Try on hair colors on your own photo before you commit
A cut you hate grows out. Color is the one you pay for again in six weeks, and sometimes pay twice to undo. Upload one selfie and see platinum, copper, burgundy or jet black on your hair, against your skin, before anyone opens a tube.
Free to download. iPhone, iOS 15.1 or later. ★★★★★ 5.0 on the App Store from 2 ratings.
The Hair Colors row, straight from the app
Colors live in their own row, separate from the cuts, so a shade test does not have to become a haircut decision.
Jet Black, Platinum Blonde and Burgundy sit next to each other in the Hair Colors row. Tap one and it renders on the photo you uploaded, with your face and your lighting kept intact.
The shade is on your hair, not a model's
A swatch on a box, or a color chart taped to a salon wall, tells you what the dye looks like on someone else's base. What decides whether ash blonde works is your skin, your eyes and the level your hair starts at. HairGlam regenerates your own photo with the new color, which is the only version of the question that matters.
Change the color, keep the cut
Most people arrive at a color decision already attached to their length. You can leave the cut alone and cycle through shades, or head over to the hairstyle try on and test both at once. In Discover the grid labels every card as a cut and a color together, like Long Straight and Espresso, or Beach Waves and Caramel Highlights.
What hair color suits me? Start with undertone
Undertone is the quiet color underneath your skin. It does not change with a tan, and it is the reason two people can dye their hair the same shade and get opposite results.
Warm, cool and neutral, in plain terms
Warm undertones lean gold, peach or yellow. Cool undertones lean pink, red or blue. Neutral sits between the two, with no strong pull either way. This is separate from how light or dark your skin is: deep skin can be cool, fair skin can be warm, and the tests below work the same on both. Three checks in daylight will usually give you a clear answer.
The vein test
Turn your wrist over near a window and look at the veins. Green reads warm. Blue or purple reads cool. If you keep changing your mind because they look like both, that is neutral, and it is a real answer rather than a failure to see properly.
The jewelry test
Hold a silver piece against your face, then a gold one, with no makeup and no colored top. One of them will make your skin look brighter and more even. The other tends to make you look slightly tired or yellow. Silver flatters cool, gold flatters warm, and if both look fine you are near neutral.
The pure white test
Put on a pure optic white top, then a cream or ivory one. Cool undertones look crisp in pure white and slightly dull in cream. Warm undertones look drained and gray in pure white and healthy in cream. This one is the tiebreaker when the first two disagree.
When the tests disagree
Neutral is common, and it is the easiest position to be in: you can wear both warm and cool shades as long as the depth is right. If you are neutral, stop worrying about temperature and pick by contrast instead. High contrast between hair and skin is bold and draws attention up. Low contrast is softer and lets your features lead.
Shades that tend to suit warm undertones
Golden and honey blonde, caramel, copper, warm auburn, chestnut and chocolate brown. Warm skin has gold in it already, so a warm shade harmonizes instead of competing. If you want to go dark, a soft black with a warm base usually reads friendlier on warm skin than a flat blue black.
Shades that tend to suit cool undertones
Ash and beige blonde, platinum, mushroom and cool espresso brown, jet black, and the red family that runs blue rather than orange: burgundy, cherry, plum. Cool skin next to a strongly golden shade can look flushed, which is why a lot of people describe warm blonde as making them look red in the face.
Your starting level matters as much as the shade
Level is how light or dark your natural hair is, and it decides how much work a color takes. Going darker is one appointment. Going more than two or three levels lighter means lift, and lift means bleach. The picture in your head might be a single shade, but your hair may need several stages to get there.
Where undertone theory comes from
Undertone is not a hair invention. It comes from color analysis, the same system that decides which clothes and lipsticks make you look well. Our sister app Tone & Fit does the full version of that analysis from a photo, if the topic turns out to be more interesting to you than just hair.
What people are actually asking for
These are the color names that come up most, and what each one really means when a colorist hears it.
Money piece
Two brighter sections lightened at the front, framing your face, while the rest of your hair stays as it is. It is a partial highlight, so it costs less chair time than a full head and it grows out without a hard line. It is the lowest risk way to test whether a lighter shade suits you at all.
Balayage
Lightener painted on by hand and swept down the mid lengths and ends, rather than packed into foils from the root. The result is a soft gradient with no line of regrowth, which is why the maintenance is measured in months instead of weeks. It reads sun lightened rather than dyed.
Platinum
Hair lifted almost to white, then toned to kill the yellow. It is the biggest commitment on this list. Dark hair has to travel through orange and yellow to get there, often across more than one appointment, and the tone needs refreshing regularly to stay icy instead of drifting brassy.
Jet black
A flat, deep, usually cool toned black that deposits pigment rather than removing it. Easy to get into, hard to get out of. Black is the one shade where the render is worth studying closely, because it is unforgiving on skin that is already very fair and dramatic on everyone else.
Burgundy
A dark red with blue or purple in it, closer to wine than to rust. On dark hair it often shows only in sunlight, which surprises people. Red pigment molecules are large and sit on the outside of the hair, so burgundy fades faster than a natural brown and needs topping up.
Copper and ash blonde
Copper is a bright orange red that needs some lift to glow on dark hair and fades quickly once it is there. Ash blonde is blonde with a cool toner over it, canceling the yellow that bleach leaves behind. Both are tone dependent, which is exactly the kind of thing a render on your own face settles quickly.
What going lighter actually costs you
Not in money, which varies far too much by city and salon to quote. In condition, in appointments, and in the six weeks after.
Bleach subtracts, it does not add
Lightener opens the cuticle and strips out the pigment that is already there. Nothing puts that pigment back, so the only way out of a lift you regret is toning over it, growing it out, or cutting it off. The darker and more stubborn your natural base, the more lift you need, and responsible colorists will split that across sessions weeks apart rather than doing it in one sitting.
Toner is the part everyone forgets to budget for
Bleach leaves warm yellow and orange underneath. Toner sits on top to neutralize it, and toner washes out. That icy ash you left the salon with will start drifting warm within a few weeks, so the real commitment is a toning appointment every few weeks plus purple shampoo at home between them. Almost nobody factors this in before the first appointment.
Roots move about half an inch a month
Which means a solid all over color shows a visible line at the scalp somewhere around the four to eight week mark, and keeps showing it forever. This is the single strongest argument for balayage or a money piece over a full head lift: they are designed to have no hard regrowth line, so you choose when to go back rather than being told by the mirror.
Condition is the real bill
Lifted hair is more porous. It tangles more, absorbs water faster, dries rougher and breaks more easily at the ends, especially if you also heat style. If your hair is already fragile from a previous color, a colorist may reasonably tell you no, or tell you it will take three appointments. Hearing that at a consultation is much better than hearing it halfway through.
Correction costs more than the original
Prices swing enormously between markets, so treat any number you read online with suspicion. What holds everywhere is the shape of it: a full head of bleach and toner sits near the top of any salon menu, and fixing a color you dislike is a longer, more skilled job than the one that caused it. Ask for a strand test and a written quote before you book anything you are unsure about.
Three steps to see the shade on yourself
The whole point is to get to a yes or no before the consultation, not after it.
Upload one photo in daylight
Face a window, no filter, hair back off your forehead. Lighting matters more for color than it does for cuts, because you are judging the shade against your skin. A warm indoor bulb will nudge every result toward gold.
Open the Hair Colors row
Jet Black, Platinum Blonde and Burgundy sit at the front of it. If you want something more specific, search Discover for the name and use the Bold Color filter, or scroll Trending Now for money piece.
Compare, save, then book
Run two or three shades on the same photo and compare them properly instead of one at a time. Save the ones that work and take them to your colorist as a reference for the finish you want.
Hair color questions, answered
Can I try on hair colors with my own photo?
What hair color suits me?
How do I know if I have warm or cool undertones?
Will platinum blonde work on my dark hair?
Can I change the color without changing the cut?
Is HairGlam free?
What kind of photo gives the best color result?
Can I show the result to my colorist?
Still deciding on the cut too
AI hairstyle try on
The short version of what HairGlam does, and every look in the app on one page.
Virtual hairstyle try on
How the try on works, what a good photo looks like, and what to expect from a render.
What haircut suits me?
Find your face shape first, then see which cuts flatter it instead of guessing from a chart.
See the color before you sit in the chair
Platinum, copper, burgundy, jet black and every shade in between, on your own photo, in the time it takes to read the salon menu.
Free to download. iPhone, iOS 15.1 or later.