How to Transition Your Hair Color From Summer to Fall and Back

Why Your Drastic Hair Color Changes are Annoying your Hairstylist – How to Keep Your Hairstylist from Wanting to Pull Your Hair Out.

Around Labor Day every year, clients in my salon start asking if they should color their blond hair darker for the fall. Insert eye roll here. It’s the most annoying question and one I dread in the fall, but not because I don’t want you to have dark hair. It’s because I don’t want your color to change drastically now and then again as soon as the leaves start budding in the spring.

Here’s why it’s super annoying when you drastically change your hair color.

A drastic hair color change is a lot of work and often takes several steps to get the color exactly as you want it to look. Not to mention the fact that if you want that darker color to stay, a responsible stylist will take extra effort (and additional services) to make that happen for you. Then in the spring when you decide that you need your platinum highlights back, it’ll take stripping the color, redepositing new color, toning, and highlighting to get the look right.

While I get that not everyone wants to be platinum in the summer and deep chestnut brown in the winter, drastic color changes take time and multiple processes. If your colorist spends four hours and performs three separate services on your hair, you should expect to pay for that.

So it’s time-consuming, it’s expensive, and it’s really awful for the overall health of your hair. While a great colorist will go out of her way to embark as little damage as possible on your hair because let’s face it, her reputation is on the line here, multiple color services in a short period of time are damaging. Even if you’re careful, do recondition treatments, and use the most gentle of products you’re risking big irreversible damage to your hair.

As a hairstylist, maybe we should all be promoting these types of services: it’s money in our pocket (a lot of money) and now you’ll probably need all kinds of new products to keep your damage at bay and keep that new color fresh.

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The Right Way to Transition Your Hair Color

The good news is, I’m not suggesting that you never drastically change your hair color in the fall or otherwise.

On the contrary, I’m suggesting that you give the big gasping changes a little time and transition your hair to a fall or summer color slowly, rather than jumping into the dark side headfirst. My suggestion: add some lowlights, opt for an ombre color, or tone your highlights down a few shades at your first fall color appointment, and go from there. The service will be healthier for your hair and your colorist will be able to help you choose transition colors that will eventually help you achieve the final look you’re coveting.

Transitioning your hair color over the entire fall and winter months works well for many reasons. You’ll save all that time, money, and damage to your hair, but you’ll get to experience a few different looks over the course of the winter. Also, if you darken your hair drastically in September, you can bet your color-safe shampoo that you’ll be over it by January. A slower transition gives you time to enjoy the different stages of your color service as you slowly go darker and then lighter in the summertime.

So, is it ever okay to drastically change your hair color? Yes. When your change has intentions of being more permanent than just a season, you’re tinting your hair back to your natural color, or you’re simply stuck in a rut and need to switch your color up drastically, go for it. I completely understand, but go into that color consultation knowing that you could be putting your hair through some risks and if you decide that your big color change was a big mistake, correcting a drastic color change can be incredibly expensive. Most colorists charge anywhere from $100 to $300 per hour for a color correction service. A slower transition makes it easier for you to gauge whether or not your darkest mahogany dreams are something you can live with or something you’ll hate all winter long.