Basic rules of hair color

Color is a very complex issue and very few stylists do it well, much less doing it yourself. For this reason alone we do not recommend that you color or try to remedy color problems yourself. The results can be traumatic, expensive, and take years to correct.

Listed below are some of the basic rules of color. Print the list out so that you can refer back to it. In this section we could only address a limited number of color disasters, but the information should be useful to you in the future.

BASIC RULES:

1. Consult a color wheel. Hair is science and color science is based on the color wheel. For example the opposite of orange is blue, etc.

2. Consult a hair color chart. 1 = Black through 10 = Pale Blonde

3. You can only alter hair color by: a) depositing color (darkening), or b) lifting color (lightening).

4. There are two types of color in hair, natural (pigment you are born with), and artificial (color that you have added).

5. All artificial colors are created with three primary colors, yellow, red and blue. These color molecules have different molecular weight. Yellow is the smallest and penetrates the hair shaft the deepest and is the most difficult to get out. Next is red. Blue is the largest molecule so it will be the last to adhere to the hair shaft and will be the first to fall off. This is why hair more often than not turns orange, lots of yellow, a little red, hardly any blue. Whatever color that you want to achieve, in the end it is a combination of those three. Do not confuse this with light or dark hair. That is color density, not color. First you must achieve the level you want to be, then the color you want to be.

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