About Talei

I have always loved colour, not simply how it looks, but what it changes. The way the right tone can make the skin glow.

Working as an editorial stylist in New Zealand taught me to look beyond individual trends and consider the entire image: silhouette, proportion, texture, colour and the person wearing it.

Throughout my career behind the chair, I have been drawn to the technical challenge. Complex colour work, major transformations and corrections that require patience, precision and a clear plan. But I kept returning to the same question: not simply whether I could create a colour, but whether it was truly the right colour for the person wearing it.

It was a question I had struggled to answer for myself.

Why did certain colours bring my features into focus while others overwhelmed me?

Why could a haircut look beautiful in a photograph, yet never sit quite right once I wore it?

I began to understand that the problem was rarely the colour or the cut itself. It was the starting point.

We were often designing from an image rather than from the individual, their colouring, facial structure, proportions, contrast and natural features.

That question led me to study colour analysis, training in both Western 12-season colour analysis and Korean colour analysis methodology, to understand not just what suits the hair, but how skin tone, contrast and undertone inform makeup and clothing too, so every part of how someone presents works together, not in isolation.

That study is what led me to create the TONE Hair Blueprint™, a design-led approach bringing together colour analysis, facial structure, proportion and technical hairdressing before the transformation begins.

Today, my work brings together the instinct of an editorial stylist, the eye of a colourist and the precision of technical hairdressing.

Every recommendation has a reason behind it.

This matters particularly with colour corrections and significant transformations, where the commitment of time, money and the condition of the hair deserves more than guesswork.

The aim is not to tell someone what they can or cannot wear. It is to give them clarity, so they understand what works, why it works, and how to make informed choices, with far greater certainty before the transformation begins.