How to Choose Hair Color for African-Americans
African-Americans have a wide range of complexions from the darkest ebony shades to the lightest caramel hues. It’s important to choose hair-coloring products that best accent skin tone. While hair color is a simple way to quickly spice up your looks, hair color that is one to two shades lighter or darker than your natural skin color provides the most natural-looking results. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Assess your natural hair color. The hair color that you were born with will give you clues to determine the best hair color for your complexion. For example: if your hair has a blond or red cast in the summer, choose a hair color that features gold, bronze or medium red tones, suggests the experts at Real Beauty.
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Select the best hair color for your skin tone. Red hair tones look good on medium-brown or medium-light skin. Brown Skin suggests that women with medium skin tones should choose shades that are auburn, reddish bronze and burgundy. Women with medium- to dark-brown skin look best with chocolate brown, burgundy and plum hair colors. Real Beauty recommends “you try on wigs in various hair colors and shades to see how well they work with your complexion.”
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Highlight gray hair. Gray hair is hair that has lost its pigmentation. Boost hair color by applying a lighter tone of gray to brighten dull hair.
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Choose blond hair colors carefully. Blonding is a tricky hair process for women with naturally black or relaxed hair. A stylist uses hydrogen peroxide to lift the natural color out of the hair. Golden blond, honey blond and bronze shades work best on African-Americans with golden light-brown hair, women with short natural hair and light to medium skin tones.
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Select highlights that complement your natural hair color. For bronze, auburn or brown hair, choose blond or honey-colored highlights. Black and dark brown hair looks best with medium-brown highlights.
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Tips & Warnings
To add additional shine to brown or black hair, go a shade darker than your actual hair color to add richness and depth.
If this is your first hair-color application, add brightness by coloring your hair a shade lighter than your natural color.
Jet-black hair dye looks natural only if you have dark or olive skin.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit beauty in red image by Miroslav from Fotolia.com
