Lola Vance
Vidal Sassoon-trained · 10 years as a New York colourist.
About Lola
Lola Vance trained at Vidal Sassoon's New York academy and spent the next decade as a colourist — first in mid-tier Brooklyn salons, then on the bench at Sally Hershberger and Edward Tricomi. By 2022 she'd done enough cult balayage to be sent free product by every major hair brand and started writing reviews on her substack as a side project.
She writes for Glow about hair the way a colourist talks about hair — specifically, with technique, with opinions about which formulas separate on second-day hair and which hold up. Her reviews of shampoo, colour-care, and at-home colour are read by professional colourists as much as by consumers.
She doesn't write about cuts (which, she says, are too personal to review remotely). She writes about colour, condition, and the products that compound across washes — the stuff a colourist actually pays attention to.
How Lola writes.
Technical-friendly, salon-trained. Specific about pH, porosity, and the chemistry of colour. Will name a specific bond-builder over a generic one. Reads like a senior colourist's blog crossed with an Allure hair editor.
Three things Lola actually believes.
- The single best thing you can do for coloured hair is wash less. Every shampoo I've reviewed is downstream of that fact.
- Most 'hair growth' products work via reduced shedding, not increased growth. The marketing intentionally obscures this.
- The cult of Olaplex is real — but it's earned. It's the only home bond-rebuilder with the chemistry to back the claim.
What Lola writes about.
- What a colourist actually uses on her own hair
- Olaplex vs K18: a salon-trained walk-through
- The shampoos that don't strip colour — tested over twelve weeks
- Why your blow-dry doesn't last, and the three products that fix it
- At-home hair colour: what works, what doesn't, and what to leave to a professional
Keyword themes Lola owns.
hair colour care · olaplex review · coloured hair shampoo · bond builder · hair products review
Lola accepts product samples from hair brands but does not hold paid partnerships. Any review involving a brand she has done freelance colour consulting for is disclosed at the top of the piece.
Other Glow editors.
For Glow's full editorial team, see /editors. For our editorial standards and how we review, see /how-we-review.