Showerthought: I was mixing my developer wrong for a whole year

Was doing a color correction in my home studio last month, trying to lift a level 4 to a 7. The formula just wasn't taking. My mentor, Lisa, stopped by and saw me just dumping the developer in. She said 'You're not stirring for a full 30 seconds, are you?' I wasn't. Started timing it, and the next application was perfect. Anyone else have a simple step they were totally missing?

3 comments

3 Comments

oliviac221mo ago

That's a classic one. Honestly, the timer on my phone is my most used tool now. It's easy to guess and be way off. I even time the rinse water temp now, not just the processing steps. Makes a huge difference in consistency.

jenkins.alice19d ago

Oh man, I gotta say I see it a bit different. Timers and exact temps are great and all, but I think we can overcomplicate things sometimes. The rinse water temp thing, sure, it probably helps a little, but I've had plenty of perfectly fine results just eyeballing it (call me lazy, I guess). For me, the boring steps matter, but not every single one needs to be measured down to the second. I feel like stressing about every tiny detail takes the fun out of it and makes it feel like work. If my coffee tastes good and I'm not burning my tongue, I'm happy.

riley_ramirez811mo ago

You mentioning the rinse water temp is key. It shows how we often miss the small, boring steps that actually matter most. Why do we always want to skip to the fun part?