Hair Color Advice
From Adviceopedia
Hair Color Advice
Begin with a Semi-Permanent Color
Semi-permanent color is only for darkening your hair and it washes out in four to six weeks. It is the gentlest type of hair color and a great way to try out new colors or if your hair is less than 30 percent gray and you want to cover it up. If you like the color change, you can always use a permanent color the next time.
Only Use Permanent Color if You Must
Permanent color can lighten as well as darken your hair but it can also cause damage so use it only if you need to. Permanent color is the best choice to effectively color your hair if it is more than 30 percent gray.
Think of Your Hair When You Were a Child
Picking the color you had as a child is excellent hair color advice. You are certain to complement your natural skin tones and look fantastic.
Determine Your Skin Tone
Look at the veins on your wrist. Greenish veins mean a warm skin tone; bluish veins mean a cool skin tone.
Determine Skin Tone with Eye Color
Warm tones usually have eyes that are golden brown, green-blue, turquoise, or hazel with gold or brown flecks.
Cool tones have eyes that are deep brown, black-brown, gray-blue, dark blue or hazel with blue or gray flecks.
Determine Skin Tone by Skin Color
Warm skin tones are usually brown with pink undertones, brown with gold undertones, pale with peach or gold undertones, freckled or ruddy. Warm tones are a golden brown when tanned.
Cool skin tones are usually very dark brown, olive, medium or pale with no cheek color. Cool tones are brown or bronze with a tan.
Determine Your True Hair Color
Look at the hair closest to your scalp and decide if your hair is a black, brown or blonde. This is your true hair color.
Determine Your Hair Shade
After you find your color, decide if it is a light, medium or dark shade. For example, light brown, medium brown or dark brown. Look at pictures of yourself or ask others, how you look outside the mirror is often a truer reflection of your coloring.
Determine Your Hair Tone
Warm hair tones are deep brown with gold highlights, golden brown, red, strawberry blonde, golden blonde or gray with a yellow cast.
Cool hair tones are blue black, deep coffee brown, medium golden brown, dishwater blonde, salt and pepper and white.
Choose Your New Color
Choose a color that will complement your skin and eye color, and tone. Your stylist can help by giving you professional hair color advice in the selection of the color that will look best on you.
Start Slowly
Pick a color that is up to two shades lighter or darker than your actual hair color. For example, light brown can go up to dark brown or down to medium blonde. If you want to go darker or lighter, you can make the change gradually by going to the next shade the next time that you color you hair.
Match Your Correct Tone
If you have a warm skin tone pick a warm hair color tone. If you have a cool skin tone, pick a cool hair color tone.
Hair Color Advice to Go Blonde
Going more than two shades lighter to get the blonde that you want should be done by a professional. A professional can always give you the best hair color advice. If your hair is very dark it may take several steps to adequately lighten your hair.
To Darken With a Natural Look
Pick a color that is one level darker than your hair in the same color tone family for a subtle change. You can choose a different tone family if you want a more dramatic change.
To Add Warm Tones
Pick colors that have “”golden”, “auburn”, “red”, “bronze”, “mahogany”, “copper” or “burgundy” in the name. Warm tones will brighten your hair.
To Add Cool Tones
Pick colors with the words “ash”, “beige”, “campaign” or “iridescent” in the name. These tones will minimize brassiness.
To Add Dimension With Brighter Tones
Brighten your hair with highlights in a lighter color than your base color to look like you’ve just been at the beach.
To Add Dimension With Deeper Tones
Accent your hair with lowlights in a darker color. This will give your hair a more natural color. Lowlight your hair every other time you color with highlights to give a more blended, natural look.
To Cover a Little Gray
If you want to add dimension to your hair and cover a few grays, add highlights or lowlights to individual strands being sure to cover the gray strands as you color.
Keep Color Looking Fresh
All over color needs a touch up usually every four to eight weeks. Highlights only need to be touched up every two or three months. This will depend on how obvious your new growth is and how you feel about the way it looks.
Avoid Mistakes
Always be sure to do a color test before you apply color to your hair. Allow your sample to dry completely so that you can be sure it is the color that you are trying to achieve. Save extra hair from your last cut just for this purpose.
Get Professional Advice
If you make a mistake, there is usually a phone number on the box of color that will direct you to an expert. An expert will not only give you hair color advice for choosing a color, but will usually be able to give you lots of hair coloring tips on the coloring process as well.
