Hair
May 9, 2019

How to Find the Right Blonde for Your Skin Tone, According to a Celeb Colourist

by Amanda Montell

Blonde Hair Colours for Every Skin Tone: Laverne Cox

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High risk, high reward: Going blonde is a bold move. When the colour comes out right, you end up looking like a celebrity. But if the blonde is a little too brassy or ashy or one-dimensional or just all wrong for your skin tone, then you've just wasted a ton of time and money at the salon. I've been there. Don't scroll back to my Instagram photos from 2014.

That's just the thing, though: There's isn't only one skin tone that can pull off blonde. If you follow the five key pieces of advice below, it's possible to find a super-flattering blonde hair colour whether you have deep skin with red undertones, medium skin with neutral undertones, fair skin with yellow undertones, or any combination of dark and light, warm and cool.

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@BEYONCE

Blonde Hair Colours for Every Skin Tone: Ciara

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@ZENDAYA

Blonde Hair Colours for Every Skin Tone: Before and after colouring by Matt Rez

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@COLORBYMATTREZ

A neutral base will be the most flattering place to build from. Not to mention, lifting your base too high could result in brassiness and even more damage to the hair. "Avoid base bumps and lifting your base colour when possible to avoid the unwanted red and orange brassy tones when going blonder," Rez says.

Blonde Hair Colours for Every Skin Tone: Chrissy Teigen

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"No one has all one-tone skin. We would be completely flat and cartoon-like if we did," says Rez. We all have shadows, contours, freckles and different undertones in various areas of the face. And just like we have balances of neutral, warm and cool tones in our skin, we need them in our hair. "Our hair colour needs to reflect that, especially if we are going lighter," Rez says, "so I always make sure there is a mirrored equal balance of those tones in my clients' hair colour in order to be a flattering colour change."

Blonde Hair Colours for Every Skin Tone: Jasmine Sanders

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@GOLDEN_BARBIE

For example, Ciara has overall cooler undertones than Zendaya, so Ciara's colour ends up in the taupe region of the blonde spectrum, while Zendaya's is more golden. Their skin isn't 100% cool or warm, but that balance will look slightly different for everyone.

Blonde Hair Colours for Every Skin Tone: Rita Ora

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Achieving the ideal tonal balance is not something all colourists do automatically, but Rez accomplishes it using a customisable technique he invented called the Midlight colour technique (sort of like a more complex balayage), which basically means he incorporates a client's base with multidimensional highlights that are tonally balanced and connected.

Blonde Hair Colours for Every Skin Tone: Intisar Samantha

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@IZZY.IGHN

Warmer blonde doesn’t always mean darker (I'm personally guilty of this misconception), and cool doesn’t necessarily mean ashy (again, guilty).

Blonde Hair Colours for Every Skin Tone: Phoebe Trinh

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@PHXXBSTER

"There are so many variations of ," says Rez. For examples, check out the differences between the cool blondes on Sofia Boutella in the photo at the start of this section and Margot Robbie at the bottom of the story.

Blonde Hair Colours for Every Skin Tone: Olivia Holt

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@COLORBYMATTREZ

In artificial colour as in natural colour, no two people will ever have the exact same colour. "It's a reference and or an inspiration photo—a variation of that may be possible," says Rez. "Think similar, not same."

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@AMANDA_MONTELL

Also, avoid bombarding your colourist with too many photo references. "Don't take five different photos for options," he advises. "Do your research and pick one as a guideline."