Color Coding: How to Choose the Right Color for Your Hair

Gone are the days where hair color’s known as two shades—light or dark. In a world with as many hair color options as there are on paint swatches, it’s no wonder the beauty industry’s worth $532 billion. Style is the main form of self-expression. Clothes, makeup, accessories, hairstyles, and hair colors can represent a role, a character, a mood, or one’s authentic self. It makes sense to have diverse ways to show the full spectrum of humanness.Read on to learn how to pick the right color for your hair .

Having a strong sense of style and taste often shows you know yourself. There’s a reason why teenage rebellion involves bold makeup and unique fashion as a way to make a statement.

If you grew up with hand-me-downs, other people’s unsolicited fashion advice, or pressure to look a certain way, it’s time to find the best hair color for you. Here’s how.

Let’s go back to the basics. Choosing hair colors can be daunting if you don’t know your skin tone. 

Cool Skin Tone 

This includes pale skin, sun sensitivity, pink, rosy, bluish hues, and grey undertones. Undertones aren’t your entire skin tone, but a contributing factor to it. Having pale skin can still mean having warm undertones and vice versa, which can impact your choice of hair color.

Assessing your skin without makeup is the best way to learn how your undertones and outer tones make your specific skin color. 

Dark Skin Tone

Dark skin involves shades of yellow, green, and brown and soaks up the sun with golden tans. Any shades within these three color palates are fair game when choosing a hair color based on skin tone. 

Neutral Skin Tone

Neutral skin means undertones and outer tones are the same. If you have a hard time deciphering your color preferences, your skin tone’s likely adaptable as a neutral. If your wardrobe consists of grays, whites, blacks, browns, and softer colors, you’re likely a neutral skin tone. 

Dying My Hair

To find the best hair color for your skin tone, think one thing—complement. The goal is to complement your skin tone, not combat it. Make sure your desired hair color is complementary with these questions.

• Do I have an eclectic wardrobe?  
  • If so, what hair color would complement my clothing colors?
  • If not, how can my hair color express who I am as a stable accent to my everyday wardrobe?
• How bold or subtle do I want my new do to be?
• What am I wanting to express with my hair color?
• Have people ever told me what color they think is good for me?
• Whose opinions can I call on to weigh in on this decision?
• What have people mentioned in the past about what my color is? 

Answering these questions can guide you towards a resonant hair color. The last thing you’d want is to get a perfect hair dye only to have to change your clothes because they clash now.

Many people master having bold clothes with simple hair and bold hair with simple clothes. Why not have both? Knowing how to pick the right hair color simply comes from knowing your skin.

Find the Best Hair Color

All prophecies about the answers resting within ourselves are true. In this case, your best hair color also lies within—starting with your skin.

Happy hair color treatments start with this preparation process. Before you call your hairstylist, make sure you’ve tackled this list.

Ask yourself:

1. What’s my skin tone?
2. What’s my skin’s undertone?
3. What colors am I drawn to?
4. What color jewelry do I wear?
5. What complements my eyes?
6. How bright or muted is my wardrobe?
7. What does my intuition say?
8. What color won’t I get sick of?
9. What will make me feel more like me?
10. What energy am I going for?
11. How might this color impact my life?

At the end of the day, it’s up to you to love yourself and your choices. Learning the intention behind your new do can steer you to the right shade. A subtle tune-up will look and feel much different than a new-do-new-me chapter. 

Choosing Hair Colors

Unlike choosing paint colors, hair colors don’t come with samples. However, unlike paint colors, choosing hair colors does come with professionals and expert opinions to help you along the way.

Walking with your head held high is easy with the right hair color based on skin tone. Having an idea about coloring is great for your stylist, but you don’t have to know it all to get it done.

Once you’ve picked your hair color, you know you’ll want to have it done in style. Your balayage beckons! Balayage is a popular French coloring technique used to make luscious locks look effortless. 

Finding the best hair color for your skin coupled with how it’s colored makes for a hairdo that’s to die for.

Hair Color Craze

There’s a reason women spend $250,000 on looks over their lifespan—so many fashion statements to make, so little time! When it comes to how to pick the right hair color, it’s all about how you wear it.

Are you going for fun or serious? Classy or chic?

Colors adapt to the intention behind our wearing them. Knowing your skin tone creates a foundation to rock your best hair color. No one says you have to follow the rules, but it helps to know there are some for those who want them.

Happy coloring! For more style tips, check out our latest blog posts!