The 900 and 12 Series: Life Color Plus High-Lift Blondes Explained

Twenty variants sit above the normal depth scale — six in the 900 series and fourteen in the 12 series. They lift and deposit in one step, they use a mixing ratio nothing else in the range uses, and they are the most misapplied shades Life Color Plus makes.

What a superlightener actually is

Every other shade in this range deposits tone, and lifts a little as a side effect. A superlightener inverts that: its main job is to remove the client's natural pigment, and it places tone on the way past.

That is genuinely useful, because it collapses two appointments into one step. Where a bleach gives you a raw lift that then needs toning, a superlightener aims to land you on a finished blonde in a single application. The catch is that it only works inside a narrow set of conditions.

The two families

The 12 series is the more legible of the two, because the reflects follow the conventions you already know from the shade chart:

• 12.0 — neutral high lift, no tone direction
• 12.1 / 12.11 / 12.12 — ash, intensified ash, ash-violet. The anti-yellow options, and the ones you will use most
• 12.21 — violet-ash
• 12.43 — copper-gold, for a warm high-lift
• 12.61 — red-ash
• 12.81 / 12.89 — mocha-based, the coolest and most neutral end

Notice how heavily the family leans cool. That is deliberate: lifting four or five levels exposes a great deal of yellow, so most of these shades carry pigment specifically to counter it. Why that yellow appears is covered in underlying pigment.

What they will and will not do

The manufacturer's developer guidance pairs the Superlightener series with 30 or 40 volume for four to five tones of lift, over a 40–45 minute development. Those are the numbers to plan around.

They also work best from a base that is already fairly light. Asking a superlightener to take a level 4 to a clean level 10 is asking it to do a bleach's job, and the result will be orange. If the starting point is dark, that is a lightening service, not a high-lift colour.

When to use one instead of lifting and toning

The honest decision comes down to three questions:

1. Is the hair virgin, or close to it? If yes, a superlightener is in play. If the lengths carry years of colour, it is not.
2. Is the base level 6 or above? The lighter the start, the better these behave.
3. Is the target within four or five levels? Beyond that you are asking too much of one step.

Three yeses and a superlightener is the cleaner, faster, less damaging route — one application instead of a lift plus a tone. Any no, and you are better off planning it properly. Going lighter without bleach works through that decision in detail.

Three habits worth having

• Measure properly. A 1:2 ratio is unforgiving of eyeballing, and it is a different measure from everything else you mix that day. Getting it wrong is the most common cause of a flat result.
• Watch the roots. Scalp heat means the regrowth lifts faster than the lengths. On a high-lift application that gap opens quickly, and the three-zone problem is set out in refreshing mid-lengths and ends.
• Strand test, every time, on every new client. There is no undo on a lift, and the variable that decides the outcome — how much pigment this specific head gives up — cannot be read off a tube.

What to promise

A direction and a range, never a number. "This should take you three or four levels lighter today and land somewhere around here" is a promise you can keep. "This will get you to your photo" usually is not, and the consultation that avoids that trap is in reading the hair, not the photo.

The shade range in depth — part 4 of 5.
Previously: ← The warm side of the chart
Next: Correctors and toners →

Mixing ratio, developer pairing and timings are the manufacturer's own published figures. Shade availability and prices as at the time of writing. Professional product for salon use only — always strand test.