Colourists use the term hot roots to describe the effect where your hair’s roots are visibly warmer than the rest of your hair colour.
Hot roots generally look lighter than the colour result in your lengths, and they may have a warm, orange tone.
Why does this happen?
Hot roots occur because the heat from your scalp causes the colour at the roots to develop faster than the colour on the mid-lengths or ends. This can lead to a lighter colour result at your roots than the rest of the hair.
Hot roots can also occur if you lighten your colour. The lightening process exposes naturally occuring warmth in your hair, which contributes a lighter, brassy tone to your colour result.
Know your limitations when going lighter. Select a colour within 2 levels of your natural colour, or a colour which is darker than your already coloured hair to avoid hot roots.
How to avoid hot roots:
Careful colour selection is critical to avoiding hot roots.
Moderate colour changes, especially when lightening your hair help to avoid the hot root effect. It is almost always a good idea to add cool tones if you are lightening your colour. The cool tones will mute warmth revealed during the lightening process, leaving a tonally balanced result.
If you have some greys and you want to colour with a warm colour (such as a golden or copper based colour), it can be best to blend your warm colour with a neutral colour. The neutral colour will fill pigments which are missing from any greys at your roots. Colours with brighter or warm tones will look lighter and brighter over greys. Blend your warm or bright colour with a neutral, the neutral pigments will anchor and fill the missing pigments in greys, leaving you with an eve, consistent colour finish.
We offer Duo colour kits which include everything you need to blend two colours together.
We recommend that you get in touch with our colourists for personalised colour advice to help you avoid lighter, brighter colour results over your roots.
Salon Accessories
Hairdressers know that you really need the right tools for true salon results at home.
Using a tint brush lets you apply colour with precision, and avoid colour layering or banding.
Technique
If you are going lighter or have had a problem with hot roots before, begin your hair colour application about 1.5 inches away from your roots. Continue applying the colour to your lengths, and then the ends of your hair, and only apply the colour to your roots in the last ten minutes of the total processing time.
Colour applied at your roots will process faster due to the heat from your scalp, so you want to place colour there last (unless you are looking to cover greys).
You can avoid hot roots and get even, consistent colour results with the right colour and right colour application.
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