Hair Coloring Made Easy

If you’ve decided to add a little color to your hair, then like me you must have gotten a little bored with it. Since we were born with hair ranging from medium brown to deepest brown and in some cases black, we tend to add color more regularly than other races. The huge spectrum of hair color options available can easily leave you overwhelmed. Where do you start? What’s the best complimentary color for your complexion? Can you color at home yourself? These are a few perplexing questions that sometimes plague and hinder you from achieving the beautiful bold color that you desire. I will explain different types of coloring as well as best suggested shade to compliment any shade of brown to pale complexions. Looking your best has never been so easy!

What’s Your Shade?
Dark Complexions
My chocolate sisters can quite easily look fabulous wearing jet-black hair, as they are among the only shade that effortlessly and easily are able to pull it off. Not saying that women with lighter shades can’t but rule of thumb is that the lighter your skin, the lighter your hair color should be. When you really think about it, jet-black hair on pale skin only makes the complexion look that much more pale and pasty. With black as the base color, women with dark complexions can add any highlight they choose and still look fabulous. Highlights of red to wine, auburn to blond and everything in between compliment these beautiful women of dark complexions rather nicely.

Medium Complexions
For the women in-between, base colors of #1 through #4 compliments them best. While medium complexions have a little more leeway, spice highlights reign supreme and no one can work spice quite like this chic! Highlights of #33 and #30 look amazing on this skin tone. However, making the mistake of coloring your hair too close to your complexion can be a terrible thing and almost give you a rather dingy appearance. Contrasting your hair color with your skin tone can tremendously improve your complexion. It’s really almost as crazy looking as lip color being the same as the color of your face when you think about it. I happen to fall closer to this category and over the years I have had quite a few hits and misses. I have tried auburn and it didn’t quite sit well with me nor anyone else who had to look at me. I have experimented with jet-black, which was OK, but I didn’t want dark hair, I wanted highlights, lowlights, and all that good stuff in between. The colors that I found looked best on my complexion was base #4, highlights of #27 and lowlights of #30. Over the summer when I consume more sun than normal, my complexion tends to fluctuate so I usually would go darker for the summer to accommodate my ever-changing complexion.

Light Complexions
While women with lighter complexions have a few more options as far as base colors go, it is not recommended that #1 or jet black color be used. Why not? Why? When choosing hair color the first thing you must consider is how the color will look against your complexion. Think about it contrasting against your skin. Let’s be real here, jet black hair on pale skin looks somewhat creepy and witchy. It only makes you look even paler than you really are. Yikes! You have much more color options than other complexions why not go with a honey brown base with highlights of #27 and #30.

Easy Steps To Hair Bleaching
For most of us born with dark hair, first applying a bleach to lighten the hair before applying color is necessary in order to achieve the highlights we desire. You really don’t need to pay someone to do this. In fact it’s easy and just about anyone can do it himself or herself.
Before you begin, make certain you have the following items ready in a well-ventilated area:

• Plastic Mixing Bowl
• Wooden or Plastic Spatula
• Hair Bleaching Powder
• Crème Developer
• Plastic Gloves
• Foil Strips or Hair streaking Cap/Hook
• Flat Application Brush
• Plastic duck-billed clips (optional)

Step 1
Empty the contents of bleaching powder into plastic bowl. Add crème developer a little at a time as you stir until the mixture is the consistency of blue cheese dressing. Leave mixture to sit until you have completed step 2.

Step 2
If you are using foil strips make certain that you secure the strips of hair to the foil using the plastic duck-billed clips. This would ensure the strips of hair to be bleached stay in place for faster application as is vital to even coloring. If you are using a plastic streaking cap, brush your hair backwards then apply the cap. Using the tiny hook included, begin piercing the cap and pulling out small portions of hair through the hole, you pierced in the cap. Repeat this is often, as you desire. The more hair you pull the greater the mass of colored hair you will end up with. After you are satisfied with the amount of hair you want to be bleached, take a fine toothed comb and start combing the free portions of hair you pulled from the cap to make certain the hair is not tangled at the root so that bleaching will be more uniformed.

Step 3
Using your spatula, give the mixture a final whip before applying. Take your application brush and start applying quickly. Remember, virgin hair begins to lighten within seconds of application. For even faster applications, use your hands to apply the bleach. Never put your bare hands in bleach, always use gloves. If you find your mixture’s consistency getting thicker, then add a little more crème developer and mix until it gets thinner.

Step 4
Keep a careful and close eye on the developing color and always remember that wet hair color is always darker than dry hair. If you want subtle highlights then you should process color for a shorter period. For bright vibrant color, leave the bleach on longer, provided your hair is healthy enough to endure this harsh processing.

Foil Instructions
If at glance you feel that the color is what you desired then, wash out a small porting of the bleached hair and dry it. If it’s still too dark then repeat the process from step one. After you have achieved the desired color, remove foil and thoroughly wash all bleaching residue from your hair, deep condition, and style as usual.

Streaking Cap Instructions
Streaking caps are neater and easier to use for an individual applying the bleach themselves. To check the boldness of the bleach, rinse a small portion and dry it. If the color is undesirable, then begin with step 1 and reapply. Afterwards, give your hair a quick rinse to remove the built up bleach for smoother and stress free removal of cap. Remove cap, shampoo and deep treat, then style as usual.

Applying Color
Now that you have the desired brightness of the bleach, it’s time to apply some color. After washing out the bleach thoroughly, apply rinse over the entire head, using a wide toothed comb to blend the color into all of the strands evenly. After color has been applied from root to tip, cover with plastic cap and apply heat as directed on the packaging instructions. Rinse thoroughly and condition, style as usual.
Now you have a beautiful head of bold highlights and stunning lowlights! Enjoy!