Dramatic hairstyle changes often come either before or shortly after dramatic life changes. This is no surprise as psychologists confirm a strong connection between the way people perceive their hair and their emotions. Therefore, if you want to make some major change or are struggling with it, visiting your stylist can be a great idea.

However, you also need to keep in mind that not all hair changes are equal. While cutting your hair is rather easy and has a huge emotional impact, the maintenance of your new hairstyle might be rather easy as well. Changing the colour, on the other hand, is not as simple. Not only will this need a substantial investment, but you also need to consider colour maintenance. Not to mention whether the “dramatic change” you want to achieve is truly right for you.

Therefore, consider the following things before you go to a salon.

Is the Colour You Want a Good Match for You?

You might have dreamed of having vivid-purple hair since you were little and today there are dyes that can make this dream come true. But what if you have caramel skin and hazel eyes? The dream might turn into a nightmare once you dye your hair that colour because it will clash awfully and no amount of makeup and wardrobe changes will fix that.

Therefore, before you decide to make a big change with your hair, you need to make sure that the thing you want is really a good match for your skin and eye colour. Remember that warm-tones go with warm, so being ash blonde is out, same as being warm caramel-blonde isn’t the best choice for someone with whiteish pale skin and blue eyes.

Can Your Hair Take This Kind of Change?

Colouring your hair will damage it to some extent. Bleaching is the worst offender in this, so if your dramatic change is to go blonde, you need to consider the health of your hair more carefully. Of course, with top-grade products like Olaplex and No Yellow Colour, going blonde has turned from hair suicide to a treatment that will have you leave the salon with silky golden or silvery locks. Therefore, unless your hair is severely damaged already, professional bleaching shouldn’t cause any major issues.

However, if you’ve had it treated recently, for example permed, you should wait for a while so your locks can recover. Also, bleaching isn’t recommended for pregnant women.

The damage to your hair caused by colouring is inevitable, but it can be minimal if you get professional treatment using high-quality solutions. Therefore, if you want to get a major change, doing it in a salon is a must. Otherwise, you might make your emotional state worse because if you mess up, the blow of negativity and stress will be huge.

Do You Have Enough Money and Time to Maintain Your New Colour?

Saving up for initial dramatic colour change in a salon isn’t that hard if you’re determined. However, hair colour maintenance is a recurring expense that might put a strain on your budget. Therefore, you need to do some calculations before making this change. In most cases, you’ll need to do some kind of work every 4-8 weeks. Depending on your colour, this might be root touchups or a complete toning treatment. For example, being blonde can cost you between $200 and $500 per treatment.

Maintaining bold and unnatural hair colours is even more expensive because you’ll need to touch up the roots as well as redo the colour completely. As they fade very fast, you will also need to invest in tinting products to keep the colour more-or-less vivid between salon visits.

You also need to include more expensive hair care products into your calculations. You should be using salon-grade products to keep the colour for as long as possible and to help your hair recover after the treatment.

Another expense to consider is your makeup and clothing. Will your current collection match your new look? If not, you’ll have to go on a big and expensive shopping spree.

And don’t forget the time, as you’ll need to free up your schedule for these regular touchup treatments in the salon. If you travel a lot or lead a very busy life, this can be a huge challenge in itself.

All in all, a dramatic hair colour change is a big decision, so take your time to think it through.