Best Hair Color for Rosacea

Hair color and rosacea seem to be a hot topic. Is there a right or wrong answer? I don't think so. The best hair color for rosacea depends heavily on your skin tone.

Choosing Your Skin Tone

To test your skin tone, there are three tricks professionals use. First, hold up an orange shirt against your skin. Next, hold up blue. Which looked better? If your answer is yellow, your skin has warm tones. If blue was best, you have a cool skin tone. If you have olive tones to your skin, consider yourself neutral.

The next trick is to place a gold bracelet and silver bracelet on your wrist. Which complements your skin best? Gold is better with warm tones. Silver is best for cool tones.

Finally, look at the color of your veins on the inside of your wrist. Cool tones will see the veins as blue. If you have any golden (warmer) undertones, the veins may have a greenish hue. People with cool tones often find their skin burns easily in the sun, so that may also help you decide.

Finding a Hair Color That Complements the Skin

When you have rosacea, skin color is often pink. Don't let that trick you into believing you have cool tones. Make sure you do the tests above to be sure.

After that, you want to bring out your skin's natural tones by appealing to your skin tones. Cool skin tones will do best with cooler highlights in the hair. For blonde hair, you're looking for words like "ash" or "cool." If you want to go red, go with blue reds like cherry. If brunette is your desire, chocolate brown is great.

For warm skin, you're looking for hair colors with golden tones. Starting with blonde, look for "golden." For reds, you want shades that remind you of cinnamon. Brunette options with words like "caramel," "golden," or "honey" will work well.

Olive tones do well with darker shades. If you want to go blonde, experts suggest doing a two-tone with darker roots giving way to blonde tresses. Most browns work well, reds that have more brown tones than red also complement olive tones.

Use Semi-Permanent if You're Not Ready to Commit

Hair dyes can be semi-permanent and wash out after a few weeks or permanent and slowly fade over time. Clairol Natural Instincts makes a line of ammonia-free temporary hair colors. If you're new to coloring, this is a good way to test out a new hair color. It typically washes out in a month.

Get the Best Coverage With Foam

When dying your hair, you need to get all of your hair. You can get your hair colored professionally. You can have a friend help you at home. If you do it alone, make sure you use mirrors to ensure you've gotten the dye behind your ears and at the nape of your neck.

When it comes to coverage, I really prefer John Frieda's Precision Foam Color kits. The foam doesn't run and is so easy to apply. Plus, I find that there's plenty of foam for my below-the-shoulder hair. I don't run out before my hair is completely covered. Plus, the color lasts and with a Glaze and Gloss kit, you can boost color and gloss with ease.

Expect Mistakes

Many years ago, I had a friend dare me to become a redhead. I have cool skin tones and naturally blonde hair. I did it and was surprised by how many strangers came up to me in stores and complimented my hair color. To get to that color, however, it was a bit stressful.

I started with strawberry blonde temporary hair color kit. My hair turned pink. I had to rush out to a store with pink hair and buy a darker kit. That second kit was better but still not perfect. I ended up with Feria's Crushed Garnet before I was really happy. It's that color that got comments. Maintaining the roots was a pain in the behind, but the confidence boost was worth it.

It's not a big deal to get the wrong color. You can wash with dish soap immediately after to remove some of the dye. Wait a day and try a new kit. You can spare yourself the hassle by going to the salon, but you will pay more.

I tried a professional coloring once. A professional coloring here is just shy of $80, and the stylist made the mistake of leaving out the bottles while she answered the phone. She was using Redken Color Fusion, which I found you can buy the dye and developer online. I still prefer John Frieda's foam dyes, but if you want to try Redken, you can find them at Amazon. Don't let fear keep you from trying. Get a semi-permanent kit first and see what you think.