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Color Matching
The fastest way to lose an hour is to install a shade that looked right on a screen.
Why a screen cannot settle it
Extension shades are photographed in daylight and viewed on a display that has been colour shifted by whatever the phone thinks looks pleasant. Salon lighting is warmer than daylight and far warmer than a screen, so a shade that looks correct in a photograph tends to read warmer once it is in the room.
Match to the mid lengths, not the root
The extension sits below the occipital, so it lives alongside the mid lengths and ends rather than the root. Matching to a root that is two levels deeper than the rest of the head is the most common reason a blend reads as a band.
What a color ring does
A color ring is over twenty of our shades in real hair on a single ring. You hold it against the hair, in the room, under the light the install will actually live in. It also changes the consultation: handing a client real hair to choose from is a different conversation to scrolling a website together.
Names, not codes
Our shades carry names rather than numeric codes. If you are working from an older order placed under the previous numbering, the color name conversion guide maps the old codes to the current names.
Common questions
Why do hair extensions look different in person than online?
Extension shades are photographed in daylight and then viewed on screens that shift colour. Salon lighting is warmer than daylight, so a shade almost always reads warmer in the room than it did in the photograph. Matching from a physical color ring under your own salon light removes the guess.
Should I match hair extensions to the root or the ends?
Match to the mid lengths and ends, not the root. Extensions sit below the occipital bone and live alongside the mid lengths, so matching to a deeper root is the most common cause of a visible band where the extension meets the natural hair.
What is a hair extension color ring?
A color ring is a set of real hair swatches on a single ring, used to match extension shades against a client’s hair in person. The Wefts and Waves ring carries over twenty shades and is used both for matching and as a consultation tool, letting a client choose from real hair rather than from a website.
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