As autumn draw closer and the sun begins to fade, our complexions take on a paler hue, making the blondes of summer less flattering than when natural daylight cast everything in a warmer glow.
Which is why darker tones of hair colour normally come out to play towards the end of the year, contrasting perfectly with paler complexions.
And, as has been proven with Agyness Deyn who’s given her hair an instant update with an allover black tint – the perfect hair colour highlights eye colour, too.
Not surprisingly, Agy is bang on-trend.
Clairol Perfect 10 creative director Gary Richardson reckons the best way to tap into colour trends is not to look to the catwalks, where hair is kept fairly bland anyway, but to the ad campaigns for the major fashion houses that fill up the pages of glossy magazines and appear on billboards.
That’s where the most talented stylists and colourists are getting to work, with far more time to put into ‘designing’ hairstyles than the fast-paced approach of catwalk shows.
And Gary says the trends coming through from those ad campaigns for autumn/winter centre around dark hair – even when it’s blonde, he says, the hair is dark-blonde – and ‘block’ colour, which is an allover solid tone without the variations of, say, highlights.
Which is good news if you want an easy maintenance look.
The colour molecules of dark shades tend to be larger than other colours so they lock into the interior of hair more securely and therefore resist fading better than, say, red, where the molecules are tiny and colour therefore fades quickest.
Nevertheless, hair will need maintenance. Use fade-resistant products, maintain your hair’s condition since colour molecules ‘fall out’ of breaks and tears in damaged hair, and refresh colour every six weeks if your roots are showing - reapply colour to the regrowth first and to the rest of the hair five minutes before the dye’s meant to be rinsed off.
As long as you don’t colour hair too often, it’s a great way of updating a look without having to either grow your hair or chop it all off.
Clairol Perfect 10 is a permanent hair colour that colours hair in 10 minutes against the 20-30 development time of other colourants, with built-in conditioners to maintain gloss.
