Learning More About Hair Color
In learning about hair and how to change and formulate indivdual color for clients you will learn many things in school. Listed below are a few things you will learn indepth, but I’m sure most of this you will already know such as alternation: Using 2 or more recuring colors, like when you get highlights and chroma which is the degree of intensity or brightness of a color. Complimentary color is when you neutralize colors that are opposite on the color wheel, such as red and green. Contrast is the relationship of 2 opposite colors.
Harmony is blending colors together, consonat harmony is the effect you get when 2 colors of the same base is combined, and disconsonat doesn’t have a combination of complimentary or opposite bases or color. I will list some other things you will need to know about. Some we may have already covered, but it never hurts to review.
- Primary colors: Are blue, red, and yellow and make up all other colors, blue being the heaviest in molecular weight then red, then yellow. You can not mix any colors to get these three. When all 3 primary colors are mixed in equal proportions the result is black.
- Secondary colors: 2 primary colors mixed in equal parts will create, violet, orange, and green.
- Tertiary colors: Equal amounts of primary and secondary colors.
- Fillers: A product that replaces missing pigment or that equalizes porosity.
- Hydrogen Peroxide: Is an oxidizing agent or developer made up of 2 parts hydrogen and 2 parts oxygen that is mixed with tints and lighteners. tints
- Level or Depth: Is the degree of lightness or darkness in a color.
- Tone: Is the warmth or coolness of a shade.
- Hue: Is the name of a color.
- Lighteners: Various types of bleaches used to remove pigment from hair.
- Line of demarcation: Visable streak caused by overlapping of 2 colors on previously tinted or lightened hair.
- Melanine: Pigment that naturally colors hair.
- Pigment: Either natural or artificial color.
- Oxidation: Chemical reaction which occurs when hydrogen peroxide is mixed with tints, lighteners and oxygen.
- Semi Permanent color: Slightly penetrates the hair shaft and last several shampoos.
- Permanent color: Changes the hair color and has to grow out instead of wash out. Tint will not lift tint. If the color is dark it will have to be bleached to remove color. Over processing is very hard on your hair.
- Porosity: Is the ability of hair to absorb moisture.
I was using light brown hair color, but I’m wanting to lighten my hair a little. So I’ve been using a mix of 1/2 light brown & 1/2 dark blonde for a few weeks. My hair has always had a little bit of a red tone to it, so now I’m using the ash colors to cancel that out some. But I don’t want my hair to develop a green tone. Am I doing the right thing?
Hi Charla,
I am assuming you are using store bought color and not professional tubes of color? Those colors have already been formulated at the factory for a specific shade and mixing any combination of store bought shades could be risky because they use different amounts of base and you never know what you will end up with.
Professionally mixed colors that we use in salons are in tubes and you have to know the exact formula to use together to achieve the resulting color. Fortunately light brown and dark blond would be close in base color according to the manufacturer so it probably hasn’t made that big of a difference.
I hope when you color your hair you only do the regrowth and not put it all over your head? If you put it on the hair that doesn’t need colored it tends to build up and will darken over a period of time and it isn’t good for the porosity of your hair because then it will start grabbing more of the red or which ever is the strongest base color you are using. So if you use too much ash color your hair could get a tinge of green.
Color is a very tricky business and actually the only way to lighten darker hair is with a bleach or lightener. Tint will not lift tint, in other words, if you decided to use a blond color on your brown hair the color will not lift. Does that make sense?
Have you considered a few highlights instead to lighten the overall effect? If you have more questions I will do my best to answer them for you.