Root colour or full colour? When you need which

If you colour your hair regularly, sooner or later you notice that the salon lists two different services: root colour and full colour. The difference is not mainly the price — it is what each one does to your hair.

Root colour deals with the regrowth

In four to six weeks, roughly one and a half to two centimetres of new hair comes through in your own, uncoloured shade. Root colour covers that band; the lengths are left alone.

This is maintenance work. Two hours on short hair, two and a half on longer. Fifty grams of colour is enough, because the work is only at the root.

Full colour recolours the whole length

You need this when you are changing shade, when the ends have faded, or when the previous colour has worn down enough that the difference between root and length is visible.

We work with eighty grams, and it takes two hours on short hair, two and a half on longer. The same time as root colour — the difference is in the product and in the effect.

Why add the cut?

Both can be booked with a cut. That is not only for convenience: cutting after colouring takes off the ends that have taken the most punishment, and the fresh colour then reads as more even.

The version with a cut runs half an hour to an hour longer than colour alone, but it saves you a second appointment.

How often?

For a darker shade close to your own, six to eight weeks is plenty. With strong contrast — a light colour on dark base hair, or the other way round — the regrowth shows after four.

If the regrowth bothers you but you would rather not come in monthly, it is worth choosing a shade closer to your own, or moving to one of the softer techniques where there is no hard line at the root.

If you are unsure

A colour consultation takes a quarter of an hour and answers exactly these questions: how much product, how long, how often you will need to come back. It often turns out that what you want is cheaper and quicker to reach than you thought.