How to Choose Your Hair Color

Tired of the hair color you’ve been sporting for as long as you can remember? If you want to try out a new hair color, you’ll want to consider several factors, such as permanence, skin tone, undertone, eye color, time investment, and cost. Everyone is different, so finding something that matches you is most important for getting a look that you love!

Complement Your Skin Tone

Just because a hair color looks good in a magazine does not mean it will look good on you, and that’s potentially because of your skin tone! Everyone has their own unique skin tone, ranging from fair to dark. Each person also has a skin undertone that also influences how your skin looks.

Skin Tones

Fair

Fair skin if often characterized as being the lightest, with a high tendency to get sunburns. These porcelain skin tones are also often rosy or neutral, varying from person to person.

Light

Light skin and fair skin are pretty similar, but light-colored skin is often a shade darker with a yellow or beige tone. Light skin can have pink or cool undertones, depending on the person.

Medium

Medium skin tones often have little to no visible undertone and are a fairly consistent beige or tan color throughout. Unlike fair or light skin, less blush or undertone shows through.

Olive

Olive skin often has glowing yellow, green, or light brown tints that add depth to the overall skin color. This skin type usually has warmer undertones, but can also be cooler.

Dark

Dark skin tones can range from coffee color all the way to dark brown or ebony. Darker colors tend to have cooler undertones, while colors closer to the “coffee” end of the spectrum can have either cool or warm undertones.

Undertones

As if choosing the perfect hair color wasn’t hard enough, everyone has a different undertone to their skin color! These are usually described as warm or cool and are determined by the general glow of the skin.

Cool

Cool undertones generally have more pink, red, or bluish hues to them. People with this undertone are also more likely to get sunburned, sometimes not even tanning at all! To find out if you have a cool skin tone, check the veins in your wrist. If they look blue, you have a cooler skin tone!

Warm

Warm skin tones have more yellow, peachy, or golden hues most of the time. People with warmer undertones are more prone to tanning in the sun, even if they burn first and then tan. To find out if you have a warm skin tone, check the veins in your wrist again. If they look green, you have a warmer skin tone!

Match Hair to Your Skin Tone

With many different skin color and undertone combinations, it can be challenging to pin down exactly what hair color is right for you. Here are a few general pointers to help you decide:

• If you have a cool skin tone with fair or light skin, hair colors such as wheat, walnut brown, tawny blonde, golden, caramel, or mocha can all look great. Go for tones that are muted and not excessively vibrant so it looks more natural against your skin.
• If you have a medium skin tone, match your hair color to your skin undertone. Cool undertones go well with the colors listed above. If you have a warm undertone, consider gold, honey, auburn, cinnamon, ebony, or mocha skin colors. The extra vibrance works well against the warm skin!
• If you have a dark skin tone, try rich, vibrant colors to match your skin. Chocolate brown, mahogany, toffee, or other warm colors generally work best!

Non-Traditional Hair Colors

Do you want your hair to be blue, pink, or green? The options are nearly limitless to explore! Non-traditional hair colors can be a little trickier to select because making them look natural is a challenge. You might be thinking you want blue hair, but what kind of blue? Cobalt, electric, sky, or powder? There are so many to choose from, so picking one that looks almost natural is the goal.

If you have a cooler skin tone, go for a more muted palette when choosing your new color. Go for icy or gray blues, forrest or mint greens, or other less vibrant colors. You want a hair color that has little or no yellowness to it so that it matches your skin tone well.

If you have a warmer skin tone, try a more vibrant color palette. Cobalt blues, cyan, turquoise, fire red, any many more can be tried! Just make sure the hue of the dye doesn’t clash with your skin, and you’re good to go!

Try Something New With Robert Fiance

Are you looking to explore a new look or hair color? Our student salon offers quality services under the supervision of a licensed professional so you can try new things out and save money at the same time! Visit our salon services page for more information or call us to set up an appointment today!