I Don’t Understand Hair Colour — What Do I Choose?
Hair colour can feel genuinely overwhelming. Highlights, balayage, ombre, tints, full head colour — and that’s before you’ve thought about shade. If you’ve ever sat scrolling colour photos with no real idea what to actually book, you’re far from alone. This is a plain-English guide to choosing, from the team at Wisteria Avenue in Abingdon — and the honest headline is this: you don’t have to work it out by yourself.
What goes into choosing a colour
A good colour decision isn’t just “what shade do I like.” A colourist weighs up a whole set of things: your face shape, your skin tone, your natural colour, your hair type and condition, how you wear your hair day to day, and your lifestyle — including how much maintenance you realistically want. It’s why simply pointing at the lightest, brightest photo isn’t always the right call. The best colour for you is the one that suits all of those things together, and that’s a judgement an experienced colourist makes with you.
Going lighter? Start with your hair’s history
If you want to go lighter, that means bleach — and before any bleach goes near your hair, its condition matters enormously. These are the kinds of questions a colourist will ask you:
- Have you box-dyed your hair?
- What have you had done to it in the last 12 months?
- Does your hair feel dry, or are there dead ends?
- Is your existing colour even, or patchy?
- Do you have grey coming through?
- Has your hair been chemically treated — permed, straightened?
The answers determine whether you’re a candidate for going lighter right now. Bleach isn’t a “bad” thing — but on hair that’s already damaged it can be, so condition comes first. A treatment can support your hair through the process, but if hair is already badly damaged, bleach may be off the table until it recovers. Our post on whether bleach is a colour explains how it works.
Understanding your options
If you are a candidate for lightening, your existing colour shapes what’s sensible — highlights, balayage, ombre or a full scalp bleach. One genuinely useful thing to know: these aren’t always easily interchangeable later. If you start with an ombre it’s difficult to switch to a balayage, and a full head of highlights isn’t easily reverted to an ombre. So it’s worth choosing with your longer-term plans in mind, not just the next appointment. Our guide to the difference between balayage and ombre is a good starting point.
Highlights vs full scalp bleach
If you want to go lighter, the two broad routes are worth understanding. Highlights are the safer, more gradual path — they preserve hair condition well, and packing in plenty over a few appointments lets you go lighter over time without damage. A full scalp bleach gives an all-over “block” lightness in one go — very effective, but it uses a lot of bleach and gives hair little breathing space to recover. Which is right depends on your hair and your patience for the process.
The honest answer: book a consultation
If you take one thing from this: you genuinely don’t need to decode hair colour alone. A colour consultation exists precisely for the person who doesn’t know what to choose. It’s free, there’s no obligation, and you’ll leave with a clear, honest plan built around your hair — not a guess. If you’ve never coloured your hair at all, our post for first-time colour is worth a read too.
Book your colour consultation in Abingdon
Whatever stage you’re at — a clear idea, or no idea at all — our colourists would be glad to talk it through with you properly. Book in for a consultation, and have a look at our price list to see what’s involved.
