Best hair color for olive skin: shades that avoid sallow
The most reliable hair color for olive skin is a brown with a little red in it, such as chestnut or auburn. Bright gold and flat ash are the two traps, and which one you're more at risk from depends on which olive you are.
Olive at Monk 4 depth
Olive at Monk 6 depth
Olive at Monk 8 depth
First, which olive?
Most guides treat olive skin as one thing and then give advice that only fits some of it. The better sources split it, and L’Oréal Paris sets it out clearly: warm olive has golden or yellow leanings and goes with warm browns, rich reds and sunny blondes. Cool olive, which it calls less common, has a slight blue or icy green undertone and goes with ashy blondes or mushroom browns. Neutral olive can usually carry either.
Read a second brand and you’ll see how unsettled this is. Here are two of them on the same four questions. Davines even disagrees with itself, in one sentence recommending platinum and ash for warm-leaning fair skin and in another warning that platinum can make warm olive look sallow.
| Question | L’Oréal Paris | Davines |
|---|---|---|
| Ash brown | For cool-toned olive | A strong contrast against warm olive |
| Platinum | Works for cool-leaning olive, with significant upkeep | Can make warm olive sallow. A sandy or beige platinum suits cool olive |
| Golden or honey blonde | Honey for warm olive, light to medium | Golden blonde for light or medium warm olive |
| Red | Auburn is versatile, and burgundy gives striking contrast | Avoid anything too red or orange. Auburn is the one to pick |
They do agree on some things, and those are worth holding on to: auburn and warm brown are safe almost everywhere, and platinum is a project. To work out your own lean, try the white-against-ivory and sage-against-gold tests in the best colors for olive skin. Be careful with the vein test Davines suggests, since olive skin often shows green veins whatever its lean, as our olive undertone page explains. Our own undertone test can report olive at middle depths, but it won’t say whether yours is warm or cool. It leaves that split to you.
The two traps, measured
Why would hair make skin look sallow in the first place? Here’s our own reading of it, using the color numbers. It’s a way of thinking about the effect, and nobody has tested it on real people. Picture your skin at Monk 6 depth in our olive recipe, just on the yellow side of orange and carrying little color. Now compare each hair direction with it.
| Hair | Turn | Strength | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golden blonde | 1° | stronger | Same direction, stronger |
| Ash brown | 24° | less than the skin | Same family, greyer |
| Mushroom brown | 30° | less than the skin | Grey with some rose |
| Chestnut | 23° | about the same | Turned toward red |
| Auburn | 29° | stronger | Further toward red |
| Neutral dark brown | 29° | less than the skin | Quiet, close in hue |
The brassy trap
Golden blonde has almost exactly the hue of olive skin, at more than twice its strength. It points the same way and much harder. So the hair says “yellow” loudly right beside skin that says it quietly, and the skin can look washed out or greener by comparison. Brass makes this worse over time, since lifted hair drifts warmer as it fades. That’s why the warning is about bright yellow gold and not warmth in general. Warm colors a step browner or redder don’t have the same problem.
The ashy trap
Ash brown goes the other way: about a fifth of your skin’s color, so nearly grey, and it’s turned slightly toward the green side of your skin. There’s nothing in it to lift your skin, and the grey in your skin and the grey in your hair can read as one flat tone. That’s the classic complaint, and also why cool-leaning olive sometimes gets away with it. If you’re cool underneath, the ash matches you and doesn’t drain you.
Why chestnut and auburn keep turning up
Both turn away from your skin’s hue toward red, by a similar amount, at about the same strength as your skin or a little above. That red sits on the far side of the red and green channel from olive’s slight green cast, so it may be doing what blush does: returning a little of the rose that the cast takes out. It fits the fact that auburn is one thing both brands above agree on, and it’s where we would start.
Are ash shades bad for olive skin?
Not automatically. The sources are split, and we think the split is about which olive you have and how deep the shade is. L’Oréal pairs rich ash brown with cool olive, and Davines says a cool, deep ash brown stands out against warm olive. A deep ash has a large lightness step from your skin, so it can frame your face even without much color. A mid-level ash, close to your skin in both depth and color, is the riskier one. If you love ash, keep it deep or use it as a tone in a brown and not as the whole color. And try the try-on, with the warning that its one ashy chip is a light blonde.
Can olive skin go blonde?
Yes, with some planning. Depth matters as much as tone here:
- Honey, caramel and bronde. The warm route, a step browner than yellow. L’Oréal recommends honey for warm light-to-medium olive and caramel for medium to deep. Well within reach as highlights.
- Golden blonde. Davines suggests it for warm olive at light and medium depths, and it’s the one nearest the brassy trap in our numbers. Keep it soft, and leave some depth at the root.
- Beige or sandy. Where a cooler olive can look for its blonde. Davines describes a sandy or beige platinum for olive that pulls cool.
- Platinum. A bold, high-contrast statement that demands significant upkeep, and L’Oréal makes clear that bleached hair needs care to stay smooth and healthy.
If your natural hair is dark, any of these will mean lightening. Hair color for brown skin maps what that takes, and the pigment that shows on the way up is warm, so cool blondes cost the most to maintain.
By depth
Olive runs from fair to deep, and the same shade behaves differently along the way, as the picture at the top of this page shows. At Monk 4 depth, nearly every shade above is much darker than your skin, so hair is the darkest thing on your head, and soft neutral browns keep it from looking severe. At Monk 6, mid-browns and caramels sit close to you, so check that some hue is separating them from your skin. At Monk 8, your natural dark hair is already close to your skin in depth, so red and gold lights in the mass show up as color without a big lift.
What to ask your colorist for
Skip the phrase “cover my olive”, since there’s nothing to correct. Describe the problem you want to avoid, in color terms. These scripts are our suggestions, and a colorist looking at your hair may well change them.
Say this
“I have olive skin that goes yellow beside gold and flat beside ash. I’d like a brown with a little red in it, chestnut or soft auburn, near my natural level. If you add lighter pieces, keep them caramel, and please no bright yellow as it fades.”
And if you lean cool:
Say this
“My olive skin leans cool and warm reds look too orange on me. Could we do a deep neutral or soft ash brown, with enough depth that it doesn’t blend with my skin? I’d like to keep brass down between appointments.”
Take in a photo, because tone words differ by brand. Our Soft Autumn hair page goes through salon tone vocabulary, and much of it applies here too. For box color, your natural pigment always affects the result, and the NHS advises a strand test at least 48 hours before use.
Try it before you commit
Open the hair try-on and compare chestnut, auburn and copper with ash brown and mushroom brown. Look at your skin around your mouth and under your eyes. The ten chips are screen colors, so read them as direction, and dark hair won’t reach the lightest ones in the preview. If you have green or hazel eyes, read the best hair color for green eyes as well, since those two often come together. The Full Color Report shows 3 hair colors on you.
Related guides and tools
Sources
- The Best Hair Colors for Olive Skin: 10 Flattering Shades to Try
- The Perfect Match: The Best Hair Colors for Olive Skin Tones
- How to tell if you have olive skin, according to expert makeup artists
- How To Find the Most Flattering Brunette Hair Color for Your Skin Tone
- Human hair color
- Olive skin
- Hair dye reactions
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See a sample reportCommon questions
- What hair color suits olive skin best?
- Browns with a little red in them, such as chestnut, soft auburn and warm chocolate, are the safest place to start at most depths. Warm olive can go toward caramel and honey. Cool olive can go toward deep neutral or ash browns. Test against your own skin before you decide.
- Why does my hair color make me look yellow?
- Most often it's a bright gold or brassy tone. It points in the same color direction as olive skin but far more strongly, so your skin can look washed out or greener beside it. Try a browner or redder version of the same warmth, or ask your colorist to take the brightness down.
- Can olive skin have black hair?
- Yes, and it's very common. Black gives a strong frame on light and medium olive skin, and a softer one on deep olive skin. If it feels heavy, a soft black or a very dark brown with a hint of red can be easier beside the face.
- Is red hair good for olive skin?
- Often, in a browned or deep version. Auburn is the shade most sources agree on. Vivid orange-based reds are the ones to test first: Davines warns against anything too red or orange, and IPSY's analysts report the same on olive skin with lipsticks.
- Do highlights suit olive skin?
- They can. Caramel, honey or cinnamon pieces in a brown base add warmth with less risk than an all-over blonde. L'Oréal suggests cinnamon balayage as low maintenance on medium olive skin. Keep them soft and a step or two from your base if you want them to blend.
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