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Ready to get a little crazy with your hair? Fun colors can make a huge difference in your look and your attitude -- as long as you know what you're doing. Sure, you can follow the instructions on your hair dye kit, but there are a few tips that keep your tresses bright and healthy that don't show up in the directions. Follow these dos and don'ts for awesome, fun hair coloring.
Do: Consider Your Commitment
When you dye your hair an extra-fun color -- blue, green, purple, whatever your favorite is -- you're in it for the long haul. Alternative hair colors don't show up if you just lay them on top of the hair color you have now. You have to strip out the existing color to get the fun color to show. This means one thing: bleach. Once you bleach your hair, there's no going back. Make sure you mean it.
Do: Condition
Fun, bright colors require a double process. The first step is stripping out the color you have and the second step is adding your new color. This is a lot of stress on your hair. Don't wait too long to color after you bleach, but seriously condition your hair between processes, and then again after you add the fun, new color. The coolest colors in the world lose their mojo if your hair is broken and feels like straw.
Do: Match Your Skin Tone
Your skin tone matters when you pick normal hair colors or clothes or makeup -- it matters just as much, if not more, when you're adding a bold shade to your head. Look at your wrist. If you have bluish veins, you have cool undertones. If you have greenish veins, you have warm undertones. Cool girls look good in blue, pink, purple, silver and maroon. Warm women work yellow, orange, coral, green, gold and bright red.
Don't: Triple Process
It's easy to get lost in the fun of reinventing your hair, but your tresses can only take so much stress. If you're coloring with fun, bright dyes, you can't avoid the double process. It's enough for now. Leave any perming or relaxing for another time. There is nothing fun or sexy about rinsing out your dye, expecting a zany, cool color, and instead having your hair break off in chunks or come out in clumps.
Don't: Apply Heat
Heat makes your hair color work into the strands faster, but it fast forwards everything about the process, too. Fun color additions are already a little bit of a style risk, even for ladies who are used to pushing boundaries or have a lot of experience with color. Don't put yourself in the position of living with hyper-color when you expected the color you picked out in the first place. Unfortunately, heating hair while coloring it is also really bad for the shaft. It damages its integrity by expanding it too much.
