Brunette Hair Style Photos and Advice

Tips For Choosing, Achieving and Maintaining Your Color

Shades of brunette range from a light ash tone to a deep chestnut... and everything in between.

Browns are classic, rich, mysterious, and the easiest of all haircolors to maintain.

Brunette Hair Color With Professional Results

Excuse Me...
Your Roots Are Showing!

Written by an experienced, professional cosmetologist, this book provides more advanced information on the art and science of hair coloring.

Do you color your own hair? If so, you know that achieving the shade you want can be difficult. The color you see on the box is NOT necessarily the color you'll end up with.

If your hair is a natural brunette shade, I recommend doing very little with it, color-wise. Browns sometimes need to be deepened to add impact, which can easily be done with a semi or demi permanent color.

Many times, all that's needed to boost a brunette shade is a bit of shine. Apply a color gloss, in either a tinted shade or clear (Sebastian ColourShines is a great choice, although sadly it's been discontinued but can still be found on some sites).

Should you feel the need to lighten things up a bit, opt for a few foiled highlights, rather than an all-over blonde hair color. That way, you'll get a more natural look, without the heavy maintenance that's inevitable when lightening brown hair to blonde.

Take the time to learn about hair color chemistry. The more you understand, the better your hair color results will be.

These books provide more advanced information on the art and science of hair coloring. Learn color theory, corrective color, mixing formulas, application techniques, etc. Both are written by experienced, professional cosmetologists.

Maintaining Brown Hair Color

Keep the rich brown tones present in your hair color by using a color depositing shampoo and conditioner. The conditioners work the best because they don't contain cleansing agents and can be left on the hair for long periods.

The longer they're left on and more often they're used, the more pigment is deposited onto your hair strand. My favorite pigmented shampoos and conditioners are made by ARTec.

Brunette Hair Style Photos

Consider both the level of darkness and the tone of any hair color you choose. I'll specify both in the example hair color pictures below...

Click to enlarge photos
Use this virtual hair style program to try on hair colors before you commit.

	Ash Brown (Level 6 with level 7 & 8 natural highlights) This shade of ash brown is difficult to achieve with artificial hair color. There is just enough highlighting from the sun to bump this color out of the "mousy" category. Adding a few medium ash or beige blonde foil highlights throughout the top of the hair would give a similar effect.
	Light Auburn Brunette (level 6-7) This shade is just on the verge of belonging in the Red Hair Color section. It's a very warm shade of brunette, which brightens a medium to fair, warm skin tone. Avoid this shade if you have a cool (pinkish) skin tone.
	Medium Brunette With Flair! (levels 6 & 9) Jazz up a solid brown hair color with panels of gold. Slice out a few strips of hair near the front. Get creative with the positioning. Consider how the hair will lay. Not just the highlighted piece, but the hair around it too. Use foil highlights to color just the section you want lightened. The effect is made more dramatic the lighter (or brighter) you go. This technique can be done using any (complimentary) combination of colors.
	Medium "True" Brunette (level 5) Thoughts of "brunette hair color" often bring to mind a picture of precisely this shade. It is a beautiful, rich shade -- not too light, not too dark. This is another one that's difficult to capture with artificial permanent haircolor. If this is the shade you're trying to achieve, opt for a semi-permanent, which doesn't lift the underlying pigment. The underlying pigment always brings gold and warmth into the picture because of the way it's formulated. To avoid the gold, go with a "deposit only" hair color.
	Dark Brunette Hair Color (level 3-4) This deep rich, shade of brunette has a warm hue, great for a dramatic effect on warm skin tones. A sprinkle of very thin highlights, just a shade or two lighter, adds some dimension to the color.
	Deepest Brunette (level 2) This shade is slightly darker than the one above, and has cool undertones, rather than warm. Can you see the difference? If you can, great! You're developing the eye of a colorist! The cool hue makes this color suitable for (you guessed it), cool skin tones. A clear color gloss, applied every few months, will maintain the shine that is so important with such a deeply saturated color.