the client was very calm, it was me who was losing the plot. I went into the toilet (because the light worked in there), to read the instructions.

I had never had to use a colour remover before. All worked out well in the end and I was able to remove the blue from her hair. The client returned the next evening once my colour order had arrived and had the colour she was supposed to leave with the night before.

In case you're wondering, Yes I did phone the company involved and they said that they had done a product recall 2 years prior as they had mislabled the tubes. It was a blue mixton and not an extra light blonde inside the tube.

Believe me, the next salon I bought I threw out all the colours!