Hair Color Tips at Home: Perfect Hair Color Advice

Getting your hair color right isn’t a science. It’s actually quite simple: Stick to colors that compliment your skin tone, figure out if you’re better off with single process color or highlights, and then decide if you’re going to pay someone else to do it or do it yourself.

If you’ve recently started experimenting with at home color or are thinking about making the switch (in the name of saving cash), use these tips as your guide. With this expert help you can get salon quality results in the comfort of your bathroom. So go ahead and cheat on your colorist with yourself, you and your wallet will be happy you did. Here are 10 hair color tricks from how to avoid the wrong color to how to do it yourself.

Hair Color: 10 Useful Tips

1. Select a hair color shade. If this is the first time to color hair at home, do not choose to drastically lighten the hair. Choose a hair color that is a different shade but the same basic color for best results.
2. Do not  shampoo your hair on the day you plan to color it. The best bet is to use a clarifying shampoo the day before you plan to color your hair, to remove excess product and shampoo build up. However, shampooing your
   hair on the day you color it will make your hair too soft and slick, and the color may not absorb as evenly.
3. Apply hair coloring treatment to you dry hair. Be sure to blow your hair dry or air dry your hair completely before you apply color of any type. As far as I know, there are no hair coloring kits on the market that are applied to wet hair, because this makes it more difficult for the hair coloring product to absorb into the hair shaft.
4. At home hair coloring kits will strip any remaining residue and dirt from hair once rinsed, so there is no need to wash the hair immediately after coloring. Doing so could diminish the shine or brilliance of the color.
5. Before applying the hair color, be sure to protect anything that may stain. Best bet is to use a smock or specific towel each time hair is colored and wash immediately afterward. Be careful not to sit on furniture or touch anything with the hair color product or hair while the color is processing. Lemon juice and astringent skin toners will remove any stains from skin, while bleach will generally remove stains from surfaces that can be bleached. Adding a thin strip of petroleum jelly around the neck and hair line prior to hair color application can help prevent skin stains. Gloves can protect hands from hair coloring stains.
6. Hair coloring stains not only your hair, but clothes, furniture, and most of all, skin. If you are coloring your hair at home, you can place a thin layer of petroleum jelly around the hair line where your hair meets your skin. This will help keep the coloring from bleeding into the skin or staining your face, ears, and neck.
7. If you do manage to get hair coloring on your skin, lemon juice or Seabreeze Skin Toner when applied immediately upon noticing the skin stain will help remove the stain or greatly lighten it if the stain is older. Some websites have also indicated white toothpaste scrubbed on the skin stain will remove the color as well. Bleach can usually remove hair coloring stains from most other surfaces once the color has dried.
8. Do not recolor hair for at least two weeks, even if the color is not as expected, because doing so can damage the hair.
9. Use a color safe shampoo or a shampoo designed specifically for helping colored hair maintain its luster and color.
10. Whenever possible, allow hair to air dry. Heating and styling products can dry out and damage hair as well as dully or lighten colored hair, making re -coloring more frequent.

Advice:

• Always color your hair, when they are fully dry because color of damp and wet hair may get diluted later.
• If your current hair color is darker than the next shade chosen, use a color remover to completely lose the old tint. However, they are effective on only artificial colors and not natural hair color.
• If you go out in the sun or swim regularly, your hair color may wear off quickly. To avoid this, condition your hair regularly to negate the effects of summer heat and water.