Hair Dye Color - The Right Hair Color For You
Over the counter permanent hair color tends to be stronger than professional salon color for several reasons.
- Most at home hair color tends to work more quickly. This usually means that it contains more ammonia. Ammonia is necessary in permanent hair color because it lighten your hair, and opens the cuticle to allow the new hair color to penetrate the hair cortex.
- At home hair color is premixed to cover a wider range of shades. At a salon, your colorist custom mixes the color to create the right shade for you.
- Salon color works more slowly. When your colorist custom mixes your hair color, the hair dye becomes more diluted.
Choosing Hair Color – Hair Color Shades
Hair color companies have managed to lower the percentages of ammonia and peroxide in permanent hair color products, but these chemicals are necessary to achieve the permanent hair color result. In permanent hair color, ammonia is needed to lighten your hair and open the cuticle while peroxide help the new color penetrate the hair shaft.
If you’re going to use permanent hair color, look for hair color products that are labeled with “low ammonia, low peroxide”. These chemicals are very harsh on your hair and long term use will cause irreversible damage – your hair may end up flat with an unnatural color look. Hair color cream formulas which contain conditioning polymers that binds to your hair to condition it may help to ease the damage.
The Right Hair Color for You – Hair Color Shades
Choosing the right hair color is more than just picking up a box of hair dye and getting the color match. When it comes to choosing the right hair color for you, consider two things. First, you should determine your natural color then consider the color of your eyes because both your skin tone and eye color will effect how the new hair color will look on you.
Warm Hair Color - Warm Hair Color Shades
Your natural color is warm if your complexion is not too pale, not too dark and your makeup has yellowish undertone (apricots, bronzes, peach, rusts). Or if your eyes are brown, green, green-blue, or turquoise then colors with a touch of gold tends to look better on you. Shades of warm hair color include warm brown, rich golden brown, auburn, golden blond, and warm gold.
Cool Hair Color - Cool Hair Color Shades
Your natural color is cool if your complexion is pale, rosy, or dark ebony and you have pinkish-blue undertone. Or if your eyes are deep brown, black-brown, dark blue, gray blue, look for hair color with green, blue, or purple undertone. Shades of cool hair color include ashen shades, deepest coffee brown, blue black, and medium golden brown.
Choosing Home Hair Color
Once you have determined the hair color you want then focus on that section of hair color of the drug store. Ignore the shades of the model on the box because your natural hair color may not be the same as hers and you won’t end up with the same shade. Instead, look at the back of each box because most hair color kit shows the natural hair color (before treatment) next to after hair color (the color achieved).
Hair Color Tip
If you’re new to hair coloring you should start with a temporary color. Temporary hair color doesn’t contain harsh chemicals (ammonia or peroxide) and it also fade with each shampoo so if you don’t like your new color you can always wash it out.
>> Part 2: How to Home Hair Color
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