Color Your Hair Bold For Summer

Summer's knocking on the door, and what better way to get a fresh look for the new season than a striking hair color?

Now's the perfect time to perk up your hair with some bright, bold looks, and The Early Show's stylist to the stars, David Evangelista, showed some of the hottest hair hues for summer on Monday.

Whether it's brightening your base or loading your head full of highlights, there's a way for every woman to brighten up her hair to match the feel of the bright days of summer.

It's not all about becoming a beach bleached-blonde — although that is one of the trends! — women of all hair colors can get beautiful, brilliant summer-suitable shades without becoming tow-headed.

Last week, three women who wanted to change their hair color for summer had it done at the David Evangelista Salon at Cornelia Day Spa (www.cornelia.com/shop/index.php), where colorist Eugenia gave each a different spectacular summer color.

On Monday, The Early Show showed the celebrity inspirations for each hue, then a "before" shot of each model, followed by video of the color process performed on the model, explaining what Eugenia did and what women should ask their colorist to do to their hair if they want a similar look. Then, the show showed each model live, and addressed how the new color enhances their skin/eyes/etc.

The looks Evangelista sampled, and his comments:

Toffee/Iced Latte Look

Nicola came into the salon with blah, brown hair that had a few thin wisps of gold highlights and definitely needed to brighten up for summer. Taking inspiration from Sarah Jessica Parker's new, not-so-blonde look, Eugenia painted thin, toffee/latte-colored highlights throughout Nicola's hair, covering her entire head, using a process called "balliage" (painting small wisps of hair all over the head). After about 30 minutes, the highlights were washed out, a gloss was put onto Nicola's hair for extra shine — and the result was a beautiful, brighter, more summery look that makes Nicola appear far less sallow and brings out the pink in her cheeks (it'll also look wonderful if Nicola gets a bit bronzed this summer; it's not artificial looking at all, and the color is complimentary for many skin tones).

Bright Blonde

Summer had the epitome of dishwater blonde hair. It wasn't highlighted, and although it was a lovely base color, it gave no perk to Summer's look. Inspired by Kate Hudson's beach babe blonde tresses, Eugenia again used the balliage technique, weaving bits of bright blonde through Summer's hair. After sitting under a dryer for about 30 minutes to activate the bleach in the highlights, Summer became a beautiful, bright, bold blonde and looked like she was born with that hair. Evangelista also cut bangs on Summer, a huge trend in summer hair this year.

Honey Highlights

When Holly came into the salon, her hair was a flat, mousy brown with grays speckled throughout. Taking a cue from honey-hued celebrity Mandy Moore, Eugenia brought up her base color with an overall single process, which also got rid of the grays in Holly's hair. After she sat with that color on for about half an hour, the color was rinsed from Holly's head, and Eugenia painted chunks of honey highlights throughout her hair. Now, Holly's color is lighter, brighter, yet still natural, and makes her blue eyes stand out.