Ok. So I’m sure we were all made aware of the whole “Roy G. Biv” thing, and that’s all fine and dandy. But besides the colors of the rainbow, what else do most ppl REALLY know about colors? Hence the purpose of this blog: Color Theory.

I will try to make this as user friendly as possible, because if I go into the same great detail that was given to me in cosmetology school, we’d be here all day, so let’s just cover the basics…

Colors are broken up into 3 basic categories, Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary (which technically is a fancy word for third lol). Primary colors are those that cannot be recreated by mixing any other colors together. Primary colors are as follows: Red, Yellow, and Blue. Secondary colors are those that can only be created by mixing two Primary colors together. Secondary colors are as follows: Orange, Green, and Purple. Tertiary colors are those that fall in between a Primary and Secondary color on the color wheel. Tertiary colors are as follows: Orange-Red, Yellow-Orange, Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Purple, and Red-Purple. 

Now, a midst all of these colors, they all will either fall in the COOL category or the WARM category. Colors on the wheel between Red and Yellow-Green are considered Warm, and on the other side they are considered Cool. 

Complimentary colors are true to their namesake. They are two colors that are across from (opposite of each other) on the color wheel. To make a long story short, complementary colors are as follows:

Red & Green, Orange & Blue, Yellow & Purple.

Pretty simple right? 

If you’re a daredevil with a mean optic sense like myself, you’d see why Chartreuse looks just as amazing with Royal Purple as it does with Royal Blue. Why? Because Chartreuse is a true Yellow-Green, which is a tertiary that falls across the wheel from both Purple and Blue-Violet. Make sense? See chart below for a more visual insight.

 

In addition to all of this craziness, there are also Black and White. White being all colors. Black being none. Hence on a hair color chart, you can either go from 1 (jet black) to 10 (Platinum Blonde). That’s just the beginning though. Simply because TONES, SHADES, and COLORS are all totally different things. 

I hope this blog is informative for you guys, and that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I just may start a series called “Theory Basics” just to see how it goes.

TTYL My Pretties!

-Ashlee