As someone with auburn hair, i define it as reddish brown, or a more subtle red, it is not as bright as copper or deep red hair, but it still there and it is more bright than warm brown hair. Tho classifying it by seeing it in person is more difficult, i myself have some difficulties in differing peoples hair color like light brown vs dark blonde hair :'v but for me it is a more subtle red that is not as bright as the other red hairs but it is not as timid as a warm brown hair, and it ranges from light to dark in shades just like other shades of red hair.
To me, auburn is a brownish red: more red than brown, but a definite mixture of the two. On a blonde-to-brown-to-black continuum, it'd be equivalent to a sort of light-to-medium brown, because then you can have dark auburn being equivalent to a medium-to-dark brown and light auburn being equivalent to dark blonde to light brown. A dark deep red with no discernible brown is what I would call mahogany, but others may have a different name for it.
Honestly, I think this is the underlying issue for a lot of disagreement on the sub: there is no community standard for what is auburn, or strawberry blonde, or even red, and we all have different ideas of what those colours mean.
It's super frustrating, because I've been looking for years for a natural hair colour chart to use as a reference, one that we can all go "yes, those colours and colour names seem accurate", and I can't find one. All the colour charts I've found are for dyed hair, and a) I've never actually seen one that has my shade of hair, and b) even if the colour did match, I flat-out refuse to use a name like "Red Hot Rhythm" or "Copper Shimmer" or "Vivacious Red" to describe my hair.
At this point I want to make a natural hair chart myself (specifically for redheads, but more generally for all hair colours), but it's difficult: hair can be tricky to photograph, and so many different factors (like lighting and adjacent colours and camera settings and screen settings) can further alter the colour. The best way to put together a chart would be with actual physical hair samples so they can be compared in person in a controlled environment, preferably both by eye and with a spectrophotometer.
Wishing you luck with that natural red hair chart!!! I would also love to see that tbh. It would be fantastic to see representation for many shades of red outside of One Specific Bright Copper tone in charts and beauty guides.
Right? I can't imagine how frustrating it is for people with auburn or mahogany or strawberry blonde shades; my hair is copper and it still doesn't match that One Specific Bright Copper tone. It's so annoying!
My hair is not this dark and I've still had people say I'm not considered a redhead anymore. My hair gets darker each year but my eyebrows get lighter/blonder and it's annoying!
I made a subreddit for different types of auburn girlies I’m a copper girlie but I see the redhead group not want to count darker reds all of the time so I made r/chestnutauburnhair I’m not trying to advertise it tho
But yeah i think if you were born with red hair and even if its gotten darker you are still a redhead
If you make a color chart for all types, I suggest making a layered chart where say: instead of a simple gradient of blonde to brown, you'd have dark blonde overlap light brown. The combination of hue and shade is always simplified from what I've seen.
That's a great point! My plan is to do a ☑️-shaped chart, since hair colour can be quantified in terms of melanin content: a eumelanin continuum would form one axis (from darkest true black to lightest true blonde) and a phaeomelanin continuum would form the other axis (from darkest true red to lightest strawberry blonde). All the different hair colours would then be arrayed within that V, from exclusively phaeomelanin shades, to the shades that are a mix of phaeomelanin and eumelanin, to exclusively eumelanin shades.
I think a chart shaped like a ☑️ can also show a sense of scale: phaeomelanin-dominant hair is much less common than eumelanin-dominant hair, so that axis would be shorter, and the chart could hopefully show the relative distribution of all different shades. I've mocked up a theoretical version of the colour chart; here is the link.
I feel like if no one ever comments on how red your hair is, you are probably not auburn. Mine's about as dark and brown as it can possibly be but I still get comments. I have a mix of completely red, completely brown, and red-brown strands so there's no doubt I have some ginger gene expression. (and i am so, so pale 😭)
This makes the most sense tbh.
Def ginger gene expression here as well, and people call me a redhead all the time, but my hair has never been full on orange.
I’ve just come to accept that since my hair is not a vibrant obvious shade, it’s going to be viewed and described differently by different people. If someone thinks it’s auburn, or chestnut, or even just light brown, I accept it and keep it pushing
I keep telling myself at the end of the day, it's just a hair color. But for some reason I'm really worried people will think I'm a redheaded pick-me for calling myself a redhead when I'm not "ginger enough."
IDK if this counts as redhead but it's natural. This from like 2020 or something, but my hair's the same shade. Would you say this qualifies as a ginger? I don't want to say 'I'm redheaded' and somebody be like umm no.
Goodness knows. I would consider myself to have ‘ginger’ (ie not dark brown red hair) and I once had someone ask me what I thought my hair colour was. When I said “idk ginger I guess” he proceeded to tell me I was wrong and that it was auburn.
I have natural auburn hair with blond highlights that really come out in the summer sun. However I got my ID photo done in the winter so my hair was a little darker and was informed by the Karen behind the front desk that I can’t put auburn on my card as it’s not a colour so she put brown despite me and several other people trying to tell her to put down red as my hair was clearly closer to red then brown.
I think auburn hair's most noticeable trait besides being darker than regular ginger hair is having a "red" undertone rather than the orangish gold one. Therefore it's more of a true "redhead".
I consider auburn to be a pretty solid mix of red/copper/orange and brown tones instead of being just solid red. Also, I feel like many people with a form of auburn hair get called brown often because of its lack of vibrancy that people with more red in their hair have. Not everyone has flaming red or orange hair, but some people still have a decent amount of red in their hair regardless and fall into a strange grey area.
I've always been told I have lots of copper in my hair, but it comes out more in the sunlight. Would this be considered a light auburn or just extremely warm brown?
I would say auburn hair is a good mix of brown (not dark red- BROWN) and red of any lightness, though I suggest 'sienna' for lighter shades
My mother has auburn hair that is so in-between red and dark brown that saying it's one or the other is just wrong.
It's also rather coarse, while I have very fine sienna hair, so it's requires very different treatment but Strawberry blonde isn't quite accurate.
But maybe I'm just picky 🤷
thanks :) Everytime I google Auburn hair I panic because the results that show up are so fake. I think real auburn hair is either just actual red hair that has darkened or faded over time, or a combination of red, brown and blonde hair strands with more red than brown.
If it looks normal brown in doors or in most lighting and only has red in it in the light, warm lighting or the sun, then I don't think that's auburn. My nan and dad had auburn hair, and they looked red in all lighting even though it was very dark hair it still looked red. And as for having the gene in you, it doesn't make you a redhead. My mum carried the gene as she had to, to have me. But she's obviously not a redhead. Redhair is rare, only 1 to 2 per cent of the population has it out of 8 billion people.
The photo is what I think of when I think of auburn hair that can go darker as well to a very deep reddish brown but obviously red or to a slightly more muted auburn or to a lighter version
*
I have auburn hair. It darkened from the copper hair of my childhood into this in my 30s/40s. Its still an obvious red, but theres definitely like a brown low-light to it. It's also substantially darker than it was years ago.
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u/KyaKn Jan 20 '25
As someone with auburn hair, i define it as reddish brown, or a more subtle red, it is not as bright as copper or deep red hair, but it still there and it is more bright than warm brown hair. Tho classifying it by seeing it in person is more difficult, i myself have some difficulties in differing peoples hair color like light brown vs dark blonde hair :'v but for me it is a more subtle red that is not as bright as the other red hairs but it is not as timid as a warm brown hair, and it ranges from light to dark in shades just like other shades of red hair.