Finding The Right Hair Color

How many shades lighter can I take my hair?

When asking a question how much should someone lighten their hair, usually if you lighten your hair between a shade and two shades, you're going to be ok. When you start to lighten it three and four and five and six and seven shades, you really are dramatically going away from your natural color and creating something that's obviously much more dramatic. The skin tone, I always come back to the skin tone, it is very important. You have to be aware of lightening your hair so much. For instance, Gwen Stefani. She's very pale, and so the light hair works with her but you see, she usually has a strong lipstick on. She usually has strong eyes and that contrast works for her. But most women can't pull that off. So I always say the golden rule is between a shade and two shades.

How many shades darker can I take my hair?

When woman are going darker, that's always a big issue. Because most women will sometimes say, "Oh, I want to go back to my natural color," but they forgot how dark their natural color really is. So my recommendation is go a shade or two lighter than your natural color. Especially if your returning from a blond shade back to a light brown or a medium brown. Always air on the lighter side. You can always darken the hair.

How do celebrities change their hair so dramatically without damaging it?

Many times, these days, we see celebrities make dramatic hair changes whether they're going from brown to red to blonde. One of the things that the consumer never sees is hair extensions. A lot of these actresses use hair extensions in order to be able to create that look. They're spending hours in the salon, hours upon hours, for the extensions to be applied and put into their hair and then cut and shaped so that it creates a style. Most people shouldn't make those kinds of dramatic changes. Again, hair is a fiber and it can only take and withstand so much. You see a lot of artificial hair out there. It's not really all their hair.

What can every woman learn from celebrity hair?

One of the secrets of celebrity hair, especially in the blondes, and there are several blonds running around, is to keep them lighter around their face. Almost a brightness, a halo around their face. When they are on camera, whether a movie or a television show, the camera tends to pick up all the darker shadowing so a lot of actresses you see are quite bright blonde, but around the face they have a little bit more detail work which creates more drama and tends to work for the camera perfectly.