Give your hair (and your spirits) a lift with colour and shine
Having your hair coloured can be one of the best and most uplifting decisions you can make.
Colour in the clothes we wear can change our moods and lift us, make us feel strong and powerful or playful and carefree. This is exactly the same with colour for your hair.
There are countless options for colouring hair including keeping hair natural and adding warmth or tones to the hair by having an all over glossing colour, adding a few highlights to the hair or going for a total image change with a complete colour overhaul.
Changing the tone of your hair while keeping your natural base colour can give a great colour fix and can enhance your skin tone, eye colour and add colour to the hair or depths like coppers, reds, caramels, golds or ashy cooler colour.
This is normally done as semi-permanent or quasi permanent colour or natural glossing as it is often known and does not grow out leaving any visible regrowth lines. The nature of these colours means they fade out slowly rather than growing out with harsh contrasts to your natural colour they also are great to blend and tone grey hair.
If that sounds good but you fancy going lighter then the next step would be slightly more permanent. Lifting your hair colour means changing it permanently as colour pigment is not being added but taken out of the hair. This is similar to the effect the sun has on hair and can look very natural or can be more drastic.
The first step might be to try highlights and this could be some paper fine highlights applied to hair either just around the face and hairline or scattered through the top of the hair. This will give glints of colour and add texture to your natural colour.
Jennifer Aniston is a great example for subtle highlights in hair. You could also opt for a more fashion forward highlighting technique called dip dying which is a way of introducing colour to the underneath and ends of hair which can give a summery feel or be quite funky as well depending on your choice of colour. You can have a few different colours put through ranging from honey, caramel or creamy blondes to coppers, reds or plums for more vibrancy.
The other options for colouring hair include a total change. This is the most exciting. There are very few things that we can do to ourselves that gives such an instant transformation however this should be the one option that you get lots of advice on. Have a good look on the Internet or in hair magazines for inspiring pictures or for colour ideas and then book a consultation with a colourist to discuss what would suit you, your skin tone, your lifestyle and the maintenance of your colour and also if your hair is suitable for the colour to be carried out. This may mean that you need a skin test and a strand test to check compatibility.
Most good salons will do complimentary consultations for colour services and it is a good chance for you to then see if you are comfortable with the salon and the person that will be offering the service. You can also pick their brain for some creative ideas on using all over colour or a combination of colours and highlights.
The most important thing is to have fun and enjoy a bit of a change to your look and to the feel of your hair. Colour can also be used to enhance your cut showing off texture, shine, areas of the cut that you want to show off like a fringe or lengths and can refresh a much loved style. For more colour ideas or a bit more inspiration check out this great Saks colour collection http://www.saks.co.uk/hair/collections/latest/
Article by Eleanor Winkler of Saks in Exeter's Princesshay
