Hair color gives you a great opportunity to change your look without having to change your hairstyle. That is the advice I give to my clients in Singapore.
Because you can brighten up your own natural hair with subtle and natural tones whilst also deciding to cover those pesky white hairs.
For the adventurous whether young or old experimenting with bright and trendy colors is a great way to create a stand out look at me sort of image.
Artificial ways of coloring hair has actually been going on for centuries. Because we humans have always been interested in adoring and adjusting our appearance.
The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans would use henna or a mixture of plant and animal matter to change the color of their hair.
With the very wealthy in those circles using the most luxurious coloring of all gold dust.
As a hairstylist working in the Singapore salon I find that by using color on my clients hair allows for a certain versatility. Depending of course upon the application technique that is used.
Today there are many different color application techniques around and every so often a new technique will appear. Or maybe just an updated version of an old technique.
Now whether this new technique or updated old technique becomes a popular fashion trend with a high percent of the public. Does depend a lot on which high profile celebrities and social media influencers decide to color their hair in that particular way so promoting the look.
In the salon these five techniques are very popular with our clients. And no matter what new technique comes along I still feel that these will stay popular for a long time to come.
5 Hair Color Techniques That Will Probably Never Date.
Technique 1. All Over Hair Color.
The all over color will also be known as “single process” or “global color”
With this technique a single shade of color is applied over your entire hair in the form of a permanent or semi permanent color.
Permanent Hair Color – This type of color will chemically change the color of your natural hair.
A permanent color penetrates the cortex of your hair to remove your hairs natural melanin. then adds the new color pigments.
This type of artificial coloring is used for most coloring techniques that are used today.
The color once applied has to grow out as it cannot be washed away. But will tend to fade if exposed a lot to sunlight and a very frequent washing regime.
Semi-Permanent Color – Semi permanent color molecules are only deposited on the surface of your hair.
A semi permanent or temporary color is more like a paint. That is applied to the top of your hair because it will not penetrate your hair shaft.
Meaning that the colors will wash out of your hair fairly fast.
Most bright and exotic colors do fall under this category.
Demi Color – This is stronger than a semi and tends to act more like a stain on your hair.
The demi color being a little stronger than a semi will slightly penetrate your hair shaft.
Which will help you to retain the artificial color for longer than a semi permanent but not to the same extent as a permanent.
Be sure you know the difference between a demi and semi hair color.
Technique 2. Balayage Color Technique.
Balayage is really the name of a technique in applying color to your hair. The word balayage is in fact French and means to sweep or to paint.
Your stylist will paint or sweep either bleach or a hair color onto just the surface of your hair in a freehand fashion.
So as to create a soft graduation of lightness towards the ends of your hair.
A sun kissed natural look that can be achieved on all shades of hair whether light or dark.
There are a variety of application preferences and each one will create slightly different results.
The difference between balayage and highlights is that balayage starts away from your hair roots with the focus being from the mid length to the ends of your hair..
Resulting in a soft natural gradual transition from dark roots in to some lighter ends.
Technique 3. Ombre Hair Color.
The ombre color look is achieved by using the balayage technique.
So as to seamlessly achieve a blend from one color hue to another.
Colors should flow from dark to medium to light as they progress from your hair roots down to the ends of your hair.
Unfortunately ombre did get a lot of bad press at certain times. Because a lot of people who had an ombre color ended up with a solid blonde look at the bottom of their hair and in some cases still do.
This is in fact not an ombre look. Because there should be no solid lines between the shades used.
Get to know the difference between ombre and dip dye Techniques.
Technique 4. Foil High Lights.
Foil highlights are where the strands of sections of your hair are separated using a weaving technique.
The woven hair is then placed on foil and bleach or color applied so as to produce a result lighter than the rest of your hairs natural shade. In other words a highlight for your hair
Using a foil highlight technique means placement of your highlights can be wherever you or your hairstylist desire.
The weaving of your highlights can be made chunky so as to stand out. Or be baby fine so as to create a natural effect.
When using subtle fine highlights to create a natural color. Your stylist will very often use two or three different colors or tones to create an effective multi-dimensional look for your hair.
You may also have heard the term low lights used. Low lights use the same weaving technique as highlights but work in the opposite way to highlights. Because they are used to darken your hair and quite often used in combination with other coloring techniques.
Technique 5. Hair Contouring.
Hair contouring is the careful placement of color around your face using baby lights or the balayage technique.
Working on the same idea as make up contouring. Darker tones will be used to add depth to areas you want to soften. And lighter colors will be used to enhance or make areas appear brighter.
Hair contouring can work out to be a great way of disguising those first few white hairs that appear around your hairline.
The coloring of hair has been going on for centuries but today’s artificial colors offer you a far more varied range of depths and hues.
Whilst techniques used in applying color today offer you the opportunity to be as adventurous as you want. Some techniques of application may come and go with a fashion trend but the staple ones will be around for years to come.