The Color Wheel and Hair Color... Identifying your Natural LEVEL is the first step in understanding PROFESSIONAL HAIR COLOR for the Home Hair Colorist.
The next most valuable tool is the Color Wheel, remember the color wheel from elementary school? That probably sounds odd, let me simplify it.
Its important to have a general understanding of how colors work together, you may already know but let me review and how it relates to Hair Color. Remember I am trying to help you learn to Color your hair correctly at home and that's it! If you can understand the color wheel.... when you have colored your hair blond and it has this weird cast of green to it ??? knowing the color wheel well -will help you understand how it got there and more importantly how to get rid of it. I still to this day will glance at it - I love color, but looking at the wheel can settle many questions with hair.
The LAW OF COLOR is a system for understanding color relationships. When combining colors, you will always get the same result from the same combination. Equal parts of Red and Blue together always make violet. The Color Wheels on this page should help you understand the relationships.
PRIMARY COLORS: are pure fundamental colors that cannot be achieved from a mixture. The primary colors are blue,red and yellow. All colors are created from these colors. Colors predominantly blue are "cool" toned colors...many hair colors are referred to as Cool - Icy ...which usually means have a 'blue base' or 'blue cast' to them. Colors with a predominance of red are "warm" toned colors ... on the flip side many hair colors are also referred to as "warm" in hair color meaning they have red base.
Its important to have a general understanding of how colors work together, you may already know but let me review and how it relates to Hair Color. Remember I am trying to help you learn to Color your hair correctly at home and that's it! If you can understand the color wheel.... when you have colored your hair blond and it has this weird cast of green to it ??? knowing the color wheel well -will help you understand how it got there and more importantly how to get rid of it. I still to this day will glance at it - I love color, but looking at the wheel can settle many questions with hair.
The LAW OF COLOR is a system for understanding color relationships. When combining colors, you will always get the same result from the same combination. Equal parts of Red and Blue together always make violet. The Color Wheels on this page should help you understand the relationships.
PRIMARY COLORS: are pure fundamental colors that cannot be achieved from a mixture. The primary colors are blue,red and yellow. All colors are created from these colors. Colors predominantly blue are "cool" toned colors...many hair colors are referred to as Cool - Icy ...which usually means have a 'blue base' or 'blue cast' to them. Colors with a predominance of red are "warm" toned colors ... on the flip side many hair colors are also referred to as "warm" in hair color meaning they have red base.
Blue is the darkest of the primary colors and is the only cool primary color. In addition to coolness, blue also brings depth or darkness to any color to which it is added.
Become An Educated Crib Colorist
It is completely necessary to understand COLOR THEORY in order to become a decent Crib Colorist.
First we have Primary hair Colors which are Red, Blue & Yellow. From Red-Blue-& Yellow we can make EVERY SINGLE COLOR on earth! Think about that. So that means that every hair color that exists, is made up of different variations of Red-Blue & Yellow . . .in varying amounts of each color. Therefore when you take away or add opposing colors it fixes or creates your desired hair color.
Take a few minutes and begin hearing some facts about color theory. Let them absorb and we will talk about the subject again.
Red is the medium primary color. Red added to blue-based colors will cause them to appear lighter. Red added to yellow colors will cause them to become darker.
Yellow is the lightest of the primary colors. When you add yellow to other colors, the resulting color is lighter and brighter in appearance.
When all 3 colors are present in equal proportions, the resulting color is BLACK! It helps to think of hair colors in terms of their relative proportions of primary colors. NEUTRAL BROWN, for example, has the primary colors in the following proportions: blue --- B, red --- RR, yellow---YYY.
hang in there . . . don't want to put anyone to sleep..........
Secondary Colors: a color obtained by mixing equal parts of two primary colors...secondary colors are: green, orange and violet .
Blue + Yellow = Green
Red + Yellow = Orange
Red + Blue = Violet
Tertiary Colors is an intermediate color achieved by mixing a secondary color and its neighboring primary color on the color wheel in equal amounts. Tertiary colors include blue-green, blue-violet,red-violet,red-orange,yellow-orange, and yellow-green. Natural looking hair color is made up of a combination of primary and secondary colors.
Last one! and this is the one that saves your butt every time!
my fav...
Complementary Colors are a primary and secondary colors positioned opposite each other on the color wheel. The colors of the BLOGGER website are complementary and many logos and insignias because they "pop". Complementary colors include:
blue........and orange
red..........and green
yellow ....and violet
This where they come in handy...
Complementary colors NEUTRALIZE each other . When formulating hair color, you will find that it is often your goal to emphasize or distract from skin tones or eye color or to NEUTRALIZE or refine unwanted tones in the hair.
Understanding complementary colors will help you choose the appropriate tones to accomplish that goal.
Complementary colors NEUTRALIZE each other . When formulating hair color, you will find that it is often your goal to emphasize or distract from skin tones or eye color or to NEUTRALIZE or refine unwanted tones in the hair.
Understanding complementary colors will help you choose the appropriate tones to accomplish that goal.
A very common problem, so that you can "picture" this in your mind.... which should help you understand it.
Ever seen a bleached blond who didn't leave the bleach on long enough??? and its this horrid shade of YELLOW , its a very common problem. If you take that head of hair and purchase what is called a "toner" I have always used the analogy of a "NYLON" to my clients . When you shove your arm into a pair of nylons you can still see your arm it just has a "see-thru" cast to it....? correct?? the cast is whatever color "nylon" you chose.
Same with Toners, you can "see" thru them.
So with the very YELLOW bleached blond hair....
WHICH color toner would you track down?
To NEUTRALIZE the YELLOW . . . . . .??? ? ? ?
Look at the color wheel.......................
which color NEUTRALIZES --Yellow ................follow the color wheel ............where??............opposite side.............
Violet.
Violet based Toner.
A COOL BASED VIOLET toner,will knock that yellow out of the ball park! So NO MORE BRASS! ! !
Fun and Games
The missing primary color in this game is what you would use to neutralize the unwanted tone.
Find the color to neutralize the following:
Orange ?
Green ?
Violet ?
Really spend time trying to learn Color Theory . . .one day, I promise it will just click, as I have watched all my assistants learn over the years.
Really spend time trying to learn Color Theory . . .one day, I promise it will just click, as I have watched all my assistants learn over the years.
Posts
You're awesome!!! I think I understand how color works a bit better. One question though, how do you know if a toner has blue or violet undertone ? I've see that toners only say for ex: T-14 or something like that. Please help ?
ReplyDeleteit should say u must be looking at like wella colors cuz most of the brands of color have a simpler way of knowing in just the color name like for ex. like 4rv meaning its a level 4 of color with a red violet base. or if u see like a 6n means its a level 6 neutral and in neutral theres all 3 primary colors in it.
DeleteHello! I recently had my hair colored at a local salon by a new stylist. She has been doing hair for a year or two. Prior to me getting my hair done with this stylist *I will call her B* , I had gone to my regular stylist probably 4 months ago who colored the top portion of my hair a 4N and it faded to a golden blonde/Orange *level 7 I want to say?*
ReplyDeleteWell I went to stylist B who decided on mixing bleach with shampoo and leaving it on my head for maybe 20 minutes. The result was a brownish, orange color over my entire head. I wanted to have her color it all one color, 4RV. She applied the color that I wanted..and in the end it came out a whole lot lighter than I had wanted it. It is basically the color of a natural red head.
I have now washed the hair twice and the color has pretty much left the hair on the bottom portion. I now am going to use the Pravana - violet color .. I am first going to use the shampoo train method you have previously talked about. How long will I have to do this approx. to achieve a level 7 (Pravana website says that I will need this level in my hair in order for the violet to come through)?
OK, I should never have talked about a bleach Bath. EVER
ReplyDeleteThat Stylist did one in the 100% absolute INCORRECT method. A bleach bath is to be used for very specific reasons, you damage hair permanently by applying one for that long. Using one should NEVER be left on the hair for longer than 2-3 MINUTES.
NEVER EVER AS LONG AS SHE DID.
The health of your hair will be comprimised, the damage will go downhill and it will all happen over a course of time.
Its what is referred to as :"Delayed Damage" .......it doesn't happen right away so you can't figure out how it happened. So, in abnout 3-4 weeks your hair is going to begin feeling like straw I'm afraid, unless you have hair made of steel...
YOU NEVER EVER LEAVE A BLEACH BATH ON THE HAIR FOR LONGER THAN 2 minutes, there is another question today asking why you can't leave it on a long time.
If you have to ask that question you should NEVER FRICKIN' DO ONE.
Any longer than 2 minutes and you will damage your hair permanently until IT GROWS OUT ! ! ! !
The hair will not take color correctly, and you will be fighting many damaging problems until it grows out.
Doing it for 20 minutes I feel very very sorry for you and I am very sorry that has happened to you. NEVER EVER LET ANYONE DO THAT TO YOU AGAIN FOR ANY REASON.
Always use the shampoo Train or VANISH, NOTHING ELSE - - EVER ! ! !
The train will work but I highly recommend you do not use Pravana after that.
It will soak up the color like a sponge now ( so too much) and it will have to be cut out I would be very concerned. I'm sorry if I sound overboard but I have to out here because 6,000 people every day read this Blog and I need to watch out for all those people's hair.
I feel very responsible for every single one of those people's hair.
KC