__On the market for six months now, [Four Reasons Optima](https://fourreasons.fi/en/for-professionals/technical-products/optima-color) hair color has been fantastically well received. Optima is now used in more than a thousand hair salons in Finland! We have received a huge amount of positive feedback on Optima’s reliability, rich tones and coverage – and especially on how it has given hairdressers new passion for their work. We want to send our humble thanks to all Optima users for their feedback and courage in adopting this new color series.__
Ease of use is the quality that was praised the most, we’re happy to say, as it was one of our most important goals in our product development for Optima. Users have found gray coverage with Optima’s *Cover* tones logical and dependable: achieving rich browns is easy using the Optima *Reflection* tones, whereas the *Intense* and *Mixer* tones are a wonderful complement for mixed colors. We looked through the comments on the Optima color series in our Facebook group and decided to address some of the excellent questions that were raised there.
## Solutions for gray coverage
Gray coverage is one of the most important features of hair color, especially with a new color series. Four Reasons Optima has no traditional N series; instead, gray coverage colors are called Cover tones. The greatest difference to traditional color series is the fact that as well as gray coverage, Cover tones have a tone already mixed in with three different browns: cool, neutral and warm. In other words, there’s no need to mix in a separate tone to achieve a brown coverage. Of course, there are countless brown tones to choose from, and if the brown of the Cover tone doesn’t match the brown of the length and ends, you can easily mix in Optima’s Reflection or Intense tones.
The challenges and problems of gray coverage usually relate to one of these two: either the end result shows some individual gray hairs or the hair is lighter at the root growth. If there are some individual gray hairs showing through in the end result, you can enable better coverage by lengthening the processing time and making sure you have applied enough color throughout the hair. If the root growth is lighter after coloring, we recommend using a color that’s a degree darker, for example.
### Tip:
*The Cover tones of Four Reasons Optima are not only intended for gray coverage but will also help you achieve beautifully soft, subtle browns in non-gray hair. For example, the Optima NNB series includes very similar tones to the .7 series, which has been on the wishlist for some.*
### Recipies for beautiful blonde summer hair
Our Facebook group for professionals, known today as Four Reasons Professional, is a great place to browse beautiful coloring results and recipies for summery blonde tones. The Optima Mixer tones are an easy way to achieve trendy broken colors and very intensive end results.
When the intended end result is blonde with an 8–10 shade of dark and you want a pastel rosé, rose gold or similar tone, the quantity of mixers in the mixture is 3–10% of the amount of color, e.g. 30g 10P + 1.5g Copper Gold Mixer (5%). For darker mixes add more mixers. For example, you can put as much as half of the red mixer in the 6R tone, which results in a stunningly bright red. Don’t forget that all these end results are affected by the starting point of the hair being colored.
There are some end results you won’t be able to achieve using Optima, which is why we recommend using __Luxima__ for creating multidimensional colors. The main rule is: use Optima when you want to even out the base, and use Luxima when you want to maintain the differences in tone in the base. Summer is the time for blonde hair – Optima and Luxima are unbeatable tools for creating beautiful blond locks. Don’t forget to recommend the correct care products to your customer for maintaining the beautiful end tone.
## Our replies to your wishes for the future
We want to keep the Four Reasons Optima range of colors suitably compact, while at the same time making sure that its selection of tones is up-to-date. We asked Optima users about the new tones they’d like to have and received a gratifyingly large number of replies.
Optima will have new tones in the fall based on your wishes, and they will be designed to allow as many people as possible to make even greater use of Optima’s excellent qualities! KC Color Luxima will also be transferred under the Four Reasons brand and will bring some new tones along with it. The Luxima color series will nevertheless remain the same, with updated packaging phased in gradually as the old packaging runs out, making sure to take our environmental concerns into account. To support Luxima users, we will also prepare some video training, as you have requested.
