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Step 1
There are alot of things you have to take into consideration. We all see the commercials on TV where the models are slinging that beautiful blonde hair around advertising for those big name hair color companies.I can assure you that the luscious blonde hair on your TV screen did not come from that box of hair color off the Wal Mart shelf unless that model was a natural blonde in the beginning. If your natural hair color is as dark as light brown, you would need to do a 2 step process to acheive that light blonde hair.(A 2 part process is bleaching out your hair and then applying a color)
I have gone to hair salons to have my hair colored and highlighted and I have also done this myself. I have spent from $50.00-$175.00 getting my hair colored in a salon. I can do this myself for very little money. In my experience, I have found that the professional color does not last any longer than what I can buy at Wal Mart. What will make the color last longer depends on how you take care of your hair. Using a shampoo for color treated hair and styling products for color treated hair help extend the life of the color. Being out in the sun alot is very harsh on color treated hair. Look at the hair care products and see what is available for keeping the hair color vibrant. Regardless of the decisions that you make pertaining to how you are going to color your hair and the products you use to take care of that color, the overall life of that color is about 6 weeks. Coloring your hair is high maintenance. This is what you need to do if you are thinking of coloring your hair. -
Step 2
The first thing is to look at your natural hair color, the color of your skin, your eye color and the texture of your skin on your face. You also need to know what color group you are in. There are four types:
1. Strong Cool (Winter)
This color type lacks warmth. Your natural hair color will be black, dark brown, medium brown. There are no visible signs of red or gold in your hair. Your eye color will be dark brown,brown,green, light blue, or bluish violet. Diana Ross and Elizabeth Taylor are good examples of this color group. To lighten hair in this color group would make you look very washed out. The correct color changes would be if you have medium or light brown hair, add a few highlights in a very light beige color. If you want to go all over blonde, it would need to be a platinum blonde wich would be the 2 part color process which is bleaching out all of your hair and then applying an all over color. The wrong color changes for this group would be ash blonde, gold-blonde,gold or red highlights, strawberry reds, chestnut,copper or mahogany.
The next color group is:
2.Soft Cool. Summer
This group is where the mousey and dirty blondes fall into. If you are in this group, your eye color is soft brown,blue,green, or hazel. Your skin tone is fair. Christie Brinkley, Candice Bergen, Linda Evans would be in this group. If you are in this soft cool group, your hair would look the best with lots of very pale blonde highlights. The highlights should not be chunky, they should be streaks. When these are blended in with your natural color, the overall look is very pretty.
The wrong color choices for this group are: red, gold or coloring to a darker color. -
Step 3
3. Strong Warm (Autumn)
Warm is hair with alot of red and gold tones. The eye color for this group is green, steel blue,warm brown, green with gold flecks. People in this group often times have freckles. Your hair color will be: red, strawberry blonde,light golden brown, dark auburn, medium auburn and sometimes black. Shirley McClain, Ann Margaret, Kathernine Hepburn are some of the people in this group. Hair color should be in a warm tone or warm highlights such as gold or red. Wrong color choices would be ash tones and light highlights.
4. Soft Warm (Spring)
In this group, your natural hair color is golden blonde,strawberry blonde,chestnut, medium warm blonde, honey blonde,or light golden blonde. Eye color is clear blue,aqua, hazel with green or green with gold. Examples of this group are Glen Close, Julie Andrews, Robert Redford. The right color changes would be in warm tones. The wrong color changes would be black,dark or medium auburn,brown ash blonde or very light streaks.
You now have some guidelines that will help you make a wise choice on your hair color. Another thing you can do is to go to a wig shop and try on wigs to see how certain colors will look. I had mentioned earlier about your skin texture. If you have large pores. acne scars, uneven skin tone etc; certain hair colors will draw attention to those imperfections and can make your face look harsh or washed out. If you are thinking about changing your hair color, do the research on what you want because sometimes it can be difficult to do color correction. Just because a color looks really great on someone else does not mean that it would be flattering on you.
