Hair Color Levels: The 1 to 10 Scale and Where Extension Codes Fit

Hair color levels are the 1 to 10 scale colorists use to say how dark or light hair is. Extension shade codes like #1B, #4 and #613 use a separate numbering, and a salon that reads them as levels ends up with the wrong shade in the box.

This guide gives the hair color levels chart, shows how to find your own level, explains the numbers on a color box, and maps the extension codes we make onto the 1 to 10 scale.

Every colorist and every dye brand uses a level scale. A low number is dark. A high number is light. Level 5 hair and level 7 hair can both be warm, cool or neutral, because the level only measures how much light the hair reflects.

The scale is shared, and the names on it shift from brand to brand. John Frieda calls level 6 light brown and level 7 dark blonde. Davines calls level 5 light brown and level 6 dark blonde. Madison Reed numbers its permanent shades from 2 to 10. A Canadian hairstylist textbook, BC Open Textbooks, notes that some manufacturers run a 1 to 12 system (all four checked 5 October 2026).

So a level is reliable inside one brand's chart. Across brands, expect a gap of about one level in the middle of the scale.

This chart uses the naming John Frieda publishes. The last column is the warm pigment that shows when hair at that level is bleached, as listed in Blendsor's level chart.

The third column explains most colour accidents. Dark hair that's lifted three levels passes through red and orange on the way. Stop there and the result is brassy. That's why a colorist lifts to the right level first and tones second.

You need daylight, a mirror and a level chart or a swatch ring. It takes two minutes.

1. Stand by a window in daylight. Indoor bulbs make hair look darker and warmer.
2. Take a section from the back of the head, at the mid-lengths. Roots are often darker and ends are often lighter from sun and heat.
3. Hold the section flat against the chart or the swatches. Squint. Ignore whether it looks red, gold or ash, and judge only dark against light.
4. Find the swatch that disappears into your hair. That's your level. If you're between two, write down both.
5. Check a second section near the face. Many heads carry two levels, and extensions have to match the one that shows.

Brown is the wide part of the scale. On this chart it runs from level 2 to level 6, so "brown" alone tells a colorist very little. Hair that looks black indoors often turns out to be a level 2 or 3 by the window.

Hair color numbers on a box or a salon tube have two parts. Take 7.1. The 7 is the level, dark blonde. The .1 is the tone, which is ash in most European systems. Garnier's numbering guide describes the same split: level first, then the tone. US brands often use letters, so 7A is level 7 ash and 7G is level 7 gold.

The level half of these numbers is close to universal. The tone half changes with the brand, so always read the brand's own key before you trust a tone number.

Keep this in mind for the next section. Extension codes drop the two-part logic completely.

Extension and wig factories use a shade code system that grew up separately from salon colour. The low codes track the level scale fairly well. Above #4 the numbers jump, and by the blondes they have nothing to do with levels at all.

Here are codes we make and sell, placed on the 1 to 10 scale. The level column is our working estimate, since no body defines these codes and one factory's #4 can sit half a level from another's.

Our store lists #4 and #8 both as light brown, two to three levels apart. That's normal for extension naming, and it's the reason to order by code and never by name. Three more things catch buyers out.

• #1B is the natural colour. The hair we buy is dark, around level 1 to 2. #1B is that natural shade. #1 is a flat jet black, darker and cooler.
• Letters mean tone, loosely. "ash" after a code, as in #2ash or #8ash, is a cooler version of the same depth. Other letters differ from factory to factory.
• Two codes with a slash mean a mix. #613/#5 is a highlight blend of two shades, and the level of the finished piece sits between them.

We wrote a full page on the lightest code, including how it compares with platinum and ash: what 613 means.

Levels answer two ordering questions: which shade to pick, and how much work the hair has been through to get there.

Start with the match. Take the client's level at the mid-lengths, then pick the extension code at the same level. Tone comes second. A level 7 client with cool hair needs a level 7 extension in an ash shade, and a warm level 7 will look orange beside her own hair even though the depth is right.

Then count the lift. The hair we buy starts around level 1 to 2, and #1B stays there. A #4 sits about two levels above it. A #613 sits about eight levels above it, and getting there means passing through red, orange and yellow. Every level of lift costs the hair some strength, so the lightest shades need the gentlest care and wear out first.

A screen can't show a level reliably. Phone cameras push blondes warm or cool, and a level 8 photographed in shade looks like a 6. Buyers pick from a physical color ring we ship to them before the order is finalized, and the AZ Hair color ring is on the store.

Frequently asked questions