How To Choose The Best Fall Hair Color For YOU

All right, show of hands: How many people choose fall as their favorite season?! The long-awaited signs of autumn are here to stay. The air’s turned beautifully crisp, we’re busting out our cute boots and scarves, and best of all — we can smell the pumpkin spice in the air! 

With a new season comes a new style update. This fall, we’re focusing on a delightful part of haircare: choosing a new hair color! If you’re like us, your style changes with the seasons — even the most classic, tried-and-true style can do with a few seasonal tweaks. Today, let’s talk about hair color: hot hair colors for fall, how your skin tone relates to your hair color, and most importantly, how to pick a hair color that’s best for YOU! 

Get With The Season

Let’s start with the fun stuff — colors! Fall is a season of reds, browns, purples, and oranges. We tantalize the mind and the senses with shade names like mauve amour and red plum, silver ice and pewter, and mocha brown and cafe au lait. And of course, who can forget Halloween, the ultimate holiday for bold and brash hair colors? 

The fall color palette feels like it was made for hair dye. Whether you’re looking to go hand-in-hand with your chai latte or you want an eye-catching look that stands out against the autumn leaves, there are a few tips you should know before you take a plunge into a new color.  

Start With Your Skin Tone

Much of choosing a new hair color has to do with figuring out your skin tone. Have you ever noticed how a flashy color looks incredible on a celeb or influencer you love, but the exact same shade looks like a disaster on someone else? This is because of our natural skin tone: melanin, the pigment responsible for our skin, hair, and eye color, is present in different quantities in different people. 

The unique distribution of melanin for your body also determines things like the way your skin changes in response to your environment (think freckles and suntans) and the way certain colors will look “on” you. Knowing how to find your unique skin tone helps you pick out the perfect hair color for you — and it also helps you find “your” colors for clothes, accessories, nails, and more! 

How To Determine Skin Tone

Okay, so we know that skin tone determines killer hair color — but how do we find out what skin tone we have? The answer is in our wrists (of all places!). To determine your skin tone, flip that wrist and look at the veins connecting your hand to your forearm. (Pro tip: Make sure you do this in “normal” sunlight so you’re not determining things based on harsh fluorescent lighting!) If your veins look greenish, you have warm-toned skin. If they’re blue, you’re cool-toned. If you can’t really tell which color they are, you’ve got neutral-toned skin (AKA an “olive complexion”). 

You can also look at the undertones in your skin — for example, yellow undertones are considered warm-toned, while pink or red undertones are considered cool-toned. In general, warm-toned hair colors look best with warm-toned skin, and cool-toned colors with cool-toned skin. Let’s get into what that means! 

The Best Hair Colors By Skin Tone

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list of the best hair colors by skin tone. You may totally rock that hot pink/electric purple unicorn look no matter what skin tone you have! This is just a general guide for picking the perfect hair color based on your skin tone. 

The best fall hair colors for warm-toned skin include:

• Warm tones of blonde: Honey blonde, copper blonde, rose gold
• Warm tones of brown: Chocolate brown, black with brown or red undertones
• Warm tones in creative colors: Plum, maroon, blues and purples (especially darker shades like sapphire and cobalt), ombre and balayage with dark roots
• Colors to avoid for warm-toned skin: Pastels, ash, light colors like lavender and ashy blue

The best fall hair colors for cool-toned skin include: 

• Cool tones of blonde: Ash blonde, platinum blonde, strawberry blonde
• Cool tones of brown: Ash brown, sandy brown, jet black
• Cool tones in creative colors: “True reds” like red wine and burgundy, deep purple or amethyst, white, soft/pastel pinks and purples
• Colors to avoid for cool-toned skin: Orange, brassy shades (copper/gold), chestnut

When it comes down to it, choose a hair color that makes you feel good. 

At the end of the day, it’s your hair, and you should do what makes you feel good! The best way to dye your hair if you’ve never done it before is to consult with a trusted hair stylist. Your stylist can make recommendations for shades that will look good with your skin. You can also find inspo on Instagram and Pinterest by searching the best hair shades for your skin tone, like warm-toned hair colors or cool-toned hair colors. (Or neutral hair colors, if you’re not sure where to start!) 

When you’re ready to mix it up with a fashionable fall fringe, Beauty Supply 123 is here to help! We’ve got the best home styling tools, the best home hair dye kits, and the best all-around hair supplies on the market. We’re here to help you look and feel your best — and you can’t go wrong with the trusted products in our online catalog! 

We can’t wait to see your new ‘do for the autumn season!