Understanding Hair Colour Terminology. Everything You Need To Know

Have you ever walked into a salon, asked for a particular hair colour shade just to get a look you did not expect or want? Communication is the key, but while conversing with your stylist, the lingo seems to be gibberish. If you are looking for the inside scoop on salon speak, here is a detailed go-to-guide for common hair colour terms. Understanding Hair Colour Terminology. Everything You Need To Know 1. Warm and Cool In hair colour, warm colours are predominantly red, yellow and orange as opposed to cool colours being blue, green or violet. Finding the perfect balance of all three colours will give you the desired result. 2. Brassy and Warm Brassy refers to the unwanted warm tones which occur, especially when the natural hair colour is darker. It can be controlled by counteracting the warmth. Thus in simple words, its all about where the warmth is placed. 3. Toner A toner is a product added after the colour to balance out any outstanding remaining shades. Toner is generally used to control brassy tones. Its also used to add vibrancy and depth to the final shade. 4. Permanent Colour And Semi-Permanent Colour This is a product that contains a small percentage of ammonia and is mixed with varying strengths of hydrogen peroxide which alter the natural pigment of the hair tone. The colour normally lasts till your next visit. Semi Colour are products used to darken or change your hair colour to cooler or warmer shade. No ammonia is present thus it cannot lighten the colour. This product creates a very minimal change in the hairs natural pigment. 5. Level 1-10 This refers to the degree of lightness or darkness of a shade where level 1 is jet black, level 2 is platinum blonde and level 2-9 falls in between. 6. Highlight and Lowlight For all those confused about this terminology, worry no more. To put it in simple words the hair section when dyed lighter is called highlight and when dyed darker is called lowlight.