Deciding to change your natural hair color is an easy enough decision, but picking out the best shade could pose a challenge. Choosing the most flattering hair color for your locks goes beyond trends and what hue your fave celebrity is currently sporting. It could spell the difference between looking glowing and vibrant, and appearing dull and washed out.
Want to know the secret to finding the best color for your mane? Read on for a few tips on how to choose the right hue that’ll further accentuate your beauty.
1. Know your skin undertone. The ideal shade for your mane is one that complements your skin undertone, whether it’s warm, cool, or neutral. Undertone is described as the color underneath the surface of your skin. Colors that blend well with your undertone results in your skin tone, or skin color, looking brighter, smoother, and more rejuvenated.
To determine your undertone, try this quick trick – stand in natural light, turn your palms up, and check the veins on the insides of your wrist. If your veins appear to be blue, you have a cool undertone. If it seems greenish, you have a warm undertone. If it’s something in between, your skin undertone is neutral.
A cool skin tone has undertones of pink, red, green, or blue while a warm one has yellow, peachy, brown or golden undertones. Those with warm undertones also tend to tan easily while those with cool undertones tan minimally and get sunburned instead. A neutral skin tone is usually a mix of both warm and cool undertones.
2. Determine what hair dye shades enhance your skin tone. The general rule of thumb is cool undertone=warm hair colors, and warm undertone=cool hair colors.
For cool undertones, play with the hues of golden blonde, ash brown, auburn, platinum blonde, and blonde. The most flattering highlights are honey, wheat, taupe, or ash shades. For those who are more adventurous, deep reds, orchids, burgundies, and even purples also work well, but avoid gold, yellow, red, or bronze hair dyes.
For those with warm undertones, go for golden brown, golden blonde, warm red, rich chestnut, reddish or strawberry blonde, chocolate brunette, or jet black colors. Highlighting is best done with copper streaks or golden brown shades. Most hair colors that have red-orange or gold base complement warm undertones well, but be careful of unnatural shades like blue and violet, and ash-based colors.
3. Stay within your hair’s natural color range. Before making the color switch, pay close attention to your locks’ natural hue and make sure to stay within two to three shades of this to achieve a natural looking coloring job. If your aim is just a subtle change of color, lighten or darken your hair just by one shade. For more dramatic (and drastic) color changes, it’s best to consult your hair stylist first or a professional colorist at your favorite salon.
Sources:
•https://www.livestrong.com/article/23400-pick-right-shade-hair-color/
•https://styles101.homestead.com/haircolor2.html
•https://www.sheknows.com/beauty-and-style/articles/1012247/choosing-the-best-hair-color-for-your-complexion
