Coloring gray hair is a bit of a potential minefield.
Hair color is one of the quickest and easiest way to make yourself look younger – but making the right choice of color is the key to a successful anti aging look.
Get it wrong and you can end up looking years older – nothing is more aging than hair color that clashes with your skin tone.
But a great hair color job can add warmth and radiance to your looks and give your confidence a turbo charged boost.
If you’re using a hair coloring kit at home the choice of color becomes even more difficult without the advice of a professional stylist.
So – before you grab the hair color that looks ‘about right for me’ – stop and take some time out to think about what you really need.
Here’s five tips for coloring gray hair to help you get the look that’s right for you
1. Don’t go far from base
You need to stick with your natural base color or something close to it. That means your natural “base” hair color as it is now – not what it was like in your 20’s or teens.
2. Don’t go too blonde
Going too blonde too quickly means you could just look too pale all over. Coloring gray hair blonde is a good way to go since the results will blend out the gray gently and give you a subtle look.
Remember though to make the blonde work with your natural skin tone. Your hair needs to frame your face and give a subtle contrast to your skin. Add some soft low lights to the overall color to give depth and tone.
Generally – yellow blonde is less flattering than silver blonde for mature skin and adding silvery blonde lights helps you blend in the gray more easily.
3. Don’t go too dark
Avoid very dark if you are light skinned. If your natural color is brown stick in the mid browns and add low lights and highlights to give contrast and depth. Touches of caramel and honey can look lovely on mid brown hair and avoid dullness.
4. Lighten deep brown or black hair
Stay up to three tones away from the original color (however dark you were originally) with additional highlights for a more realistic less flat look.
Don’t go any darker than a deep chocolate brown or dark auburn. Hair color that’s too dark is an unnatural contrast with mature skin and can look a bit witch like.
5. Take care with red
Covering up gray with red is very hard to do well since red emphasizes any ruddiness in your complexion. If you are naturally pale and fine skinned like Susan Sarandon – a natural redhead anyway – then you may be an exception.
Natual redheads can deepen color to rich red brown or light auburn rather than to go more red. Or a lighter blonde red can look good too. The look to avoid is a startling red or mahogany purple red – not flattering for most older skin. Remember what you got away with in your younger years will pile on the years now.
Overall – the important message is to keep your hair color natural and subtle and use lights to lift the color – the end result will give you a much younger look and make you feel great.
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