The Ultimate Salon Guide: Haircolor Terms and Definitions and Types of Professional Services

About our salon haircolor services

Thinking about getting your hair colored, but have some concerns? Maybe this is the first time that you’ll be getting your hair colored. Rest assured – at Belle Vie Beauty, there are professionals waiting to discuss your professional haircolor services choices and make it a fun experience! Here are some tips, before you go.

Tell your stylist about yourself: If you tell your stylist about yourself, they’ll share their expert opinion!

Bring your inspiration: Photographs and examples of haircolor you love will help you and your stylist explore your color options—and ensure that you both mean the same thing when you say, "honey blonde," or "scarlet red."

Know your history: Be prepared to tell your stylist about any prior color services, whether it was highlights last year or a color gloss last month.

Trust Your Stylist: Listen to your stylist's expert opinion. During your haircolor consultation, he or she will consider your desired result, then evaluate your hair's condition and look at your skin tone and coloring in order to create your custom color formulation.

Ask questions: If you hear a haircolor term you don't understand, don't hesitate to ask your stylist for an explanation. Remember to inquire about maintenance—how often you'll need to return to the salon for touchups, and how to best maintain your haircolor at home between visits with haircare products.

How to talk to your colorist: these terms might help

1. Basecolor: Color applied at the root area or all-over before a dimensional/creative color technique is done.

2. Contrast: Contrast is a value applied to highlights. High-contrast highlights are much lighter than the surrounding hair and provide a dramatic look. Lower contrast highlights result in a more natural look.

3. Cool: Cool is a tonal value that can apply to blonde, brunette, and red shades. A color is said to have “cool tones” if it tends toward blue, violet or green. Cool colors include platinum blondes, ash browns, and plum reds.

4. Coverage: Coverage is a measure of a haircolor’s ability to cover gray. Some haircolor formulations are too transparent to effectively cover gray hair.

5. Dimension: Dimension is a function of the range of tones in your hair. A head of hair that is all one color is said to be “flat” or lacking dimension. Your stylist can add dimension to your hair with highlights or lowlights.

6. Double-process: A double-process color refers to any time two color services are done in one visit. Generally this is done by doing the first color service, washing and drying the hair, then doing the second color. This can include lightening the hair then applying a toner, or doing a permanent color followed by a glaze.

7. Express Highlights: Express Highlights are done by applying a small amount of foils or painted-on pieces, usually focused on framing the face.

8. Glaze: Glazes involve using a semi-permanent color to enhance, enrich, change, match, tone down or intensify natural or color-treated hair while harmonizing contrast.

9. Hair Painting: Hair Painting, also known as balayage, is the process of free-handing or sweeping hair color, lightener or toner downwards in soft strokes directly on the surface of the desired section. This method is used to create dimension with a natural, softer look.

10. Highlights: Highlighting hair means isolating select strands in the hair and treating them with a haircolor or lightener to make them lighter than their base/natural color. Highlights can add dimension by contrasting with the rest of the hair and are created with foils, a cap or special combs or brushes used for “painting on” the color.

11. Lift: Lift is the chemical process of lightening the color of the hair. Different haircolor formulations have different lifting abilities.

12. Lowlights: Lowlights are created by using color with foils, caps, or painted on to darken specific pieces and create dimension. Generally low lights will be 2-3 levels darker than your basecolor and slightly warmer. This can be used for a more natural look or create accents within the hair.

13. Rebalancing: Rebalancing is the process of bringing the hair back into balance, and can be created with the combination of highlights and lowlights, and/or glazes.

14. Single-process: A single process refers to any color service that is done in one step. This can be using a permanent color that lifts and deposits, a glaze, highlights/lowlights without toning, or a creative color service with only one process.

15. Texture: Texture, as defined by the diameter of an individual hair strand, is generally described as fine, medium, or coarse. Your stylist will factor in your hair’s texture when determining your best color formulation.

16. Tone: Tone, in haircoloring, is the term used to describe a specific color—”golden” blonde, “coppery” red, “ash” brown. Colors are divided into warm tones and cool tones.

17. Warm: Warm is a tonal value that can apply to blonde, brunette, and red shades. A color is said to have “warm tones” if it tends toward yellow, orange or red. Warm colors include golden blondes, auburn brunettes, and coppery

Types of professional haircolor services

Interested in the different types of professional haircolor? There are three main categories: demi-permanent haircolor, permanent haircolor, and semi-permanent haircolor. Consult with your colorist to discuss how to best adapt trends such as highlights, partial highlights, babylights and balayage to your individual style to achieve the deepest brunette, most vibrant red or coolest blonde.

PERMANENT HAIRCOLOR

In permanent haircolor, artificial dyes interact with the hair's natural pigment to create a final haircolor. Therefore, the colorist must consider natural hair color and previously applied artificial haircolor to achieve the final color result. Permanent haircolor dyes are extremely small colorless molecules that penetrate through the cuticle and into the cortex with the aid of an alkaline substance such as ammonia. When these molecules combine with hydrogen peroxide, a chemical reaction occurs –they oxidize and react with other molecules called "couplers" to form complex dye molecules. The newly-formed dye molecules are embedded in the protein structure of the hair fiber, which makes them 'permanent' or more resistant to rinsing out. However, permanent doesn't have to mean monochromatic color.  Your stylist can bring you multi-dimensional results that last. 

DEMI-PERMANENT HAIRCOLOR

Demi-permanent products may be formulated with oxidative dyes only, or with a combination of oxidative and direct dyes. Demi-permanent colors must be mixed with a low volume hydrogen peroxide to develop. The formulations in these products contain low concentrations of alkali for minimal lift or can be formulated without ammonia for no lift.

SEMI-PERMANENT HAIRCOLOR

There are also semi-permanent color products which are formulated with direct dyes, meaning the color is present and visible without the need to chemically develop it with peroxide. What you see in the bottle or tube is what you can expect to see in the resulting haircolor. Semi-permanent colors can cover gray without lift, but shampoo away in five-ten shampoos. The colors typically use alcohol to bind to the hair, making them potentially drying and difficult to remove or change shades.