Boosts

Semi-permanent means what it says, and that is the point of it. Your brows fade slowly instead of being stuck on your face for good — so when fashions move, or your hair colour changes, or you simply fancy them a bit softer, you can change them.

A boost puts the colour back into work that is already there. Because the shape is settled and your skin has been through it before, it is quicker, more comfortable and a good deal cheaper than starting again.

Come back sooner, pay less

This surprises people, because it works the opposite way round to most things: the longer you leave it, the more it costs.

Inside eighteen months it is £150, because there is still plenty to work with. Between eighteen and thirty months it is £195. Past about three years there is usually too little left to boost at all, and it is priced as a fresh treatment.

A boost is also the natural moment to change something — go a shade warmer, soften the tail, adjust for hair you have gone lighter or darker with. Say so when you book and Alison will build it in.

Work somebody else did

You are very welcome, with one condition: send a photograph first.

Old pigment carries colour that has to be worked with rather than covered. Grey, blue and orange undertones are common in older work and they do not just disappear under something new. Sometimes the honest answer is a correction rather than a boost, and occasionally it is that the kindest thing is to let it fade further first.

Alison would far rather tell you that from a photograph than after you have driven over and paid a deposit.