The blonde palette runs so wide that settling on one variant is genuinely hard, and guessing your own is harder still. Working it out alone is close to impossible. The smarter move is to sit down with an experienced colorist and search for the color together, the one your whole look finally clicks into. Below are the markers that show whether warm or cool shades of blonde belong to you.
How to choose a blonde hair color for yourself
The hair shade is chosen according to the colour type of the appearance. This is a The starting point is your color type, and that is where most people stumble. Three parameters go into it at once: your natural hair color, the tone of your skin, the color of your eyes. Color types split into warm and cool, and the shades split with them, by undertone. Here is what works best:
- spring — a warm type, suited by caramel, honey, golden, wheat, champagne blonde and strawberry with a pink undertone;
- summer — a cool type, flattered by pearl, platinum, light linen, caramel and ash blonde;
- autumn — a warm type, matched with bronze, copper, golden and strawberry blonde;
- winter — a cool type, suited by silver, white, platinum, ash and cool beige blonde.
Pinning down your color type at home is realistic: take fabrics in various colors and hold them against your face in front of a mirror, in daylight. Still, voicing your wishes to a colorist and hunting the perfect shade in pairs is the safer route — often it is precisely that conversation that overturns everything you assumed about hair coloring and the color you wanted.
What it takes to go blonde
Anyone light or naturally fair-haired gets to the light side quickly. Brunettes and darker bases should brace for several rounds of lightening and a good stock of patience. Which route the colorist proposes — lightening, or bleaching with toning afterwards — comes down to where your base sits.
Lightening or bleaching: where the difference lies
Lightening works on natural hair and lifts it a few tones. Bleaching is an intermediate step for hair both natural and dyed: it strips the pigment entirely. Toning follows, meaning dyeing into the tone you actually want.
Who is better off skipping blonde
If a dramatic change unsettles you, or hair care is something you have no time for, another coloring makes more sense. Trying blonde on without commitment is possible through lightening a few strands, ombre, balayage and similar techniques. Factor in the spending too: care products will cost more than before — on killing yellow, holding the color and rebuilding the structure.
Why blonde turns yellow and how to hold the shade
Hair carries three pigments — blue, red, yellow — and together they read as brown. Sun, water and harsh ingredients in shampoos and styling products break them down. Under bleaching the blue and the red go first. Yellow lasts longest, which is why its remains surface over time, the moment dye pigment washes away.
Getting the yellow out of blonde
Use special anti-yellowness products — professional shampoos for light coloured hair. They contain The tools here are neutralizers: professional shampoos made for light color-treated hair. Each carries a pigment that kills the unwanted tone:
- purple — against yellow;
- blue — against orange and red tones;
- ash and silver — all-purpose, they strip surplus warmth and hold a cool blonde.
The best-seller is purple shampoo, and it has one flaw: hair dries out noticeably. So a moisturizing conditioner belongs in the routine after washing, plus a mask two or three times a week. Add heat protection before drying and styling, and use the neutralizing shampoo strictly by the manufacturer’s instructions — overdo it and the shade slides into grey.
To land the blonde you have been picturing, come to the colorists at PIED-DE-POULE. They will match the shade to your appearance and explain how to keep it. Current prices and booking are on the site.
