Who Can go Blonde?

There is a delusion out there that blonde hair will make you look younger. Not so! From my own experience, blonde doesn’t always make you look younger; some times, it will simply make you look washed out!
So, who can go blonde and get away with it?
If you have cool skin tone and blue eyes, like Cameron Diaz, you can get away with any kind of light, sandy, beachy, ashy blonde and look faulous. Me, however, with my pale, warm skin, would look like I was wearing a wig if I dyed my hair in any of those colors! The other type of skin that looks good in blonde hair is tan skin. Think California beach girls. The golder and lighter, the better. Blonde hair looks really great on tan skin, especially if you have kind of darkish eye brows and lashes. But, the rest of us pale faces have to look to different colors.

Another skin type that can get away with some kind of blondish hair is the pale, cool, reddish skin tones. This skin is often a bit sensitive or irritable with naturally rosy cheeks. This kind of rosiness can be toned down with the right kind of blonde – not too ashy, not too light, better to use a honey/caramel kind of rich blonde. Honey blonde is yellow enough to tone down the pink, as long as it isn’t too light.

A friend of mine has gray hair. She used to have very dark brown hair and dark eye brows, and cool skin. Because she has so much contrast between her eyebrows and her skin tone, she doesn’t look washed out even with white and gray hair. She can use bright purples and jewel tones in her clothing and look fantastic because the contrast makes it unnessesary to warm up her skin tone. So, she can actually just allow her hair to go white, and as long as she darkens her eyebrows, she’ll look fantastic!

Another friend of mine, who also has gray hair, looks very pale and washed out with it. Her skin is so cool, almost pinky/blue, and her eyebrows not as dark as my other friend’s eyebrows. She could benefit from either darkening her eyebrows, or warming up her skin tone by dying her hair. Naturally, I think she was a medium brown, and I bet she would look gorgeous with medium golden brown hair that would contrast with, and warm up, her skin tone. It would probably take years off her face! So, when it comes to whether to keep your hair gray, or not, it really comes down to how much contrast there is between your skin and your eyebrows. The less contrast, the more you need to adjust your hair color.

Then, there is the people with warm skin tone, like me. I’m pale, warm and freckled with blue eyes. (If you wonder what your undertone is, just look in your wardrobe. Do you have more blue/green stuff, or more red/orange stuff? There you go, your closet always tells the truth…)
I finally figured out why my naturally blonde hair stopped working for me when I got to menopause – it became darker, and ashier, with basically sucked the warmth out of my face and made it look sickly and yellow drab. I just couldn’t figure it out, until I understood that my hair had lost all its warmth, and that is why it no longer complemented my skin color. I needed warmth, and I needed contrast, so I went for a warm chestnut brown. And, oh, what a difference!!!

Yesterday, I went shopping and found that I could wear muted colors, pastels and darks. The only thing I still have to stay away from is bright colors and yellow/gold, which instantly sucks the color out of my face again. I could even wear peach, without looking washed out!!! I haven’t been able to wear that color since I was a teenager!!!

So, basically, if you look good in very few clothing colors, your hair color is wrong. With the right hair color, you can wear a much wider range of colors, because you no longer get washed out so easily.

Spring time is all about getting rid of the old and bringing in the new, so make it a new beginning for yourself this spring. Get a new haircut, a more complementary hair color, or some nice, new makeup, and have fun with change…

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 11:01 am and is filed under Beauty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.