Beauty: How To Hair Color

A Do-It-Yourself Hair Coloring Guide at Home

For the budget-conscious but with fashion-sense women, hair coloring at home is more attractive than those expensive visits to the beauty salon. Many commercial hair dyes are sold everywhere. Mostly in malls, where a complete range of every imaginable hair color shade is available. But before you rush out of your house to buy your dream hair color, read and follow the tips and techniques on coloring your own hair to avoid disasters.

Know Your Skin Tone

1. WARM

• dark skin: gold, olive, coppery, deep golden brown, and tawny,


• semi-dark skin: beige, creamy, peaches and cream, or ivory complexion,


• eyes: green, brown, amber, hazel, cinnamon, topaz, and coffee-colored,
  
• skin gets tan easily, and
  
• visible veins under the skin are green.

2. COOL

• fair skin: rosy pink, alabaster, rose beige, and pearly complexion,
  
• semi-fair skin: olive, dark brown, dark olive, and ebony,
  
• eyes: blue, grey blue, blue-green, dark green, dark blue, brown, and black,
  
• skin easily burns under the sun, and
  
• visible veins are blue.

3. COOL and WARM Combination

• you sometimes burn easily, and
  
• you sometimes tan easily.

Best Hair Color Shades for Warm Skin Tone:

1. dark gold

2. warm blonde shade

3. caramel

4. bronze

5. strawberry blonde

6. beige blonde

7. light auburn

8. light golden blonde

9. golden blonde

10. dark golden brown

11. honey brown

12. chestnut

13. mahogany

14. copper

Ideal Colors for Highlights (Warm)

1. golden

2. golden brown

3. red

Worst Hair Coloring Shades (Warm)

1. jet-black hair color - might make you look washed-out, and

2. very light gold hair color - might turn your hair orange.

Best Hair Color Shades for Cool Skin Tone:

1. ash gold

2.cool brown

3. whitish shade

4. pale blonde

5. silvery blonde

6. light brown

7. taupe ash shade

8. burgundy brown

9. black

10. dark brown

11. plum

Ideal Colors for Highlights (Cool)

1. lighter ash

2. silver blonde

3. burgundy

4. plum red

Worst Hair Coloring Shades (Cool)

1. gold,

2. auburn, and

3. copper - these shades might just highlight the redness of your skin.

More Tips on Choosing Hair Color:

1. If your hair's natural color is brown, do not pick a flashy blonde color. Just apply highlights and lowlights.

2. Red shades are best for reddish or pinkish skin tone-but avoid strawberry shades.

3. Do not use deep gold shades for pale skin with yellow undertones.

4. For first-time self-hair colorists: choose hair dye with a couple shades lighter or darker to your natural hair color.

5. For Asian or Latin women, who have silky black hair, you can use almost all hair color shades; except blonde. If you want a lighter hair color, avoid bleaching.

How to Maintain Colored Hair:

1. Use the proper after-color care products created to protect colored hair.

2. Revive your hair color with a color-enhancing or color-depositing shampoo and conditioner, at least once a week.

3. Retouch the hair roots with hair dye of same color shade before they show up.

4. For super dry or damaged hair: deep condition your hair every week, before and after coloring.

Important Precautions on Hair Colorants:

1. Excessive and/or reckless use of hair coloring can cause hair damage.

2. Earlier hair coloring products contain harmful chemicals; so check the labels thoroughly.

3. Skin allergic reactions are sometimes developed with use of permanent hair coloring; so perform a skin test, as well as the patch test.

Always think that hair coloring is an effective tool used to enhance or create good looks. Use it sensibly.