How To Match Hair Color To Skin Tone

Men can be every bit as vain about their appearance as women. One of the most common areas of concern is the hair. Sometimes, men choose to change the color of their hair to give themselves a different look.

When a man makes this decision, he needs to be aware of how to match hair color to skin tone. Failure to follow a few simple guidelines can result in a color far from what is desired or make one’s skin look washed out or sallow.

There are two basic skin types that are considered when one is trying to decide on a hair color. These are warm skin tones and cool skin tones. An interesting way to determine which type of skin one has is to look at a piece of gold jewelry and a piece of silver jewelry against the skin. If the gold looks best, one has a warm skin tone. If the silver looks best, the skin tone is cool.

Hair colors that will look good with a warm skin tone have red, red-orange, orange, or gold as their base color. Other pigments may be added to the base to produce virtually any color one can imagine, but these are the base colors that must be present for warm skinned people.

The choices for those with a cool skin type should have a blue, violet/purple, or ash color as their base. As with the warm colors, one can get shades ranging from black to white blonde.

It is important to choose a cool color for cool skin tones, however, because using a color with a warm base color will likely result in the hair taking on a green tint if it does not simply turn green.

In order to look his best, a man should choose a color with the proper base for his skin type and a shade that is 4 or less different than his natural hair color. Attempting to go more extreme than that can result in the hair and skin clashing, despite the fact that the proper type of color was used.

The key to how to match hair color to skin tone lies in determining whether one has warm skin tones or cool skin tones. Knowing this will aid in knowing what color base to choose in hair color. Choosing a warm color with cool skin or vice versa can result in the person ending up with green hair.