85 shades · 10 levels

Hair Color Wheel

Spin for a random hair color from 85shades, filtered by family and tone — and read the colorist’s wheel underneath it: the level 1–10 depth scale, the pigment hiding under each level, and which tone cancels which.

Press Spin to land on one of 14 shades.

On the wheel

14 on the wheel, out of 85 shades in total. Reshuffle for a different line-up.

Swatches are approximate and shown for comparison, not color matching.

85 shades across 6 families. Every result names its depth level and the underlying pigment you would be working against.

Two different things called a hair color wheel

Search for a hair color wheel and you are one of two people. Either you want a wheel that spins and lands on a shade, because you have been circling the same decision for a month and would rather chance decided it, or you want the actual color wheel a colorist works from — the one that explains why bleached hair turns orange and which tone cancels it. The searches are identical and the answers are not, so both are on this page rather than one being sent somewhere else.

The spinner holds 85 shades in 6 families: Black, Brown, Blonde, Red, Grey & Silver, Fashion. Brown is the deepest bench at 20 shades and Black the shallowest at 5, which is worth knowing before you filter — a narrow filter is a narrow wheel. Tone filters cut across the families instead, so you can ask for cool shades regardless of whether they are brown, blonde or grey.

Every result names its depth level as well as its shade name, and that is the detail most random hair color generators leave out. A shade name on its own tells you the direction; the level tells you how far you are being asked to travel. “Ash blonde” from level 3 hair and “ash blonde” from level 7 hair are the same words describing two completely different appointments, and one of them cannot be done in an afternoon.

That is why the theory sits directly under the spinner. Lightening strips cool pigment before warm, so hair on the way up passes through red, then orange, then yellow — and the level chart below lists exactly which of those you are dealing with at each of the 10 levels, along with the tone that cancels it. It is the difference between being told your hair went brassy and understanding that at level 7 there was never anything else underneath.

What this page will not do is give you a formula. No developer volumes, no processing times, no brand shade codes, no promises about what a color will do to hair that has had box dye or henna on it. Those depend entirely on history the wheel cannot see. Take a shade name and a level to somebody who can look at your hair, and use the wheel for the part it is actually good at: narrowing 85 options down to one.

How to use the wheel

Only the second step is required. The rest is for when you want the draw narrower or the answer more useful.

Step 1
Narrow it if you want to
The 6 family buttons stack, and the 4 tone buttons narrow it further. Leave everything off and all 85 shades are in the pool.
Step 2
Spin
Fourteen shades sit on the wheel at once. The result card shows the swatch, the name, the depth level and the tone family it belongs to.
Step 3
Reshuffle for new options
With 85 shades in the list, one wheel cannot hold them all. Reshuffle swaps the fourteen for a different fourteen from the same filtered pool.
Step 4
Read the level, not just the name
Each result names its level and the underlying pigment at that level — the thing that decides whether the shade lands cleanly or turns brassy.

A spinner and a real color wheel

Most pages answer one of the two searches. This one spins 85 shades and publishes the 10-level depth chart with underlying pigments, because the person who wants a random shade and the person who wants to know what cancels orange both typed the same words.

Level and tone kept separate

Depth is how dark, tone is which direction. Confusing them is the single most common reason a color comes out wrong, so every shade here carries both — or says plainly that it has no natural level, as 27 of them do.

No brand names, no formulas

Descriptive shade names and industry-standard levels, not one manufacturer's catalogue. Nothing here is a mixing instruction, a developer volume or a processing time, because those belong with a professional who can see your hair.

The level 1–10 depth chart

Level is depth: how much natural pigment is left, from 1 at black to 10 at the lightest blonde. The underlying pigment column is the useful part — it is what is exposed as hair lifts to that level, and the last column is the tone directly opposite it on the color wheel, which is the one that cancels it.

Hair depth levels 1 to 10 with the depth name, the underlying pigment exposed at that level and the tone that neutralises it
Level	Depth	Underlying pigment	Cancelled by
1	Black	Blue-black	Orange
2	Darkest brown	Blue	Orange
3	Dark brown	Dark red	Green
4	Medium brown	Red	Green
5	Light brown	Red-orange	Blue-green
6	Dark blonde	Orange	Blue
7	Medium blonde	Orange-gold	Blue-violet
8	Light blonde	Gold	Violet
9	Very light blonde	Yellow	Violet
10	Lightest blonde	Pale yellow	Violet

Levels are an industry-wide scale rather than any one brand’s numbering, which is why a level travels between salons and a product code does not. Swatches are approximate and are there to show the direction of travel, not to match a color.

What cancels what

This is the part of the color wheel that does real work. Opposite hues cancel, so an unwanted tone is fixed by adding the one across from it — which is the entire mechanism behind every toning shampoo on the shelf.

Red is cancelled by green

Sits opposite red on the wheel, which is why green-based ash tones are used on brassy brunettes.

Orange is cancelled by blue

The reason blue shampoo is sold for dark blonde and brown hair rather than purple shampoo.

Yellow is cancelled by violet

The whole basis of purple shampoo on level 9 and 10 blonde.

Green is cancelled by red

Comes up after chlorine or when a blue-based colour is applied over yellow hair.

The practical consequence is that toning products are level-specific even when the packaging does not say so. Purple targets yellow, which only shows up once hair is genuinely light — levels 9 and 10. Blue targets orange, which is what you get at 6 and 7. Use the wrong one and it is not that it works less well; it is aimed at a tone that is not there, which is why so many people conclude purple shampoo did nothing.

It also explains the thing that surprises people about going darker. Putting a level 4 brown over hair that has been lifted to 9 often turns muddy or greenish, because the yellow left in the hair mixes with the blue base in the brown. That is not a bad product. It is two pigments meeting on the wheel, and it is the reason filling is a step rather than an upsell.

What is in the 85 shades

Families first, then tones. Every count here is taken from the same list the wheel spins, so the pool sizes on the wheel and the numbers below can never disagree.

Brown20Fashion20Blonde18Red15Grey & Silver7Black5

Cool24Warm27Neutral14Vivid20

58 of the 85 shades sit somewhere on the natural depth scale, and 27 do not. That second group — the greys, silvers and fashion colors — is the one worth pausing on. They have no level because they are not natural depths; they are deposits that sit on top of whatever lightness is already there. A vivid teal on level 4 hair reads as dark hair with a hint of something in direct light, and the same dye on level 9 hair reads as teal. Same product, entirely different result, and the level is the whole explanation.

Tones cut across families rather than sitting inside them, which is why they are a separate filter. Cool covers ash browns, ash blondes and silvers; warm covers golds, coppers and caramels; neutral is the balance point people ask for when they want a color that does not read as either. Vivid is its own thing entirely — every vivid shade here is a fashion color, and every fashion color is vivid, because that is what the category means.

Eight ways people use it

Before a salon appointment

Walk in with a shade name and a level instead of a photo in bad lighting. A colorist can tell you in ten seconds whether level 9 is reachable from where you are.

When you cannot decide

Three shades feel equally right and the decision has been open for weeks. Filter to those families and let the wheel end it.

Diagnosing brassiness

Find your level in the chart, read the underlying pigment, and the neutralising column tells you which toning direction actually applies to you.

Group dares and challenges

A friend group agreeing to spin for each other's next color. Filter out the vivids first if anybody has a job with a dress code.

Characters, cosplay and art

Wigs and drawings have no upkeep and no lift, so the whole list is fair game. Spin for a shade, then match it with the swatch and the level.

Choosing a wig or extensions

Extensions are sold by level far more often than by name. Knowing you want a level 8 neutral is more useful to a seller than saying beige.

Learning the theory

Trainee stylists and beauty students use the level chart the same way anyone learns a scale — cover the pigment column and try to recall it.

Breaking a rut

Ten years of the same two shades because they are safe. A random draw from a family you have never tried is a cheap way to widen the shortlist.

How to read a shade before you commit to it

Start with the distance, not the shade. Find roughly where your hair sits on the level chart and count the gap to whatever the wheel gave you. One or two levels in either direction is an ordinary appointment. Four or five levels lighter is a lifting job where the underlying pigment column matters, because you will pass through every tone between here and there. Going darker looks easier and carries its own trap, which is that dark deposits can grab unevenly on hair that has been lightened before.

Then look at tone against your own coloring rather than in isolation. The traditional shortcut is that cool tones tend to sit well with cool skin undertones and warm with warm, and like most shortcuts it is right often enough to be useful and wrong often enough to be worth ignoring when you can see for yourself. What is more reliable is contrast: a big jump in depth changes how strongly your features read, which is why going several levels lighter can leave people feeling washed out even when the shade itself is flattering.

Third, price the upkeep, because that is what actually decides whether a color survives. Anything more than two levels from your natural depth produces a visible regrowth line within a few weeks. Vivids fade fastest of anything on this wheel — they are deposits with nothing anchoring them — and silver needs constant toning because the yellow it is hiding never stops coming back. A shade you love that needs a salon visit every four weeks is a worse choice than a shade you like that needs one every twelve.

Fourth, be honest about hair history before you take a shade seriously. Box dye, henna, previous bleach and chemical straightening all change what is possible, and henna in particular can react badly with professional lighteners. This is the one part no chart can help with, because it is not about the color you want; it is about what is already in the hair. It is also why any competent colorist asks about it before they quote you.

Finally, use the wheel for the decision and a professional for the execution. Spinning is a good way to break a deadlock between three shades you have been weighing for weeks, and the level chart is a good way to understand why a previous color turned out brassy. Neither is a substitute for someone standing next to your head in good light. Take the shade name and the level with you, and always patch test — the wheel has no idea what your scalp reacts to.

Why use this wheel

Instant, nothing to load

The shade list ships with the page. No sign-up, no waiting on an API, no ten-question quiz before you get an answer.

Actual reference data

The 10-level depth scale with underlying pigment and neutralising tone for every level, laid out as a table you can read rather than a paragraph you have to parse.

Readable on a phone

Swatches large enough to compare, a spin target you can hit with a thumb, and a table that scrolls rather than shrinking to nothing.

No quiz, no email

Nothing asks for your photo, your email or your date of birth before it will tell you a shade name. Nothing is stored.

The pages competing for this search tend to do one of two things. Beauty brands publish a color wheel that is really a shade catalogue, where every route through it ends at a product you can buy. Generic spinner sites let you type shade names into an empty wheel, which works but starts you with a blank list and no levels. Neither answers the question underneath both searches, which is some version of what should I do with my hair and why did the last attempt go wrong.

So this page carries the shades and the theory in the same place, with no brand attached to either, and it stops short of telling you how to mix anything. That boundary is deliberate. A wheel can narrow 85 options to one and a chart can explain underlying pigment, but neither can see hair that has had three colors on it in two years, and pretending otherwise would be the one genuinely irresponsible thing a page like this could do.

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Frequently asked questions

What is a hair color wheel?

The phrase covers two different things and this page has both. One is a spinning wheel of shades you can use to pick a color at random when you cannot decide — 85 shades here, filterable by family and tone. The other is the color theory wheel a colorist works from: the 10-step depth scale, the pigment that sits underneath the hair at each step, and which tone cancels which. Both are below.

How do I spin the wheel for a random hair color?

Press Spin. The wheel shows fourteen shades at a time out of 85, because more than that stops being readable on a phone, and the Reshuffle button swaps the line-up for a different fourteen. Filter by family or tone first if you already know roughly what you want, and the pool narrows before you spin.

What does the level number mean?

Level is depth — how dark or light the hair is on a standard 10-step scale, with 1 as black and 10 as the lightest blonde. It is not the same thing as tone. Two people can both be at level 6 with one looking ashy and one looking golden, because level describes how much pigment is left and tone describes what color that remaining pigment reads as.

What is underlying pigment, and why does bleached hair go orange?

Lightening does not remove pigment evenly. The cool tones break down first, so what is left behind as hair lifts is warm — red at the dark end of the scale, orange in the middle, yellow at the light end. That is the underlying pigment, and the table on this page lists it for all 10 levels. Orange at levels 6 and 7 is not a mistake; it is what is genuinely there once the ash is gone.

Which color cancels which on the hair color wheel?

Opposites on the wheel cancel each other. green cancels red, blue cancels orange, violet cancels yellow, red cancels green. The reason blue shampoo is sold for dark blonde and brown hair rather than purple shampoo.

Why is purple shampoo for blondes and blue shampoo for brunettes?

Because they are fixing different pigments. The whole basis of purple shampoo on level 9 and 10 blonde. Blue does the same job one step darker, where the unwanted tone is orange rather than yellow. Using purple on level 6 hair is why people complain it "does nothing" — the tone it targets is not the one showing.

How many shades are on the wheel?

85, across 6 families — Black, Brown, Blonde, Red, Grey & Silver, Fashion — and 4 tone groups. 58 of them sit somewhere on the natural depth scale and 27 do not, because grey, silver and fashion shades are not natural depths.

Can I narrow the wheel to just blonde, or just cool tones?

Yes. The family buttons above the wheel stack, so Blonde and Red together gives you everything in either family, and the tone row narrows it further to Cool, Warm, Neutral or Vivid. Brown is the largest family at 20 shades and Black the smallest at 5, so the pool size on the panel is worth glancing at before you spin.

Are the swatch colors accurate?

They are approximations chosen so the shades are distinguishable side by side on a white background. They are not tied to any brand's shade chart and they cannot account for your screen, your lighting, or what your own hair will do to a color. Treat them as a way to compare shades to each other, never as a color match.

Which shades need bleach first?

Anything lighter than where you are now needs lift, and the further the jump the more lift it needs. The 27 deposit-only shades — the greys, silvers and fashion colors — are the ones people underestimate, because a vivid pink or a true silver has to go onto pale hair to read as that color at all. A vivid over level 5 brown mostly just looks like brown with a tint in bright light.

Is this a substitute for talking to a colorist?

No. It is a decision tool and a reference table. What it cannot see is your hair's history — previous box dye, henna, relaxers, how much is already lifted — and that history is what actually determines whether a shade is reachable in one appointment or three. Take a shade name to a professional; do not take a formula from a website.

Can I use it to pick a wig, extensions or a character's hair?

Yes, and it is arguably better for that than for your own head, because none of the usual constraints apply. There is no lift, no upkeep, no regrowth line and no risk. Spin, take the name and the level, and match the wig or the drawing to it.

Does it work on a phone, and do I need an account?

It works on phones, tablets and laptops with no account, no app and no download. The shade list ships with the page, so spins are instant, and nothing about what you spin is uploaded or stored.

Is any of this brand-specific?

None of it. Level and tone are industry-wide concepts, not one manufacturer's system, and the shade names here are common descriptive names rather than any brand's catalogue. Every brand maps its own numbering onto the same underlying scale, which is why a level is portable and a product code is not.

Reference only, not professional advice

This page is a decision tool and a reference chart. It is not professional cosmetology advice, it contains no formulations, developer volumes or processing times, and it cannot account for your hair’s history, condition or how your skin reacts to a product. Hair color is a chemical process: follow the instructions on whatever you actually use, patch test before every application, and consult a licensed professional before making a significant change. Swatch colors are approximations for comparison only and will look different on every screen.

Shade names here are common descriptive names and levels are the industry-standard depth scale. No brand’s shade chart is reproduced and no manufacturer is affiliated with or endorses Spin a Country. Prefer a wheel with no consequences at all? The Random Country Generator runs on the 250-country dataset behind this site.