Color Melting Is the New Technique That Will Make Any Dye Job Look Natural

More so than ever before, we find ourselves doing double takes when passing women with incredible hair color on the street (or asking for details about their salon). It's not entirely due to the advent of unicorn hues, either — there's a new technique that makes dye look more natural than ever before, especially ombré color.

If you've ever taken your dark hair to a blond ombré, you know there's usually a stark line of demarcation that comes from bleaching. Sure, adding dye on top will soften that line, and methods like balayage will make it even softer, but it still didn't look completely natural — until color melting. "Melting is a technique that blends the highlights with the base color of the hair so you don't have any harsh lines," George Papanikolas, Matrix StyleLink stylist, explained to BuzzFeed.

Instead of creating that ombré look with normal highlights, melting uses an assortment of hues close in tone to create a blurring (or melting) effect. This makes any hair color appear as if it grew naturally out of your scalp . . . but only you and your stylist know the truth. Read on to see more examples of this technique.