Hair Guides
"1B" is not the same as "1". "27" and "30" sit in different families. Here is what the numbers and letters on a pack of braiding hair actually mean, and why the swatch on your screen is never exactly what arrives.
The labels assume you already know a code nobody taught you. Whether you want 1B or 2 is a real question, and the answer is not on the packet.
Here is the chart first, then the logic behind it.
00 / The chart
The bulk ranges carry all 14. The crochet ranges carry 10, the same core palette without the two lighter browns and the two reds, because crochet installs tend to be worn in softer tones. Shade is only half the choice. The other half is texture, which we compared in choosing hair for boho and goddess styles.
Colour chips are colour-matched to our supplier's swatches and verified against them. The hair shown is an illustration of texture, not a product photo. Screens vary, and so do dye lots, so check a single pack in daylight before committing to a full head.
01 / The rule
The rule is simple: the number is depth, the letter adds something. What it adds depends on the code, and the most common letter is also the most misunderstood.
"The numbers represent the depth or darkness of the color, while the letters signify the underlying tones or undertones."
Ula Hair, 1B vs. 2 Hair Color
Watch out for 1B
That same article reads the B in 1B as a blue undertone. Most sources do not. The far more common reading is that B simply stands for black and 1B means off-black, a shade softer than #1 jet black and closer to what natural black hair actually looks like. Treat the "blue" explanation as one brand's reading, not a rule.
Undertone is real, though. It is just carried by other codes. #4A and #6A are the cooler, ashier versions of #4 and #6. And #27 and #30 sit in different families despite looking similar in a small photo.
The one-line answer
1B is darker than 2 and softer than 1. Want the deepest black the range goes? That is #1. Want black that still reads as hair rather than dye? That is 1B, the default most brands ship. If pure black looks harsh on you, take 2.
02 / The dark end
Low numbers are blacks and browns, getting lighter as they climb. "D" means dark: a deeper variant of its base number.
| Code | Usually described as | What separates it |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | Jet black | The darkest depth, no added tone. Can read flat and cold. |
| #1B | Off-black / natural black | Softer than #1: black that still reads as hair rather than dye. The default most brands ship. |
| #2 | Dark brown | A step lighter and neutral. The "softer black". |
| #2D | Darkest brown | Deeper than #2: the D pushes it back toward black. |
| #3 | Dark chocolate | Clearly brown, still cool-leaning. |
| #4 | Chocolate brown | Mid-brown. Warmth starts to show. |
| #6 | Chestnut brown | Warm mid-brown with gold in it. |
| #8 | Medium brown | Deeper and more olive than #6: green-gold rather than red. |
What the low numbers hide: First, the sequence is not evenly spaced. There is no #5 or #7 on our supplier's chart. Second, the letter A does not always mean the same thing: on some charts #4A, #6A and #8A are their own shades (cooler, ashier versions), while on others A marks a quality grade rather than a colour at all. Nothing on the label tells you which you are looking at.
03 / The light end
Two and three digit codes mark a change in character, not just lightness, and they hide a split the numbers do not reveal.
| Code | Usually described as | Family |
|---|---|---|
| #27 | Strawberry honey blonde | Blonde: light brown with warm red |
| #30 | Light auburn / copper brown | Brown: light brown with red |
| #33 | Rich auburn | Brown-red, deeper than #30 |
| #350 | Copper | Red-orange, saturated |
| #613 | Platinum blonde | Blonde: bleached, the lightest common code |
27 versus 30 is the pair people get wrong, because both look ginger-ish in a small photo. The trade files #30 under brown and #27 under blonde. Want blonde-with-warmth, take 27. Want brown-with-warmth, take 30.
On #613: it is bleached rather than a natural tone, so it usually costs the most, and is often bought as a base to dye over.
04 / The exceptions
Also called dark red or red wine. The J is a legacy code the trade simply kept, not a depth or undertone letter. See 99J, read "wine red".
BUG (deep burgundy) and RED (vivid red) are two of the shades we carry. They are descriptive labels for tones the numbers cover badly. Nothing wrong with them, they just cannot be decoded by the rule above.
A+ describes a quality grade: a higher grade of the same shade, sold at a higher price. The colour does not change. This is what makes the letter A so confusing: #4A is a colour, A+ is not.
P4/30, T4/60, 27/30/613: the slash means two or more shades mixed together. P is generally read as piano (alternating strands), T as a two-tone pairing. Buyers meet these as "highlight" or "ombre" hair.
What matters: a blend is hand work, not a factory shade. The combinations a supplier prints are examples of what sells, not the limit of what is possible. Any pairing can be made by separating and recombining strands from the solid shades. That is also why blends rarely appear as a dropdown option: they are made to order, not stocked.
The trap
A letter mid-code can mean an undertone (B in 1B), a darker variant (D in 2D), a legacy name (J in 99J), or a grade (A+). Nothing on the label tells you which. That is the honest cost of a system that grew instead of being designed.
05 / The catch
Reading a code correctly does not solve the harder problem: the same code does not look identical everywhere. What sits between you and the colour you ordered:
Every phone and monitor renders colour differently, and brightness moves it further. A #30 that reads as warm caramel at full brightness can look almost brown at half.
Hair is a natural material and dyed lots vary. A #4 from one run can sit a shade off a #4 from another, same brand.
Indoor, daylight and salon light are three different colours. Nearly every shade looks warmer in sun than under a bulb.
Not hypothetical: among the reviews read while building this, colour mismatch was a recurring complaint: eight of them, across several brands, all describing hair that was "not the colour I chose" rather than poor quality.
If accuracy matters more than price
Buy one pack first and check it in daylight before committing to a full head. Nothing on a screen, ours included, replaces that.
06 / Common questions
Off-black, also called natural black. The B is generally read as "black": 1B is a black that sits slightly softer than #1 jet black, closer to what natural black hair actually looks like. It is the default black most brands ship. (Some charts describe 1B as having a blue undertone; most do not. Treat that as one brand's reading rather than a rule.)
1B. It sits at the darkest depth but softer than #1; 2 is a step lighter and neutral. The question is whether pure black feels too harsh against your skin, and if it does, 2 is the softer move.
A light platinum blonde. Unlike most codes it is bleached rather than a natural-looking tone, so it usually costs more, and is often bought as a base for dyeing.
Burgundy, also called dark red or red wine. The "J" is a legacy code rather than a depth or undertone marker, so the usual rule does not decode it.
The trade puts them in different families. #27 is a strawberry honey blonde and belongs to the blonde group; #30 is a light auburn and belongs to the brown group. #30 is browner, #27 blonder with more warmth.
Decide depth first, then undertone (warm, cool or neutral), and only then the code. For a colour you have not worn before, one pack to check in daylight is cheaper than a full head you do not want.
Our own product data. The 14 shades and their codes are read directly from our store's product options. Our packs are 100g with 12–30 inch length options; the crochet ranges carry 10 of the 14.
How the chart was made. The chips are redrawn from our supplier's braiding-hair colour card, then colour-corrected so each one matches the original swatch. The result was measured, and every chip lands within a couple of points of the source colour. They are an illustration of texture, not product photos.
Brand documentation. The descriptions of individual codes (1B and 2, 99J, 27 versus 30, and 613) come from published brand articles on those colours, read September 2026.
Colour charts we read. We checked the colour-chart pages of four major braiding and wig brands. All four were image-only: parsing the page text returned nothing. That is why this page is written as text, a chart you can read with the screen reader on, or with images turned off.
Competitor listings and reviews. We read 34 product listings across 9 brands, of which 10 listed any colour information at all. Separately we read 440 one and two star Trustpilot reviews across eight hair brands; 8 described a colour not matching what was ordered.
What we did not do. We did not test colour fastness, we did not measure dye-lot variation, and we did not survey customers. This page describes a naming convention, not a standard, and it is not a promise about what any shade will look like when it arrives.
Next step
Our bulk ranges carry 14 shades from Jet Black to Platinum Blonde, in 100g packs.