What is a hair colour try-on?
A hair colour try-on shows a new colour on your own photo before you commit to it. You add a photo, pick a shade and slide between your photo and the new colour. It is a quick way to see whether copper, a darker brown or a cooler blonde is a colour you would like to look at every day.
This one runs in your browser. Your photo is read on your device and never uploaded, and what you see is a preview of a colour on your photo, not a prediction of how a dye will turn out.
How the try-on recolours your photo
When you start, a small hair model downloads to your browser. It marks which pixels of your photo are hair, with soft edges. The tool then shifts those pixels toward the shade you choose in CIE Lab, a colour space that separates lightness from colour.
Lightness keeps your own shading and highlights around the new average, so the dark and light areas of your hair stay where they were. Colour keeps only a little of the original variation. Where the model is unsure whether a pixel is hair, the new colour is blended in gently, which avoids a hard edge around your head.
The model was made by Google’s MediaPipe team for photo effects and augmented reality. Because the colouring happens on your device, you can try as many shades as you like without anything being sent anywhere.
The shades
There are 13 shades in three groups. The names are ours and describe the colour, so no brand’s shade chart is reproduced.
- Natural: soft black, dark brown, chestnut, light brown, golden blonde, ash blonde and platinum.
- Warm: auburn, copper and burgundy.
- Fashion: rose pink, violet and steel blue.
For the natural and warm shades, the tool tells you roughly which level on the 1 to 10 scale it matches and how big a step that is from your starting colour. Fashion shades sit outside the scale. To find your own starting level, use the hair colour level finder, and see our hair colour levels chart for what the numbers mean.
How realistic is a try-on?
Realistic enough to judge a colour family, and not enough to promise a result. A few things limit it.
- Your starting colour. Going from black to a light blonde is a very different job from going from light brown to chestnut, and a preview on a photo shows the end colour without showing how hair gets there.
- Shadow and similar colours. The hair model can miss hair that is in deep shadow or close to its background. If part of your hair looks untouched, that part was not found.
- Light. Your photo’s light shows through the new colour. A shade previewed on a photo taken under a warm bulb will look warmer than it would in daylight.
- Real dye. The colour you get from a product depends on your hair’s condition, how it was coloured before and the product itself.
Before you dye: do a patch test
If a preview makes you want to colour your hair, read the box first. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advises following all the directions on the label and doing a patch test on your skin every time before dyeing your hair. It notes that some hair dyes can cause allergic reactions, and that you can react even if you have used a product before, because formulations can change.
Going lighter or darker: how big is the step?
The size of the step matters more than the shade name. A step of one or two levels is a small change. A step of three or more levels lighter is a big change and a good moment to ask a salon, so the tool says when a shade is a big step from your starting colour.
How to take the photo
- Use even daylight from a window, with the light in front of you. Skip the flash.
- Keep your hair clear of dark clothing and dark backgrounds, which the model can confuse with hair.
- Show your hair clearly. Your face does not have to be in the photo.
- Use a sharp photo, because the hair model works best on one.
- Take the photo or upload one, pick a shade and slide.
If the tool cannot read your photo, it tells you why: not enough hair in the frame, a photo that is too dark, or bright reflections.
What a preview cannot tell you
A preview cannot show how your hair will take a dye, how long a colour will last, or whether a colour suits your skin tone and style in person. It is not professional colour advice.
See how colour-treated hair is doing in the HairLens app
The HairLens app scores moisture and breakage from your photos and tracks grey coverage, so you can see how colour treatments are treating your hair over time.