Hair Care (With Images)

When you're looking to color your hair, probably the first thing you find on the internet is a hair color chart. Now, a hair color chart by itself can be pretty confusing if you're not a professional or it's your first time with hair colors. Heck, we even think it’s confusing for the second timers, fifty-fifth timers, and nearly everyone because of so many color names and tones and the general mumbo jumbo! So, how does one make sense of these hair colors?

You can start by getting the right hair color. For instance, if you have chosen the L'Oreal Paris Casting Creme Excellence Hair Color - Caramel Brown shade, you need a hair color chart from that particular company!

Remember, we do not have such a thing as a standard hair color chart. Most brands have independent formats, and there are various types of colored hair.

However, a simple hair color chart comprises depths and tones. Your depth is the color you're going for, and a tone is the finish and the underlining hues you will prominently see in your hair color. Depending on the color you choose, there can be primary and secondary tones—more on that in a while. Depth can talk about the user’s hair color too.

Let us take a look at what typical hair colors look like on a chart. The hair colors are denoted by a patch of the color, along with a code. For the purpose of explanation, we’ll take a mock code of “0.56”.

This is what a hair color chart looks like.

Most companies have their unique hair color charts.

Reading the Depth

Usually, 1 is the darkest hair color they recognize, which is matte black, and the top-most shade is usually platinum blonde. From 2 to 5 are various degrees of browns, which also include orange or more reddish hair. For simplicity, they are grouped at this level.

The higher you go, the fainter and paler your color gets!

Now, the first thing you have to identify is the depth of your hair color. Hold your hair against color in the hair color chart and find the color that is closest to your original shade.

Reading the Tone

The second thing, locate the color you want. If that color is more than four shades far from your original hair color, you would need multiple sittings.

Now, keep in mind that depth is indicated before the decimal. But, if you say 0.56, it means you are not looking to change your hair color but possibly get some highlights or shades.

5 would denote the primary tone you're going for. In this chart, 5 is mauve. This means that the main color for your highlights will be this.

6 would denote the secondary tone you're going for. In this chart, 6 is blue. This means your mauve highlights will have a shallow undertone of this color.

This is also where you choose from various types of hair color highlights

Reading the Temperature of Your Tone

If you're more of a warm-skin-toned person, you should go for cooler undertones in your hair.

How do you identify your skin tone palette? If the veins popping in your wrist or your lips appear more violet or darker than usual, you have a cooler skin tone.

On the other hand, if your veins are more on the green side and your lips appear brownish, you have a warmer skin tone.

Final Words: A Couple More Pointers for Correctly Coloring Your Hair

Keep a few things in mind when you go for hair color. Your hair color should ideally be only two shades different from your original hair color—it can be lighter or darker. However, the more you move away from your own color, the harder it gets—say you have dark brown hair and you are going for a pale blonde, which may not even be the lightest color! But since it is more than eight shades away, you will need excessive bleaching treatment and more than four sittings. You would need stronger pigmentation, which would end up damaging your hair.

If you are at shade one, be prepared for more sitting regardless of the color you choose. You can also understand the undertones of colors by doing a patch test on a smaller portion. If you have already purchased some hair color, you might want to see its highlight visibility before making a full-blown commitment to that particular color.

You can only be sure once you have colored a strand of your hair with the chosen hair colors, which gives you the verdict within 15 minutes. If you have decided to color your hair, you should also know that hair colors also need a lot of hair maintenance. you can use Streax Professional Argan Secrets Colour Protect Shampoo to protect your color and your hair quality.