General Hair Coloring Options

When thinking about having your hair colored in a salon, you have many many options to choose from. I am going to talk a little bit about some of them briefly, as sort of an introduction to the subject in general.

• Highlights: Strands of hair are colored lighter than the rest of your hair, to try to emulate the natural look of youth and the “sunkissed” look. This is good for those of you who like subtlety and don’t necessarily want the world to know that you color your hair - although they don’t have to be subtle at all. Highlights are also excellent for blending gray hair without necessarily unnaturally coloring right over it, and for a transition between all over color and trying to grow your hair out.
• Lowlights: Just like highlights, except they are darker than your hair color. Beautiful combined with highlights for a “multidimensional” look (sounds like a commercial, I know). Also very pretty for adding dimension to lighter hair colors, or color that has been overcolored or sunbleached. You can get 2 or 3 different colors put in your hair this way at the same time, which really can be beautiful.
• All Over Color: Useful when you just flat out want a different hair color, or for dirty blonde hair that is just all over too dark. Also great for covering gray in darker hair. This is the easiest option for home coloring jobs.
• Bleaching: Used to “lift” darker hair shades that are too dark to get to the color you are looking for. Regular hair color can only lighten your hair a few shades. Bleach can take a black haired person and make them blonde. Of course, there is a price to pay.
• Semi Permanent Color: This option is absolutely gorgeous for adding a different tone to dark hair, and is often used to remove brassiness (too much red) or ash (greenish tint) from blonde hair. Semi Permanent color will last about 6 weeks on most people, and covers gray hair pretty well.
• Temporary Color (Rinse): Washes away with every shampoo. Sometimes people will use this if they do not wash their hair on a daily basis. I don’t think this is a very popular choice anymore because it can be a real mess and there are much better options available these days.

I have gobs more to say about each one of the types of hair color above, so be sure and watch for it!

One of the readers of eBeautyDaily has begun a quite hilarious blog about bad celebrity hair that is well worth checking out: Bad Hair Days. Very funny stuff!