Views of hues

What goes with this spring's body-con notice-me prints? Fabulous hair colour, of course. Our experts share their notes on what sings spring.

BY: Rea McNamara

� GO HEALTHY Not everyone has the knowhow to sew silk lining into winter toques. (Didn't you know that woolly head gear can cause breakage just by rubbing against your delicate kink?) So Hair2Inc.'s Adrian Carew recommends that you approach spring as the great preparation for summer. "We usually concentrate on promoting healthy colour, so we're doing a lot of tone-on-tone colour," says Carew, who's often on backstage beauty detail for the runway shows of local fashion line Greta Constantine. "Try a base colour of a nice red-brown, and then add a different tone on a different section � coppers and golds are the types of colours we're promoting." Think luxe all-over colour: richer reds, deeper browns, glistening blacks.

� PLAY WITH CONTRAST What works with sleek, spare and sexy urban hairstyling? Peek-a-boo highlights, advises Nakisha Straker of UrbanTextures Salons. This season's blunt razor cuts and old school fades call for contrasting bright colours to emphasis the hair's natural movement. "It's all about the cut," says Straker, who happens to be Chris Bosh's hairstylist. "You want to phrase the colours with the way the hair moves." Not feeling too bright? Straker suggests re-mixing the contrast. Instead of going all-out red, she recommends the subtlety of two shades under: a gold and orange, or even a gold and brown.

MAKE WAVES WITH COLOURING TIPS FOR CURLY HAIR

1. AVOID PERMANENT Go for a conditioning semi-permanent colour instead � permanent's high concentration of chemicals tends to strip the hair's natural oils, which is a major strike against a fragile hair type that veers on the dry side.

2. FIND A CURL-FRIENDLY COLOURIST "I would suggest you go to a person who really knows how to colour," says Carew. A colourist that's versed on your specific curl profile will be better able to create a colour map that works with your curly locks.

3. TRY HIGHLIGHTS "Curly hair has so many crevices that it tends to look dull," says Straker, on the need for colour variation to shake-off solid spirals. "This season we're trying to get a lot of colour into curly textures � a red or a nice chocolate brown to intensify the look."

4. SAY NO TO FOIL If your colourist suggests foiling for highlights, decline. Since basic foil strips are difficult to position against the root, the colour may bleed and, worst-case scenario, look unnatural. Request highlights a la balayage, meaning "to sweep" en Fran�ais, a free-form hand-painting technique that let's your colourist pick and choose ringlets to colour that emphasizes your unique wave, curl or kink.

5. TREAT, TREAT, TREAT It goes without saying that using treatments � protein moisture-based conditioning products � on a regular basis will not only help your hair hold colour longer, but make it look shinier and brighter.