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Calico
Irregular patches of near-black espresso, ginger and cream placed across the head in deliberately uneven, non-repeating shapes.
Try Calico on your own photo. Free to download, iPhone, iOS 15.1 or later.
Both renders are HairGlam output. In the app the shade lands on your photo instead.
This is patchwork rather than gradient: sections are mapped out in blocks of different sizes so no two patches match, which is exactly what stops it looking like clumsy highlights. The cream carries the most contrast and needs the cleanest lift, while ginger sits between the extremes and does most of the blending. Worn up, the pattern scatters and reads busier; brushed down, the patches sit as broad areas of color.
- Undertonewarm, neutral. Ginger and cream are both warm and the espresso anchors them at neutral, so the combination sits well on skin with a golden, olive or peach cast.
- Starting pointCream patches need lifting to a pale yellow and the ginger a mid-level lift, while the darkest patches go straight over natural hair with no bleach.
- UpkeepTone the cream about every five weeks, and because regrowth breaks up the patch edges unevenly, plan a full retouch around week eight rather than letting it drift.
Try it before the bleach
Color is the expensive mistake to get wrong. Put Calico against your own skin tone first.
Neapolitan
Rainbow
Oil SlickSee it on your own face first
Every style in this catalog renders onto a photo of you, so you are judging your own face shape and coloring rather than a model's.
Free to download. iPhone, iOS 15.1 or later.