Hair Color Numbers Explained: Level and Tone by Brand

What do the numbers in a hair color code mean?

Every professional shade code is the same two pieces of information in the same order: depth first, tone second. The digit before the separator is the level — how light or dark the result is. Everything after the separator describes the tone that sits on top of that level.

That is the whole grammar. What changes between brands is punctuation and vocabulary, not structure. Wella writes a slash, L'Oréal writes a point, Schwarzkopf writes a hyphen, and Redken, Matrix and Goldwell drop the numbers for letters. A level 6 with an ash primary tone is 6/1, 6.1, 6-1 and 6A depending only on whose tube you are holding.

Once you can read the code, the rest of the service follows from it — including how much developer the line wants, which is a separate decision per brand. The mixing ratio and developer for each of these lines is here.

What does the level digit mean?

The level scale runs 1 to 10 and is close to universal — it is the one part of the system you can carry between brands without checking. It describes depth only, with no tone information at all.

Some lines extend past 10. Wella runs a 12 series for high-lift, Schwarzkopf uses 12 for Igora Royal High Lift, and L'Oréal Majirel High Lift is coded separately from the main range. Those are lightening products with their own developer and ratio rules, not simply "level 12 color".

How does each brand write its shade codes?

Same information, six punctuation conventions. The column that matters is the last one: what the example code actually resolves to in plain language.

The separator is not decoration

Writing a Wella code with a point instead of a slash is how a 6/71 gets ordered, stocked or recorded as a 6.71 — a different tone in a different line. Client records are the place this does real damage, because the formula you wrote six weeks ago is the only evidence of what actually worked.

What does each tone digit mean?

This is where the systems genuinely diverge, and where a merged "universal chart" does harm. The three numeric brands agree on very little beyond 0 and 1. Read the columns across, not down.

Why is 6.13 not the same as 6.31?

When two tone digits follow the level, order carries meaning. The first tone digit is the dominant tone; the second modifies it, and is generally understood as roughly half the strength of the first.

• 6.13 — level 6, ash dominant, gold modifying. The result reads cool with warmth pulled back in to stop it going flat. This is the classic beige family.
• 6.31 — level 6, gold dominant, ash modifying. The result reads warm, with just enough ash to keep it from going brassy.
• 6.33 — a doubled digit means intensified, not two tones. This is level 6 with gold at roughly double the strength of a single .3, used when the target is unambiguously warm or when the hair resists warmth.

The same convention drives the doubled letters in letter-based systems. Goldwell's NN is a more pigment-dense natural than N, which is exactly why NN is the gray-coverage shade rather than a slightly different brown.

What do N, A, G, C, R and V mean?

Letter systems trade cross-language portability for immediate legibility — you do not need the chart to guess what G is. The core set is stable across Redken, Matrix and Goldwell.

Letter codes also combine, and the same primary-then-secondary rule applies. A Redken 6RB is red dominant with a brown modifier; 6BR reverses which one leads.

How do you convert a shade between brands?

Match the level first, then the primary tone, then the secondary. The level is the reliable part; the tone is an approximation, because two brands' idea of "ash" carries different dye loads and different proportions of blue to green.

1. Take the level straight across. A 6 is a 6 in every line in the table above. This part does not need judgement.
2. Translate the primary tone through its name, not its number. Resolve the source code to plain language first — "level 6, ash" — then find the target line's code for ash. Going digit to digit is how a Wella 6/2 (matt) becomes a Majirel 6.2 (iridescent violet).
3. Treat the secondary as optional. If the target line has no equivalent, drop it and adjust with the line's own mixers rather than forcing a code that does not exist.

Two worked conversions

• Wella 6/1 → L'Oréal. Level 6, ash primary. Ash in Majirel is .1, so the working equivalent is 6.1. Here the digits happen to agree — which is exactly why the habit of reading digits directly survives long enough to cause a problem elsewhere.
• Wella 6/2 → L'Oréal. Level 6, matt (green) primary. Majirel's .2 is iridescent violet, not matt. The digit-to-digit answer is wrong; the correct move is to find Majirel's matt equivalent or build the result with a green mixer.

Conversion charts published by third parties are worth treating as a starting point rather than a specification, for the same reason the ratio chart is: manufacturers reformulate lines without renaming them.