I had more bad hair days than good over the summer, which got me to thinking about how fundamental our hair is to our overall personal style.
Luckily my hair issue was fixable with a quick dye-at-home-freshen-up, but I was intrigued by how much my sun-bleached and dry hair was bothering me. My natural colour is brown but in the sun it goes quite warm and brassy. And because the texture of my hair is naturally quite frizzy, too much sun can be a disaster. My next hair appointment was too far away for me to wait and once I’d freshened it up with a home dye kit, order was restored. And I felt good again.
why your hair is so important
You ‘wear’ your hair each and every day, so it deserves some focussed attention. When your hair works well for your colouring, your style and your lifestyle, it can have a great impact on how well your outfits work for you.
Ideally, your hair should be in a colour that flatters your skin tone, a cut that flatters your face and a style that feels true to your clothing style.
colour
I truly believe that for some women, letting their hair be natural and embracing their natural colour is the very best thing, but many others will benefit from some enhancement. Take my summer hair, for example – the colour had been bleached out and just made it so difficult for me (as a bright spring) to feel my best.
The most flattering way to colour your hair is never to stray too far from your natural colouring. Nature knows about colour harmony and however your hair naturally is will be the most flattering for your skin tone and eye colour. When you move too far away from your natural colour, you can lose that harmony. You might end up wondering why although you like the colour, it doesn’t seem to quite love you back.
Many hairdressers love to add warmth to hair. This might work well for you, but only if you have warm tones naturally. If you have cool or neutral colouring, you might find that warmth doesn’t work at all and it makes your skin appear too pale or have a slightly grey tinge. What we want is a hair colour that complements your skin tone, giving you a healthy glow.
Another common hair colour error is going too bleached blonde, when your skin tone has warm undertones. (And please know that having a tan has nothing to do with warmth or coolness when it comes to skin tone). This rarely works and again, creates this disconnect between hair and skin.
To test whether you have warm or cool undertones to your skin tone, try holding something silver and then something gold up against your make-up free face, in front of a mirror. Can you tell which one suits you better? Gold suits warm tones and silver works for cooler. And if you are neutral, you might not see either as being more flattering.
Hair style
You may know your clothing style percentages, especially if you’ve worked with me as a private client or been through one of my programmes in the past. Don’t forget that your hair is part of your style. Find a style that works with your overall look, whether edgy, classic, feminine or casual.
‘Classics’ need their hair to be neat (and easy to keep neat!).
‘Dramatics’ suit a statement hair style, whether a blunt cut, super curly, very long or super-short, (or, back to colour for a moment – a statement colour. Ideally one that also works with your skin tone!).
‘Girlies’ look fabulous with a soft, pretty hair style. A bit of length can work well.
‘Naturals’ absolutely need a casual ‘wash and go’ look. They look best with unstructured hair and a bit of a tousle!
How much time do you have?
Of course, your hair also needs to work for your lifestyle. Hairdressers do appreciate seeing a picture of what you are considering because we all use different words for the same thing. A good hairdresser will help you to understand how well suited your idea is for your hair texture. They’ll explain how you’d need to style it and for some, daily straightening or curling is not going to be worth it.
Know yourself, do you enjoy spending time getting ready each morning or does your hair need to be low maintenance? If so, get your hairdressers ideas on what could work better for you.
I hope that has been helpful, particularly if you’ve been considering a bit of a change for autumn. Let me know what works for your hair by leaving a comment below.
