Whether you have your hair stylist/colorist color your hair
or whether you buy hair color in the drug store and color
your hair yourself, your aim is to have your
new hair color make you look good. If you already go through
the effort and expense of coloring your hair, wouldn't it
be wonderful if the result were spectacular? A hair color
can make a big difference in your appearance - good or bad.
Get the right shade and tone and you can look fantastic. The
trick is to know what color makes you look fabulous and which
one doesn't. Most people don't know what shade and tone makes
them look great. They are unaware that there are guidelines
that they can follow assuring them of making the right choice.
Without this knowledge all they can do is guess and hope that
their new hair color will be right for them.
Do you know what color, shade and tone
suits you? Do you look good in blonde, black,
brown or red hair? Are you unhappy with your hair color right
now and thinking of changing it? Are you a brunette and thinking
that if you could you would be a blonde. Maybe you are blonde
and really want to be a red head. However deep down you are
not quite sure if these changes will be right for you. You
might be wondering how you will know what hair color is right
for you. Years ago and even today, many hair stylists/colorists
would suggest that you add some red to your hair in order
to make it more interesting and improve the way you look.
But you can't be sure. You can only hope that it will work
for you. Hoping is really not good enough when the result
could work against you.
What you need is a method or
guidelines that help you make the right decision. There is
a method that will guide you inyour color choice. It is your
color-type.
Know your color-type and you will know
what hair color suits you the best. Once you
know your color-type you can base your color choice on that.
Your judgment will be based on a natural principal,
which is: every person's hair color, skin tone and eye color
all fit perfectly together.
When your hair color suits you it is
because your skin tone, eye color and hair color are all in
harmony. Your new hair color is totally compatible
with your color type. This is the secret behind getting
a hair color that truly suits you. This is also the
reason you get an inferior result if you interfere with that
harmony. For example, if you have naturally red hair - you
are a "warm color-type" - and if you wanted to change
it to an ash tone or add silver white streaks, it would look
off. The new hair color would especially clash with your skin
tone and to a lesser degree with your eye color. In other
words you have deviated from your color-type. You have broken
color harmony law.
What is your color-type?
Let's find out what color-type you are.
If you have red, blonde, mousey blonde, brown or black hair,
etc., you belong to a particular color-type. Mother nature
has seen to it that your hair color, skin tone and
eye color go together. If your natural hair color
has gold, dark gold or gold highlights, is reddish brown,
red or strawberry blonde, then you are a warm color-type.
All of these colors have warm tones. The darker warm tones
are strong - warm, the lighter warm tones are soft - warm.
Now if your hair is black, dark brown, medium brown and light
brown and these colors have no visible red tone then you are
a strong-cool color type. Again, the darker colors are called
strong - cool. The lighter colors following light brown are
dark ash blonde (mousey blonde), medium ash blonde (dirty
blonde) light ash blonde or platinum blonde and will make
you a soft-cool color type.
So, when you color your hair
make sure that your new hair color
stays within the boundaries of your own color-type and doing
that will ensure that your new hair color will
really suit you. For example if you have mousey blonde (dark
ash blonde) hair you are a soft-cool color-type. Lets say
you are coloring your hair strawberry blonde. Your new hair
color might be beautiful but it won't make you look beautiful.
Why? Strawberry blonde falls into a different color-type,
the soft-warm color-type. It will clash with your skin tone
and therefore will not suit you. Or a person with black hair
colors their hair orange-red. This is the wrong color. This
color is for a warm color-type. If you had medium ash blonde
hair, you would be a soft-cool color type. However if you
color you hair dark brown which belongs to a strong-cool color
type you are not matching your skin tone and eye color with
your hair. The result will be unsuitable for you because it
is too dark.
How you can determine your color-type?
You might be asking, how you
can tell your color-type. The best and easiest
way is to look at your natural hair color. Know your
natural hair color and you will know your color-type.
Also include in this analysis your hair color when you were
a child. Think of the hair color of your parents. If you have
white/gray hair think of the color when it had pigments. Your
hair might have been a light blonde when you were a child
but later changed to a mousey, dirty blonde tone which gives
your hair a cool tone. Or perhaps as a child your hair had
quite a bit of red in it but as you got older it was not so
visible any more. Nevertheless you are still a warm color-type.
The next step is to find out what your hair color
level is and what tone your hair color has.
When you talk about a hair color
being black or medium brown, red or light blonde, you are
describing a hair color level which is the
degree of lightness or darkness of a hair color. A color level
is also called a shade. Hair color levels
can go from level 1, the darkest color, which is blue black
to level 10, platinum blonde, which is the lightest color.
It is very important that you are able to identify
the correct level of your hair color. One level can
make a lot of difference. It may mean that you choose a color
shade (if you color your hair yourself) that might be too
light or too dark and which will constitute a different color-type.
For example, your natural hair color is medium blonde but
you describe it as "brown", which makes it at least
two levels darker than it really is. If you color your hair
brown it will move you into an incorrect color type and, therefore
your new hair color will not suit you.
In order to get a better understanding
of the color levels go to a drug store and
look at a hair color chart with hair swatches. Take some of
these hair swatches and hold them against your hair close
to your scalp and compare and match the colors. Here
is what you will need to do:
Step 1: Your hair should be clean and dry.
Wet and oily hair always appears darker. You will need a color
chart with swatches of all the color levels.
Step 2: Part your hair on top or at the side
of your head.
Step 3: Hold it apart with both hands. Raise
the hair a little by pushing it up with your hands against
your head.
Step 4: You might want another person to
hold a hair swatch from the color chart alongside your hair,
close to your scalp. Compare different shades until you find
the one that matches your own.
A color tone indicates if a hair color
shade is warm such as strawberry blonde or
chestnut brown or red or if it is cool such
as an ash tone. Black (can also be warm if you have freckles,
mousey blonde, dirty blonde and platinum blonde hair are all
cool. Cool tones are the opposite of warm tones. Cool tones
do not have any visible gold or red tones (warm).
So what you need to know
a) the color level/shade of your hair and b) the tone of your
hair. The more precise you are the better.
Now when you describe your natural hair color you might say,
my hair color is light ash blonde or chestnut red, or warm
brown, or carrot red or dark brown, light gold blonde etc.
The next step in determining your color-type is to
find out if your hair color is warm or cool and if it's color
level is light or dark because each color-type falls into
two categories, light which is soft and, dark which is strong. |
