Hair Color Ideas for African Americans

Hair color is a fabulous way of styling your hair. There are a lot of hair color ideas which can give your hair a beautiful shade. Many African-American women style their hair by straitening them or curling them. This is a way of styling hair with the help of chemicals. Therefore, when they use a hair color, they are trying one more chemical on their hair. This is the reason, hair coloring must be done with very safe hair color. African-American women rely on hair color to show off the bold new look and style of their hair. Here are some of the hair color ideas for African-Americans.

Hair Colors for African-Americans

African-American women have naturally dry hair. Moreover, many African-American women style their hair with many chemicals. Therefore, due care must be taken while using hair color. This avoids damage to hair.

There are various types of hair colors, available in different shades. There are color rinses, with which you have to wash your hair. This can be done at home and there is no need to visit the salon every time you need a stylish hair color. Moreover, these hair color rinses are ammonia free which provide less damage to your hair.

In addition, many temporary hair colors are available. These are especially good for trial and error, specifically if you haven't decided the hair color you want to go for. Temporary hair colors remain on the hair until you shampoo your hair. Once you chose the best hair color, you can go in for permanent hair color. However, it is best to go to a salon to apply permanent hair colors; better get it done from a professional than experiment on your own, for the fact that it is going to stay! Permanent hair colors require frequent touch ups after a few weeks. There are semi-permanent hair colors also. They are same as that of the color rinses, however, with a slight difference of the time for which it lasts.

Tips to Choose Hair Color

The hair color you eventually settle down for should complement two important features -

• Your skin tone
• Your eye color

Also, the color you choose should be visible, against the natural color of your hair (especially in case of highlights). The natural color of African-American hair is black, with a few exceptions. The exact length of your hair can also at times affect the choice of hair color you make, especially if you are going to streak your hair instead of going in for global coloring.

Copper is a shade which suits most African-American women. Copper highlights can be a 'safe' way to experiment if you are not sure about whether you will be able to pull off highlights. Global coloring with copper color also looks nice on African-American women. Other shade in the same spectrum include red, brown and burgandy. If you have black hair and brown eyes, these hair colors will look exceptionally nice and will be a subtle and classy way to add color to your hair. One great idea will be to simply color the tips or ends of your hair red or burgandy - especially if you have hair that falls a little below your shoulders.

Blonde highlights go well with brown or even black hair. However, be careful while choosing the particular shade of blonde - some may look too spectacular to look good! Blonde highlights look fab on short hair, but that is just an opinion. A good idea would be to use blonde hair color in combination with some other hair color - like brown. If done with proper care, this will add great dimension to your hair, as you will be able to apply highlights as well as lowlights. Blonde highlights will look really great with morena skin!

Finally, African-American women with olive skin tone can go for ash blonde or ash brown hair color.

African-American Hair Care

Before applying any hair color, you have to first check the texture of your hair. The texture of African-American hair is coarse and kinked. Mostly, the texture of the African-American women is porous, due to which, the moisture is not retained and easily passes away from the cuticle. All these factors lead to a conclusion that African-American hair need a lot of hair care to stay healthy. This is the reason that many of the hair experts recommend to avoid hair color for African-American women. There are some African-American hair care tips which will help you keep your hair healthy for a longer period.

So that was all about hair color options and ideas for African-American women. If you are still unsure about which color will suit you the best, try to look for pictures of African-American women who have colored their hair. You can take a look at personalities like Rihanna, Oprah Winfrey, Kelly Rowland, Beyonce Knowles and the likes to get an idea. But remember to take good care of your hair, along with all the styling.