The right color highlights can accentuate eyes, complement skin tone, and impart a sun-kissed luster to dull locks. Here, top colorists Erin Bogart of Sally Hershberger Downtown New York and Stuart Gavert, co-owner of Gavert Atelier in Beverly Hills, reveal their summer hair color tips.
Hair Color Trend for Brunettes: Surfer Strands
Hollywood brunettes Alexa Chung (shown at right) and Rachel Bilson have been sporting dark roots with lightened pieces around the face—a "surfer" look that Bogart says is trendy for summer.
"Surfers have the best natural highlights—there's no stop or start to them," says Gavert. "The sun lightens their hair in such a way that it's the perfect graduation from dark to light."
To get surfer strands without hitting the waves, Bogart recommends having your colorist do "chunky bright pieces below the chin so that it doesn't wash out your complexion, plus a few hand-painted, less bright pieces around the face." According to Bogart, medium brunettes like Alexa Chung should get a "creamy gold" hue on the ends and a "warm caramel" closer to the face. "You can get away with a lot more blondness on the ends," she says.
Hair Color Trend for Blonds: Platinum Locks
Reese Witherspoon recently traded her golden blond locks for a high-wattage platinum hue, a color Bogart says is "huge" for summer—at least for those who aren't commitment-phobic. "Double-processed blond is very high-maintenance—if it's not redone every five weeks, your roots will begin to show," she explains, adding that when going platinum it's important to see a professional. "It's tricky to do at home. The heat from your head makes the lightener process faster and you may end up with a white-blond color at the root and a darker orange color starting a half-inch down."
Recessionista and/or lower-maintenance blonds can opt for pale beige-gold highlights, says Bogart: "The moment you put lightener on dark blond hair you'll see yellow. But if you add a little beige into the toner afterward, it will neutralize the yellow and take the brassiness out."
For natural blond highlights, Gavert suggests skillfully coating strands with conditioner prior to long stints outdoors. "A conditioner acts as a sunscreen even if it doesn't have UV filters, because it creates a barrier between the sun and your hair—it also makes strands shinier and more light-reflective," he says. "Pull some pieces of hair out around your part and along the sides and slick the rest of it back with conditioner into a bun or ponytail. The untouched pieces will lighten in the sun more, creating natural highlights."
Best Hair Color for Your Skin Tone and Eyes
In order to have a healthy glow for summer, the color of your highlights should enhance your face, not detract from it. Generally, say Gavert and Bogart, warm skin tones should be paired with warm hair colors (think auburn, red, copper, and gold) and cool skin tones should be combined with cool hair colors (those in the ash family). "If someone with warm skin has hair color that's too ashy, her skin can look green," says Bogart. On the flipside, cooler complexions that wear overly warm highlights can appear pale and washed-out. For example, Gavert says those with yellow undertones in their skin should avoid hair color that's too golden or their face will seem sallow.
Though a summertime tan can throw your colorist for a loop, "the veins on the inside of a person's wrist reveal their true skin tone," says Bogart. "Someone with a warm skin tone will have more greenish veins, whereas someone with a cool skin tone will have bluer ones."
Another indicator of skin tone: eye color. While blue eyes signify a cool skin tone and hazel eyes are warm, brown eyes can vary. "Brown eyes are generally warm, but a dark brown without any gold flecks can be cool," says Bogart. Green eyes (either pure green or green with a hint of brown) are flattered by both cool and warm hair colors, according to Bogart.
If you want to bring out your emerald eyes, red is the ideal hair hue, says Gavert: "Red and green are direct opposites on the color wheel and are therefore complementary." Skin with heavy pink undertones, however, should be mixed with auburn or auburn-copper hair over bright, fiery rouge. "If someone has reddish skin—she's blushing all the time or has rosacea—going too red can enhance that," says Gavert.
Summer Hair Care How-To
No matter what color you apply to your coif, proper care is necessary to keep it vibrant. "Sunlight, chlorine, and salt water are hard on color-treated hair. The further away your hair is from its natural color the more difficult it is to maintain it amid the environmental elements," says Gavert.
To protect blond from turning green in a chlorinated pool, Bogart says to presoak strands in fresh water and run conditioner through them: "This way, the blond won't absorb any of the chlorine." She also recommends using a sun-shielding spray ("I've had great results with the new Kérastase Soleil Aqua-Seal").
As for summer cleansing, Bogart says to avoid overshampooing color-treated tresses: "Detergent in shampoo is what fades color but a lot of my clients are frequent gym-goers and need to wash their hair regularly. I tell them to shampoo every other day at the most. To freshen-up on the days in between, mix a conditioner with water and scrub your scalp. Conditioner has cleansing properties too but won't dry and fade your hair like shampoo will—a volumizing formula will leave hair looking clean and not weighed down."
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