Hair colour for men. How to do it right.

I thought it would be appropriate to follow up my last blog about hairstyles for men with a blog about hair colouring for men. Many men tend to shy away from colouring their hair, but colouring/highlighting can be great for blending away gray or enhancing your haircut. The best looking colours for men are the colours that look like they could be natural, so you want to stay away from anything too bright, or too different from your natural hair colour.

Blonde Hair

My personal opinion is that all lighter hair (every shade from light blonde to dark blonde or light brown, and every length) looks better when you add some highlights. To get a natural look you want thin evenly spaced highlights that are 2 or 3 shades lighter than your natural hair colour. The idea is to recreate the colour your hair turns after being in the sun, so it's ok to go a little lighter on the top of your head where the sun would naturally hit it.

Red Hair

Lighter more ginger coloured red heads also look great with highlights. By adding some blonde highlights to ginger hair you'll get an overall effect of a warm golden blonde. Those few men and women who have that true red hair colour usually look best keeping their natural colour at least until it starts tuning gray.

Dark Hair

For dark haired men (ranging from medium brown to black) it really depends on the hairstyle. Shorter haircuts generally look better left natural, or sometimes coloured darker. Short dark hair won't naturally lighten much in the sun, so lightening it looks unnatural, but for longer styles adding subtle highlights, staying within about 2 shades of your natural hair colour, will look fairly natural, and it will give depth and texture to the style.

Gray Hair

If your hair is under 40% gray, and you want to cover the gray, then doing an all over colour that is close to your natural hair colour is the best option. I would recommend using a semi-permanent colour that is one shade lighter than your natural hair, but in an ash tone (rather than a natural tone). Over time all colours will become warmer, so using an ash toned colour will help prevent your hair from turning red/orange. Using a semi-permanent colour will help prevent getting a root line, and using a slightly lighter colour will blend the gray in better and look more natural. If you have more than 40% gray then doing an all over colour will give you an obvious root line, even if you use a semi-permanent colour. At this stage I would suggest either letting it go natural, highlighting or lowlighting. If you natural colour is blonde, light brown or red then adding highlights will blend the gray into your hair and give you a blonde look overall. If your natural colour is medium brown to black then adding lowlights will give you an overall salt and pepper look (but more pepper than your current colour). When low-lighting your hair you want to use either black or dark ash brown.

Feel free to email me at emily@emilyroop.com if you have any specific questions regarding colour, or if you are thinking of colouring your hair for the first time and need some professional advice.