The hair world loves to come up with all sorts of names for different styles of color: highlights, lowlights, balayage, ombre, sombre, babylights, ecaille… the list goes on, and that doesn’t even touch on the different shades of color: warm, cool, golden, reds, etc. But what exactly do all of these labels mean?! Understanding what defines each color type can help you better communicate to your stylist what you are looking for. We wanted to explore the differences between these color types through a series of posts explaining a little bit about each one and then differentiating it from the others. Let’s start off with the OMBRE. An ombre is literally a graduation from light to dark. This word has become all-important in everything fashion from hair to nails to clothing fabric: ombre is everywhere. Some people would have you believe that the ombre is fading away, but it’s definitely still relevant, and there’s a few reasons why we still LOVE this trend.
First, you can completely customize it to suit your hair and style. Ombre can be vibrant and bold, or a subtle fade (aka sombre); it can be done on long hair, short hair, or in between, and each way gives a totally different vibe and style. The ombre is so versatile that people have taken it in all kinds of creative directions… there are red ombres, extremely dark to extremely light ombres, and even multi-colored ombres as well. Whatever your color preference and style, the ombre is the chameleon of hair color and will match YOU!
Our second favorite aspect of ombres is the low-maintenance factor. Because it’s designed to look like a “grown-out” color, the 4-6 week root retouch goes out the window, and you can wear the color for a much longer time, stretching out your salon visits. While this does mean that the ombre is significantly more work up front—expect approximately three or more hours in the salon—and comes at a slightly higher price tag, it’s totally worth it if you prefer the low-maintenance hair life.
Alongside the low-maintence aspect, ombres are pretty easy to transition away from once you’ve decided you’re done with the look. If you’ve kept your roots and mid-lengths at or close to your natural color, you can choose to either chop off the lightened ends if you’re up for a fun, shorter ‘do, or you can color the ends back to your natural color. Either way, there’s less of a growing out, transitional process as sometimes occurs when you’ve decided to grow out, say a full head of classic highlights.
We definitely still dig the ombre, and are looking forward to customizing YOUR ombre look. Look for our post about BALAYAGE coming soon!