How to Use the Color Wheel When Dyeing Hair

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Amelia and on behalf of Expert Village, I'll be talking to you about understanding the laws of hair color. This is a pocket color wheel that you can get at any art supply store. You're probably wondering what I'm doing with it? Well actually this is very important. Because without this, you really can't countact the different colors that are going on in your hair. So what does that mean? At every level, there is something called an undertone in your hair. In other words at every level, if I was to put bleach straight on that hair, and lift it to your level, what would be the color that would be remaining in the hair? So if I took the outside color off, what would be the inside color, in a manner of speaking? Well at a level six the inside color would be orange. And let's be honest, nobody really wants orange hair. So what would you do if you had orange hair? Well, you would put blue color on it. And what would that do? That would make it a nice neutral brown. So these are the things you have to take into consideration when performing color on yourself at home. I've seen a lot of women come in to the salon, and they've got the dark roots, and they've got the really brassie ends. And what I mean by brassie, is that nice orange color that's a level six. And they're wanting to know why it's like that, and I'm having to explain to the that when they put the color on their hair, five weeks ago, they probably didn't use a good product, or a good shampoo, and the color has faded off. And what's left is the undertone. What's left is the underlying color. What's left is what's showing, what's underneath the hair, what's underneath the color. So, when I have to apply a corrective base, I choose a color that has a blue base. So, for example, in this range, I would choose something more in this, oh, that's red violet, in this ash blue over here. So I would have to apply like a level six AB, and that would counteract and make her a nice neutral 6N. So whenever you're applying color, and you're wanting to make sure that you're not going to be brassie, that you're not going to pull warm, you have to take into consideration your level, the lightness and darkness of your hair, and the tone of your hair. So if you're warm, in other words if you have a lot of red in your hair, if you grandmother was a red head, you're not going to want to put red on your hair. You're going to want to choose maybe an ash base. And that ash base will then counteract that warmth in your hair, and make a nice neutral color. So, whenever choosing a color, always take into consideration the underlying tones in your hair. Are you warm, or are you cool? And if you're warm and you want to stay warm, apply a warm color. If you're warm and you want to be neutral or cool, you apply a cool color. So whenever you're thinking about the color wheel, or whenever you're thinking about color, remember the color wheel. Whatever color is across from the color you want to be, that's the color that's going to neutralize it. So this yellow orange, blue violet is going to neutralize it and make a nice brown base. So you might want to pick one of these up if you're going to be doing a lot of home color. "