POPSUGAR UK

I Got Hailey Bieber's "Smoky Blonde" Hair Colour For Winter — and I'm Never Looking Back

01/12/2021 - 12:25 AM

Being blonde has been a major part of my identity my entire life. I was one of those children who was a true "toehead" — totally platinum, white-blonde — and I stayed that way until about the age of 14. As I got older, more dirty blonde [2] and brunette shades started to take over and I found myself in the salon every few weeks trying to highlight the brown away. Talk about high maintenance (for me and my wallet).

As I've gotten older and hopefully wiser, I've started to see the beauty in a more low-maintenance style — one that embraces my warm brunette [3] base. So when I saw the smoky-blonde hair colour trend starting to pop up on celebs — an ashy, monotone shade that was most recently seen on Hailey Bieber [4] — I immediately gravitated toward the lived-in, natural-looking style.

So what is smoky blonde, and what sets it apart from other blonde shades [5]? I turned to celebrity colourist Johnny Ramirez [6], owner of Ramirez-Tran Salon in Beverly Hills as well as the newly-opened Ollin Salon [7] in Miami, to break it down and give me a revamped look for winter.

The Process

There are several methods your colourist can use to get your hair to smoky blonde, like foil highlights, balayage, or some combination of techniques. Ramirez prefers to do a combo of foil techniques, starting with more traditional foils around the base of the head to break up the natural colour, which helps the overall effect look more natural. He then goes back through and back-combs certain sections. "I back-comb the pieces I don't want to lighten, and then lighten the piece that's left out," Ramirez said. "When the hair comes back down it's stronger and makes the colour blend nicely."

With that in mind, Ramirez emphasised that there shouldn't be a stark difference between the base colour and the blonde — the top priority for your colourist should be blending the colour to make the final look seem as natural as possible. Ramirez also does several rounds of toning and glossing to make sure the colour is just right from the base of the head all the way to the ends.

No matter what technique your colourist uses, prepare to be in their chair for several hours — when getting highlights of any kind I usually allocate four to five hours to being at the salon.

After

While, yes, I'm totally in love with the colour, I have to say my favourite thing about this style is how low-maintenance it is. Since the highlights and base colour are so nicely blended, I don't need to worry about having stark, dark roots when my hair starts growing out. Depending on how ashy you went, the only thing you may want to consider is using a purple shampoo to keep the warm tones at bay.

Overall, smoky blonde was a great way for me to brighten up my natural colour without feeling like I need to keep going to the salon for touchups — I still feel like myself, just enhanced. So if you're looking for a more low-key way to go blonde for winter, I'd say go for it.


Source URL
https://www.popsugar.co.uk/beauty/smoky-blonde-hair-colour-editor-experiment-48628973