Beauty on a Budget

 At Home Hair Color

We are going to start a series about at home hair color.

 Going to the salon is relaxing and sometimes necessary but if you don't have the time for a 2-3 hours salon appointment, or if it is a little expensive to go every time you need a retouch done then I am here for you. 

You can do a lot of your own color and have it look like you got it done by a professional.

Let me start by saying right up front that some color must absolutely be done by a professional. If you want any kind of drastic change then it is well worth the money. Corrective color is very expensive and can be damaging to your hair. So, if you are going more than 2 shades lighter with your natural hair, or if you have already colored your hair and you want to go lighter, or if you want to darken your already light hair I say leave it to the professionals. Going lighter is a lot trickier than it looks and involves chemistry and a knowledge of how to deal with underlying hair pigments. That is why you see so many home color attempts that turn out brassy. Most of the time it is not as easy as picking out a box and looking like the girl on the front.  And removing color is even more difficult. You cannot lighten color with another lighter color. Most of the time you are just going to end up with a darker color because of the way the colors process. You can remover color with a color remover and/or lightener but you will need to  know how to apply it so that the color removes evenly and then you have to tone it to look natural or again it is going to be brassy if you are lucky. Sometimes it can really damage your hair and break off. So, why do I say you shouldn't even try to darken your colored hair yourself? Colored hair, especially lightened hair, is very porous which means color is going to take unevenly and sometimes much more quickly and darker that on hair that does not have color on it. A stylist knows how to formulate your color to make sure that it turns out evenly and not too dark. After you get your stylist to do the hard work then you can do most of your color yourself.

After all that here is what you can do yourself and I will show you how to do it over the next couple of posts-

You can retouch your own color. If you have grey that pops out every few weeks you really do not need to run to your stylist. We will cover how exactly to do this in the next post. How to pick out the perfect color and how to apply it.

You can brighten up your all over color and make your face light up. I will show you what colors look great on what skin tones and eye colors and how to apply it evenly.

You can even put a few highlights in your own hair to brighten it up a little. I will show you how to put in subtle highlights and  how to do a little more dramatic ones if you are brave.

I know I am going to get a few not-so-happy responses from stylists out there. But guess what? I have been a stylist for over 20 years and have owned a couple of salons. And the truth is a lot of color can be done at home. So, please don't flame me here. I know this is your bread and butter. If you want clients in the chair then give them what they are paying for. Great customer service and great color that they cannot do themselves. 

Now, on with the show here- next post: How to choose your own color.

Do you know how to choose a great hair color for you?

How to decide on your best hair color:
Your perfect hair color should complement your skin tone and eye color. In general if you have warm skin tone then your hair color should be warm as well. If you have cool skin then your hair color should be cool also.

How do you know if you have warm or cool skin tone? An easy way to tell is to look at the veins in your wrist. If they look blue, you have cool skin. If they have a green color then you have warm skin tone.

Cool hair color

If you have the following eye colors you have cool eye color-
Greys
Blues
Greyish Blue
Dark Blue
Dark or deep browns
Black
Hazel but are speckled with any of the aforementioned cool colors like grey

Blackish brown

Veins in wrist appear blue

Suggested base colors- neutrals/ash/red violet/mocha/red

Warm hair color

 You have warm eye colors if they are the following-

Green
Greenish blue
Muted green
Gold-brown
Mid brown
Hazel with flecks of gold or brown
Turquoise
Dull blue

Veins in wrist appear green

Suggested base colors-neutrals/gold/red-copper/red