Composing With Intense Hair Color

This week’s blast-from-the-past post was inspired by my daughter’s friend who played Anne of Avonlea (back in spring, 2007); she didn’t want to keep her hair red, even though it looked quite natural on her, because it was harder to get dressed than when she was blonde. Whether you color your hair bright blue, red like Anne, platinum or black, an intense color will affect the way your outfits go together.

Consider the following:

  • Which of the hues present in your personal coloring – hair, skin, & eyes – are neutrals and which are colors?
  • Considering the colors present in your personal coloring, including any unnatural hair color, what is the level of intensity of each?

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I suspect many people end up wearing all black with their intense hair color, simply so they don’t clash. Some more creative solutions:

  1. create a color harmony which mimics your coloring.
  2. combining colors harmoniously, balance the bright hair with another bright.
  3. mixing different intensities of one color.

And, btw, yes, red-heads can wear red. It’s an analogous color scheme.

6 thoughts on “Composing With Intense Hair Color”

  1. Great ideas! I had a small purple streak in college (which quickly faded to blonde). I don’t think I changed what I wore, but I did wear a lot of purple and pink back then.

  2. i’m not a teen, but i sometimes think like one!

    i’ve had many unnatural hair colors, from hot pink, to red-orange, to purple, even in my late 20s. yes, i’m sure a lot of folks wear black with bright colored hair, but i never did. i wore whatever colors pleased me, with little regard to what was “clashing”, except for that i wanted to clash/compliment, and still do (from a color theory perspective).

    for the past couple of years i’ve been going back and forth between light ash blonde (platinum really) and a very very intense red, and my favored wardrobe colors have changed little: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pintuck/sets/1222458/ however, i do tend to wear a LOT of warm colors, like reds, oranges, yellows, and warm greens, which i think compliment the red hair especially.

  3. Cute picture, Beth!

    We’ll see. Maybe when my hair is completely white I’ll go for a soft periwinkle or something. Probably not.

    And thanks for sharing Tricia. I do think that alot of people wear the intense colors simply because they love color. Worn in combination with other colors, like you do, I consider it playful, not rebellious.

  4. I currently have dark brown, red and blond hair ^_^ and I do think black looks great. But I also wear a lot of reds which tie in well, and sometimes a string of pale yellow beads to set off the blond.

  5. I guess I’m out of the loop but was (sort of) reading a French interview with John Waters in which he referenced Tavi Gavinson, the ingenue blogger, as sporting grey hair and what is usually described as granny chic. Wha? So I google imaged : Tavi Gavinson grey hair. Oh my.

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