Hair colour

Almost everyone begins by finding a photo they like. That is the wrong end of the problem, because the same shade behaves completely differently on different skin.

What decides whether a colour suits you is your undertone, the quiet colour sitting under the surface of your skin. It is cool (a hint of pink or blue), warm (a hint of gold or peach), or neutral. It does not change with the seasons, and it is not the same thing as how light or dark your skin is. Two people with identical skin depth can need opposite shade families.

You can find yours in about two minutes at home using your wrist veins, a piece of silver and gold jewellery, and a sheet of white paper. Our hair colour by skin tone guide walks through all three tests and explains what to reach for once you know.

The second half of the decision is placement, and it is the part most advice skips entirely.

The rule behind all of it is simple: light comes forward, dark falls back. A bright piece of hair beside your cheekbone pulls the eye there and makes that area look wider. A darker section in the same place makes it recede.

That means the same shade can flatter you or fight you depending only on where it sits. A soft balayage that keeps brightness low can make a round face look longer. A hard band of highlight across the cheeks does the opposite. A blunt ombré line landing exactly at a square jaw draws a straight edge across the strongest angle on the face.

Our hair colour by face shape guide goes shape by shape, with what to ask for and what to avoid for round, oval, square, heart, oblong, and diamond faces.

Temporary, semi-permanent, demi-permanent, permanent, and bleach are not five strengths of the same product. They work in genuinely different ways.

Temporary colour sits on the surface and washes out in one wash. Semi-permanent stains the outer layer and lasts four to twelve washes with almost no damage. Demi-permanent uses a weak developer to deposit colour just inside the strand and lasts six to eight weeks. Permanent colour opens the cuticle with an alkaline agent and chemically changes the inside of the hair, so it does not wash out at all. Bleach is not a dye: it removes your natural pigment rather than adding anything.

A useful habit is to always choose the gentlest type that achieves your goal. People routinely reach for permanent colour when a demi-permanent gloss would have done the same job with far less damage. Our types of hair dye guide explains each one, including where henna fits.

Balayage and highlights are used as if they mean the same thing. They do not, and the difference decides how often you are back in the salon.

Highlights are painted in sections and wrapped in foil, usually starting at the root. That gives even, all-over brightness, and it also gives an obvious regrowth line within six to eight weeks. Balayage is painted freehand starting lower down, so it fades out softly and can last three to four months.

Per appointment, balayage usually costs more. Across a year it is often cheaper, because you need roughly half as many appointments. Highlights might mean seven to nine visits a year; balayage three to four.

The single most useful question to answer before booking is how often you are honestly willing to return. A colour whose cycle you will not keep up with is the most common reason people end up unhappy. Our balayage vs highlights guide compares five techniques on upkeep, cost, and which hair types they suit.

Going blonde from dark hair is the most demanding thing you can ask of your hair, and it is where most serious damage happens.

Bleach works by breaking apart the melanin inside the strand. Nothing is added. While it does that, it also breaks some of the protein bonds that give hair its strength, and hair cannot repair itself because it is not living tissue. Lightening also passes through a fixed sequence: dark brown goes red, then orange, then yellow, then pale yellow. Orange is a normal middle stage, not a mistake.

A realistic plan from dark brown is two to four appointments spread over three to six months. Anyone promising platinum from dark hair in one sitting is telling you what you want to hear.

If that upkeep does not fit your life, there are softer versions of the same idea: balayage with a deliberately dark root, a bronde two or three levels lighter, or face-framing pieces only. See going blonde from dark hair.

Grey hair is not simply lighter hair. It is hair with no pigment at all, and it often has a tighter cuticle, which is why it resists colour and why so much grey colouring disappoints.

There are three good options and no wrong answer. Full coverage with permanent colour removes grey completely but needs a root touch-up every four to six weeks. Blending with highlights and lowlights turns grey into dimension rather than regrowth, and stretches to eight to twelve weeks. Growing it out on purpose is a legitimate choice and usually takes six to eighteen months, easiest when you add highlights that echo your natural silver.

One widely useful tip: if you do cover grey, go one or two levels lighter than the colour you had at twenty. It suits mature skin better and makes regrowth far less obvious. Our covering grey hair guide covers all three routes, and if you are curious when greying actually starts and how common dyeing really is, the numbers live in our hair colour statistics.

Box dye has a worse reputation than it deserves for some jobs, and a better one than it deserves for others.

It works perfectly well when you are adding pigment: going darker, staying at the same level, refreshing tone with a semi-permanent, or covering grey near your natural shade on hair without much colour history.

It goes wrong when you ask it to make a judgment call: lightening more than a level or two, colouring over layers of previous colour, correcting a result that went wrong, or going from dark to blonde. A colour correction is one of the most expensive services a salon offers, which is what flips the cost comparison.

The most valuable free habit for anyone colouring at home is to only colour the regrowth, pulling the product through the lengths for the last few minutes at most. Saturating the whole head every time is what causes the dark, banded ends box dye is known for. See box dye vs salon colour.

Fresh colour almost always looks good. What matters is week five.

Fading is physics rather than a fault: hot water opens the cuticle and lets pigment escape, harsh detergents strip it, UV breaks the colour molecules apart, and heat styling does the same from outside. Coloured hair is more porous than virgin hair, so it leaks faster, and bleached hair leaks fastest of all.

The habits that help most are unglamorous and free. Wait 48 to 72 hours before your first wash. Wash less often, in cooler water. Shampoo your scalp, not your lengths. Use a heat protectant every time. Red fades fastest of any shade, ash tones drift warm as the cool pigment goes first, and dark brown holds longest.

Our colour care and fading guide covers the full routine, including how to use purple and blue shampoo properly, and what to do about hard water. For damage, colour damage and repair explains how to tell protein loss from moisture loss, which is the test that stops people treating the wrong problem.

Permanent hair dye contains ingredients, most commonly p-phenylenediamine (PPD), that a small number of people react to. The reaction is allergic contact dermatitis, and it is delayed, usually appearing 12 to 72 hours after exposure.

The part that catches people out is that sensitivity can appear suddenly, after years of using the same product with no problem at all. "I have always used this brand" is not protection, because the earlier exposures are what teach the immune system to react in the first place.

So the rule is simple: patch test 48 hours before every application, including brands you have used for years, and including at the salon. Mix the product exactly as you would use it, apply a coin-sized amount behind your ear, and leave it alone. Any redness, itching, or swelling means do not use it.

Also worth knowing: never use hair dye on eyebrows or eyelashes, and avoid black henna temporary tattoos entirely. Full detail in hair dye allergy and patch testing.

If you are starting from nothing, read them in this order: skin tone to pick a shade family, face shape to decide where it goes, then types of dye and balayage vs highlights to choose how it gets applied.

If you already know what you want, jump straight to the guide for your situation: going lighter, covering grey, or deciding between home and salon.

Colour works alongside your cut rather than instead of it, so it is worth pairing this with the hairstyles by face shape hub for the outline and the hairstyles by hair type hub for what your texture will actually do. Colour cannot fix a cut that is fighting your proportions.

If you are not sure of your face shape, try the face shape quiz, or upload a selfie and let Kurli read it on your device and suggest styles with a reason for each.