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Hair Color Wheel- How Well Do You Know it?
The hair color wheel creates a lot of confusion amongst people who are not very much into beauty trends. While you might not consider looking at the hair color wheel as you choose the specific hair color, you must have an understanding of how the hair color wheel works so that it helps you maintain fresh-looking hair color.
Luckily, it is not as hard as you think to master the hair color wheel. Just know that understanding the hair color wheel is going to help you have a more realistic expectation of what to expect from the hair color after you walk out of the salon.
Thes best colorist all over the globe would not try to color your hair without consulting the hair color wheel and how color mixing works. Here’s all you need to know about the hair color wheel and the steps to understand it.
Steps to understand the hair color wheel
Step 1 – The science of light
If you are simply a beginner and starting your hair color journey with excitement, the first step is to dig deeper into your memory and recall the days when you were in primary school and your science textbook had so much to understand on colors.
If you were among the first benchers and concentrated back then, you might remember that light travels in a straight line. When it strikes an object, it is then reflected off, and when this reflex light falls into your eyes.
We see different objects from the color wavelength. All the colors have different wavelengths. When white light hits the object, all different color wavelengths are received except the object’s color. This color is reflexed off the object.
Step 2- Primary colors
Now you know how light falls and how you see objects, but what about the colors? The hair color wheel has 3 primary colors, these are red, blue, and yellow.
It is estimated that our eyes can differentiate between 10 million in the visible region spectrum.
Step 3- The hair color wheel and hair color theory
So, how do the colors relate to the color wheel and the theory present behind the hair colors? Well, the hair color wheel is an easy tool that provides you with an organized way to understand the theory of colors and put the theory into practice when you are deciding a color for yourself or formulating colors for the clients.
When you are working with a hair color wheel to add to the tool kit, you should look for a hair color wheel that has all the components given below:
- Cool colors
- warm colors
- complementary colors
- tertiary colors
- secondary colors
- primary colors
It is also recommended that you add letters or numbers of the tones to the color wheel. This makes it easy to formulate the colors. You can personalize the color wheel in the way you desire.
Step 4- Using the hair color wheel to neutralize unwanted tones
Suppose a customer walks to your salon following a huge color mishap at a different salon. Let’s assume the client’s blonde hair has turned into now canary yellow hue. Practicing your hair analyzing crafts and hair color wheel, you may recognize that the client is an intensity and tone of 10/3. Whereas their target hue is a 10/0.
Connecting your hair color wheel with the knowledge you possess of the theory of corresponding colors (opposite and distinctive colors compensate each other), you can immediately recognize that violet shade may kill that wicked canary yellow hue due to mishap!
You mix up a toner with the right shades (violet along with a color house) and implement it to the client’s hair, after the producer’s instructions. Bright days, the client is now having the blonde shade she had always expected to be in the first place.
The theory of complementary colors will help you a lot in fixing a variety of mishaps the client goes through.
Step 5- using the hair color wheel to formulate with the color harmony
And it is not just helping others and fixing others’ issues that your hair color wheel is going to help you with. Colour harmony is forming colors that operate harmoniously to your eye. In other words, it refers to colors that cooperate well concurrently and will improve your client’s haircut as well as your client’s eye color and skin tone. With so many perks, you’d have a lot of clients waiting in cue to get the work done.
The theory of corresponding colors may also be applied to create color harmony. Assume that the client wants to intensify their beautiful blue eyes. You start seeing the hair color wheel and you have your answers. See the color complementary to the blue color- it is orange – and recommend that the client can formulate a beautiful copper color to intensify those sparkling blue eyes.
Step 6- Follow the wheel in all circumstances
Combining the hair color wheel into every client discussion and color formulation is not just highly inspiring for you and the clients that love visiting you but it is also an astonishingly satisfying component of your job as an ideal hair colorist.
The basics of hair color wheel- Some Additional Information.
The initial shade in the hair color wheel that you always see when you first raise the hair using bleach is known as the undertone. This generally comes into play when you either lighten or bleach your hair, i.e. when you elevate your dark brown hair, you will notice its undertone, this is mostly color of red.
From there, this color keeps lightening initially to orange, and then it becomes yellow. Then you may take the hair to a distinctive shade of blonde.
Your hair is only going up the utmost 4 levels for each round to bleach your hair, and you will be causing damage to the hair throughout this process. Establish yourself up with practical expectations for how clear or light you can secure your hair while still keeping the sincerity of the locks.
This is where your hair color wheel is needed or it comes into play. You may neutralize several tones by reaching across the hair color wheel to see what neutralizes that color. Examining the hair strands depending on that hair color wheel and discovering the right hues of toner will assist you with balancing out those nasty colors and help you reach the hair color of your daydreams.
Obtaining and managing a new color may work. Include a colored shampoo into the regular hair care or washing routine to even out some of the hair fades and keep the color intact.
But, what colors do we chose to maintain or preserve the hair color of our dreams? If you cannot figure it out, here’s what you can do.
- To keep the yellow hue out of your hair, you may use a purple conditioner and shampoo. Purple is far from yellow on the hair color wheel, which makes it a great neutralizer for blonde.
- To keep orange tones off your hair, using a blue shampoo will work just fine. This is because blue is located across orange on the wheel and it helps keep your orange hair brass-free and orange-hued.
- To keep red tones, using green shampoo works well. Try to keep the red out of the fiery zone using a green shampoo.
It is highly important to hydrate your hair strands that have gone through chemical processes. Try to use a deep conditioner that helps nourish your hair.
Analogous colors on the hair color wheel
Analogous colors are the colors located side by side on the hair color wheel. Based on the intensity of the color wheel in interrogation, you might be looking at analyzing a primary color (red, blue, and yellow) with its adjacent secondary color, or watching very definite shades as you reach the fourth or fifth-generation color mixtures.
Analogous colors are usually harmonious and can be addressed differently by the delicacy or darkness of the hue. Matched in comparison circumstances, analogous pairs correlate well when blended. In mixing analogous colors you may try using a comparable color to enhance the shade of your hair’s existing shade.
Knowing the hair color wheel is essential for any colorist, but it is also meaningful for you to gain some understanding, so you can manage your color after you get your hair dyed. Now that you know all the basics, you will be able to manage your hair color and keep it fresh and lively for longer!
If you are interested in getting a hair makeover, here are some amazing ideas that you may want to try out.
