Purple hair highlight techniques can bring a bold, trendy look to your locks with unexpected color and flair. What type of purple you use and how you arrange these hair highlights, however, can make or break your style.
About Purple
Purple is a rich, luxurious color that ranges from light lilac and lavender shades to rich orchid, eggplant, plum, and violet hues to the brightest royal and electric tones. Symbolic for mystery, magic, and royalty, purple can spark your imagination for a unique and outstanding hair style that shows off your individual flair in a fun and stylish way.
Choosing Your Shade
There is no single shade of purple that is right for everyone's hair. To find the right hair color for you, you have to consider the base hair color you're working with, your skin tone, and your eye color. In general…
- Dark, rich purple tones work best on dark black or brunette hair as hair lowlights shades
- Lighter purple colors are best in blonde hair as punk highlights or eye-catching accents
- Purple highlights rarely match red or strawberry blonde hair unless you want an outrageous color clash
If the point of your purple hair highlight experience is to create a wickedly fun and funky contrast, then darker shades of purple work best on bright, light hair, while a light hue will stand out best on darker locks.
Purple Hair Highlight Ideas
Once you have chosen the perfect purple for your look, there are many ways to arrange the highlights for an exotic and fun color accent to your style.
- Chunks: Chunking hair color techniques add thick streaks of color to your hair, which will make the purple more noticeable - particularly for dark hair colors.
- Streaks: Instead of just one or two chunks, consider narrow streaks all over the head for a fearless purple look.
- Tips: Highlighting just the tips of your hair purple adds a fun and flirty touch to your style. This is especially popular for fringed bangs hairstyles.
- Face Frames: To draw attention to your purple highlights, cluster the color around your face and coordinate the shade with purple eye makeup or earrings.
Going Purple
There are different ways to enjoy purple accents in your hair. Several hair color companies offer purple hair dye in permanent, semi-permanent, or temporary formulas. For a casual, quick look, opt for temporary hair color or colored hair spray that can easily be removed, but if you want your purple locks to last longer a stronger, more stable dye will be required. When using hair dye, always test the color on an inconspicuous section or a trimmed lock of hair first to determine how well the color will take and what the final shade will be. For richer, stronger purple tones, the dye may need to set for a longer period of time, particularly in dark hair.
Another option is to purchase purple clip on hair extensions. These clips can easily be added to your style for instant purple flair without the hassle of hair dye or the permanence of a hair color change. Purple hairpieces are generally available wherever costume wigs or hair extensions are sold.
Is Purple Right for You?
Purple can be a fun color to experiment with, but it isn't right for everyone. Purple is a popular emo hair color, especially darker shades, while bright purple hues are popular with scene haircuts or punk hair styles. It can also be fun to experiment with a little purple in a classic hair cut, but also consider that purple and other unnatural hair colors may not be suitable for school or the office.
Purple hair highlight colors can be fun and funky or soft and subtle, depending on what shade you choose and how you incorporate the color into your hair. Whether you choose a bold electric purple chunk or demure lilac frosted tips, adding purple to your locks is sure to make your friends green with envy.
