Your essential guide to great colour

For women, beautiful hair colour can harness a huge emotional power - it makes you feel confident, healthy, positive, attractive and desirable.

Whether you're after something natural or sensational, there's enough advice in our handy guide to guarantee the best colour results every sigle time.

Essential dos and don'ts:

Do take a picture of the exact shade you want to the salon so that your colourist can talk you through wheteher it suits you and it can be replicated on your hair.

Don't use anything stronger than semi-permanent hair colour when colouring at home and always follow the instructions correctly.

Do choose a colourist who's been recommended to you, especially if you're going for a dramatic colour change.

Don't hesitate to return to the salon if you're not happy with your colour. All good salons and colourists will do everything they can to make sure that you are happy with the end results.

Do consider your skin tone before you colour - not doing so could turn what you think is the perfect colour choice into a disastrous one.

Don't forget to condition your hair thoroughly inbetween colours - your hair will be affected by the hair dyes chemicals and will always need a little extra TLC afterwards.

Do consider your hair's condition before you colour. Dry hair is more porous than greasy hair and will absorb more of the product, making the result darker.

Don't expect semi-permanent colour to cover gray completly, it will create a delicate highlight or lowlight which can look very effective.

Do visit the salon to rectify any home hair - colouring disasters. They will be able to help gently solve the problem without compromising your hair's condition.

Don't ever colour your hair without carrying a skin test first. Although extremly rare, some people react to the chemicals found in hair dyes. It's always safer to do a patch test first before you dye your hair, leaving the dye on your skin for at least 48 hours to test for a reaction.