How To Choose The Correct Hair Color

Today, I'm going to teach you how to choose the correct hair color. The most important thing to remember or to check first is whether you, or the person you're coloring, has color in their hair first. The most important thing to remember, or the golden rule in hair coloring is “tint won't lighten tint” so if you already have artificial pigment or hair color in your hair, you can only work to the same level or darker, you're not going to be able to lighten it with tint.

The first thing you need to do is to determine your natural base. Natural base colors at Color Nation, we use Wella colors, and it's a numbering system which goes from number two, right through to number twelve, number two being your black, up through your browns into your blondes and palest blonde. All our natural hair colors will be in this spectrum somewhere.

So once you've determined your natural base shade, you can choose what color you can go from there. So if your base shade's a level six, then you can choose your reflect, which is the color you're going, so if you choose to go for a red, you can choose to go for a red on a level six, and with a Wella numbering system, a four-six at the end represents a blue-red. The second thing or the next thing you're going to need to determine is your strength of peroxide.

Your strengths of peroxides normally come in at six percent, nine percent and twelve percent. Generally, six percent is for working on the same level or one shade of lift. Nine percent is working two to three shades, and your twelve percent is lifting to four shades.

If you decided that you're going for level six red, and your natural hair is about a level four, it means that you're going to have to use your level six red with your nine percent peroxide to achieve the lift. If you've already got pre-lightened hair or you have highlights in your hair, just remember that you're going to need to put some warmth into it, otherwise you're going to end up with your green hair. Natural hair colors have cooler pigments in them, so as soon as you put those onto lighter colored hair that's had all the warmth removed, then they're going to go green, so just remember to put your warmth into the hair, if you're going darker or working onto the same level in your browns.

The important things to remember are: determine whether you have color in your hair already, find your natural base shade so that you can determine the level of peroxide, or the strength of the peroxide that you need to use to achieve the color you want to achieve. And that's how to choose the best hair color. .