How to pick a hair colour for your skin tone

Your surface tone is what you see first: fair, light, medium, olive, tan, deep, or rich. It changes through the year. A summer of sun can move you a couple of steps darker, and a long winter moves you back.

Your undertone is the colour underneath, and it does not change. It is either cool (a hint of pink, red, or blue), warm (a hint of yellow, peach, or gold), or neutral (a balance of both). Two people with the exact same surface tone can have opposite undertones and need completely different hair colours.

This is why "what colour suits medium skin?" is the wrong question. Medium skin with a cool undertone and medium skin with a warm undertone want different things. Undertone is the part that actually decides.

Do these in daylight near a window, with no makeup on and no coloured wall behind you. Artificial light lies, especially warm indoor bulbs.

The vein test. Turn your wrist over and look at the veins. Blue or purple points to a cool undertone. Green or olive points to warm. If you genuinely cannot decide, that is a real answer and usually means neutral.

The jewellery test. Hold silver against your face, then gold. Silver tends to make cool undertones look brighter and warm undertones look a little grey. Gold does the opposite. Whichever metal makes your skin look more awake is pointing at your undertone.

The white paper test. Hold a sheet of plain white paper next to your bare face. Against true white, cool skin reads slightly pink or rosy, warm skin reads slightly yellow or golden, and neutral skin reads fairly even.

Run all three. If two agree, trust them. One test on its own can mislead you.

If your undertone is cool, you want shades described as ash, pearl, platinum, smoky, mushroom, or espresso. These have blue, violet, or grey sitting inside them, and they sit calmly against pink-leaning skin.

The strongest options are ash blonde, beige blonde, cool light brown, mushroom brown, cool dark brown, blue-black, and soft silver. Burgundy and cool plum work well too if you want a red without going orange.

What usually fights cool skin is a heavy golden or copper base. Brassy gold next to pink skin pushes the pink further, and the face can end up looking flushed or blotchy. If you love warmth anyway, keep it off your face: ask for warmth through the mid-lengths and ends and keep the pieces around your hairline cooler.

Warm undertones have gold or peach underneath, and they come alive next to shades with gold, honey, caramel, copper, or chocolate in them.

Strong choices are golden blonde, honey blonde, caramel, warm chestnut, copper, auburn, and warm chocolate brown. Rich golden brown is close to a universal win on warm skin, which is why it is so common in salon colour charts.

The shades to be careful with are the very ashy ones. A heavy ash or silver colour beside golden skin can make the skin read slightly grey or sallow, because the cool pigment cancels the warmth your skin already has. If you want to cool your colour down, step down gradually. Go one or two levels cooler rather than jumping from copper to platinum ash.

Neutral undertones sit between the two, and they are genuinely the easiest to colour. Most shade families will work, so the deciding factor becomes contrast and upkeep rather than tone.

Because almost everything works, neutral undertones should choose based on how much maintenance they want and how much contrast they like against their skin. A soft bronde or a neutral medium brown is close to no-risk. If you want more impact, either go several levels lighter or several levels darker than your natural colour, rather than sitting one level away where the change barely reads.

If you have a neutral undertone and a colour has ever looked wrong on you, the cause was usually the level (too light or too dark) rather than the tone.

Undertone tells you which family. Contrast tells you how far to go, and it is the step most people miss.

Contrast is the gap between your skin, your hair, and your eyes. Someone with fair skin and near-black hair is high contrast. Someone with medium skin and medium brown hair is low contrast. Neither is better, but they behave differently when you change colour.

High-contrast faces can carry bold, saturated colour without being overwhelmed, because your features already hold their own against strong hair. Low-contrast faces usually look best staying within a few levels of their natural colour, because a very dark or very light colour starts wearing you instead of the other way round.

A practical rule: if you have low contrast and want a big change, change the level slowly across two or three appointments and judge as you go.

Eye colour is worth using when you are stuck between two shades, but it should not overrule your undertone.

Blue and grey eyes tend to look brighter beside cool and ash shades, because the cool pigment echoes the eye. Green and hazel eyes tend to pop next to copper, auburn, and warm brown, since red tones sit opposite green and make it look more intense. Brown eyes are the most flexible and work with almost everything, so let your skin decide.

Use this as a nudge between two shades you already like, not as the reason to pick a family that fights your skin.

You do not have to guess. There are three low-risk ways to check.

Drape a fabric. Hold a scarf or jumper in roughly the shade you are considering next to your face, in daylight. It is not exact, but it is surprisingly good at showing you whether a tone makes your skin look brighter or duller.

Use a semi-permanent first. A semi-permanent or demi-permanent colour in the direction you are curious about washes out over several weeks and does not use bleach for a darker or same-level result. It is a genuine trial run. See our types of hair dye guide for how long each type lasts.

Start with face-framing pieces. A few lighter or warmer pieces around your face show you exactly how a tone behaves against your skin, and they are easy to blend away if you change your mind.

You can also upload a selfie to Kurli and see a shade rendered on your own photo before you book anything.

Sometimes the shade family is correct and something is still wrong. There are three usual causes.

Brassiness. Lightened hair loses cool pigment first, so it drifts warm over the weeks. That is a fading problem, not a wrong-shade problem, and a toner or a purple or blue shampoo fixes it. Our colour care and fading guide covers the routine.

One flat block of colour. A single solid shade with no variation reads harsh on most people, because natural hair is never one colour. Adding a few lowlights or lighter pieces restores depth.

Placement. A colour can be right but sitting in the wrong place, especially around the face. Where light and dark sit changes how wide or long your face looks, which is covered in hair colour by face shape.

Salon language is more precise than everyday language, and using it saves a lot of disappointment. Say your undertone out loud, name the level you want, and name the tone. For example: "I have a cool undertone. I would like to go about two levels lighter than my natural, and I want it to stay ash rather than turning golden."

Bring two or three photos, and bring one photo of a colour you do not want. The second kind is often more useful, because it shows your stylist exactly where the line is for you.

Ask directly how the colour will fade, since every lightened colour warms up over time, and ask what it takes to maintain. If the honest answer is a toner every four weeks and you know you will not do that, pick a softer version now rather than being unhappy in six weeks. Our guide on how to ask your stylist for the right cut applies just as well to colour.