20 Hair Color Ideas That Completely Change Your Look

When it comes to transforming yourself for a day, a month, or a whole season, nothing beats a fresh dye job to completely reinvent your appearance. It’s less drastic than trying a whole new cut, which could leave you feeling like a shorn sheepdog for the next half a year, testing the limits of your hat collection, and less costly than buying a whole new wardrobe. With the rise of the flashy, splashy millennials, hair colors have never had more variety, with a tint palette that will suit every style, natural hue, and face shape. Here’s some of our favorite ideas to give your gleaming flaxen waxen a full makeover.

Pretty in Pink

Coming in hot with shock and awe, pink has been catching on as a completely acceptable hair color. These bubblegum tones can run the gamut from hot and striking to much more muted. The trick is to get it to work with your skin tone, using lighter, ashen contrast against darker complexions and deeper, denser colors if you look a little pale.

Ocean Pearl

Platinum blonde has been done to death, and the stripped down, washed-out look isn’t turning any heads these days. Instead, going blonde with an added pearlescent sheen breathes new life into this old standard, giving a sense of unearthly shimmer that halos your head gloriously.

Northern Highlights

A major Instagram draw, the inspiration here is as simple as can be: the gorgeous Aurora Borealis. Using the same meandering appearance as the lights in the sky, these can be deep jade to bright blue all the way up to yellow splashes with reddish ringlets. Weaving and whimsical, this is a big move that requires total fearlessness.

Salt & Pepper & Blonde

Women with salt & pepper hair are getting the respect they deserve as being distinguished, rather than matronly, but younger ladies are hopping on this bandwagon as well by having contrasting blonde, gray, and black that promotes depth and complexity. It’s a handy way to hide your age, skewing whichever way you choose.

Going Gray

It’s no longer a crime to show your age, as many ladies of the limelight are letting their gray come out, but adding in gray highlights, gray frosting, and even a full slide from dark into silver is cropping up. You can start with your natural tones at the roots and then ease into gray toward the tips for an ethereal appearance that can make your skin tones pop.

Related Reading: Why Does Hair Turn Gray?

Nude

Using a combination of warm and cool colors in a single style works with every skin tone and gives you a naturally beautiful look that also won’t clash with any outfit. By being neutral, you refuse to limit yourself to any given segment of the color wheel and allow your body’s tone to do a lot of the talking.

Copper Tones

Red hair always has a place on the street as well as the runway, but some are turning it up a notch with more metallic sheens that hit bronze, rose gold, and can shine like a new penny. These will light you up and make any skin seem more radiant.

Meltdown

Seriously dark hair can be a curse as much as a blessing, but allowing it to cascade from dark to milk chocolate or milk chocolate to caramel allows a minimum of damaging dyes to be used and provide a waterfall of intrigue that frames your face – or even your body – in a way that entices the eyes.

Deep Roots

Like a 90’s throwback, exposed roots are in vogue, even for those who have inherently light hair. Beginning with a dark shade right at the scalp and moving to a shimmering platinum at the tips. Best of all, it’s easy to maintain and lets your hair grow in without any awkward middling phases.

Neon Lights

Like the Vegas strip on a clear desert night, a few streaks of neon can be all it takes to give your hair a major upgrade. With bits of strategically placed color that shouts, it allows the rest of your hair to be whisper soft, creating a slyly confident and playful appearance.

Opal Blonde

This bypasses platinum and heads straight into nearly translucent territory. Like a snow-capped peak, there’s more white and less yellow in this look which requires quite a commitment if you’re going to really reach for it.

The Natural

Rather than trying to catch the eye with a shocking color scheme, find a subtle tone that works with your own skin color. It never goes out of style to look like you aren’t trying. Just make sure to give your hair extra care so that it has the pure, unadulterated shimmer of good health.

Basic Balayage

The style that made highlights a standard among starlets has gotten out of control, which means it’s time to get back to basics. A simple balayage is a quick paint that is subtly stunning and gives your stylist a lot of color control.

Into the Woods

Think of the natural beauty inherent in an oak tree and you’ll see what this hair color is all about. It creates folds of light and dark in your hair that give it texture and an earthiness rarely seen in modern dyes.

Strawberry Fields

Summer fruit has inspired many of the contemporary hair coloration trends, with apricot, peach, and even squash making appearances. By blending any number of oranges, auburn, and dainty reds, it can give the pale a healthy glow and the darker complected a goddess glimmer.

Truly Tinted

These days there’s no need to dig too deep or reach too far. You can simply find a color you dig and have it spread all over. This is particularly striking in curly hair that’s been given a blood orange, lilac, or electric blue treatment.

Dip Dye

Light and sassy, ladies who wear their hair up tend to favor this, as it pairs well with a professional appearance that shows you don’t take yourself too seriously.

Babylights

Lots of low-grade highlights struck throughout your hair provide a less highlighted, more blended appearance that seems naturally occurring. Like ombre or bayalage they primp without pomposity.

Dust & Ash

Anyone thinking about going gray may find they’re better served by an ashen or dusty appearance that uses bits of blue and gray that are nice with cooler skin tones.