Like the spot-on meme that taunts you every time you click open Instagram, summer is made for taking that belated birthday trip across the Turkish Riviera, bar-hopping between rooftops, or finally trying that new dreamy hair color you found on Pinterest. Should the former make you (or your wallet) tremble, planning a trip to the salon is an easy, low-pressure adventure that will still give you something to look forward to.
Even better, all the coolest trends [1] you'll see this summer are fittingly low-key. We're talking soft, buttery "ripple" highlights [2]; cool blond hues; grown-out roots [3] (but in that pretty, intentional way); and hair color that's easy as hell to maintain. Because at this point, who has the time for all the fuss? Of course, if you're looking to make a bold color change, don't stress: we've got some options for you there, too.
"Summertime always inspires people to go a little lighter with their color," Tom Smith [4], celebrity hairstylist and international color creative director for Evo Hair [5], says. "Summer holidays and a more relaxed attitude during these months mean longer between appointments."
Translation? You can expect the following "easy" summer hair colors ahead to trend from now until the foreseeable future — and dammit, if that's not a win the world could use right now, we don't know what is.
Summer Hair Color: "Midlights"
Highlights are the definition of an easy, breezy summer look, but they don't really get much more natural-looking than the "midlights" trend [6]. The term, coined by celebrity colorist Matt Rez [7], is a hair-coloring technique that connects your base color to your highlights for a seamless blend that doesn't look stripe-y. The difference: while highlights lighten the hair and lowlights darken the hair, midlights are a midway point that adds a sun-kissed tint without using bleach. "To achieve the lift of a midlight, color is used; not lightener," Rez previously told POPSUGAR.
Summer Hair Color: "Midlights"
The best part? "All hair colors and hair types can look enhanced and more seamless with a secondary color and tone for dimension," Rez says. "Those with permanent base colors can achieve 1-1.5 levels of lift since bleach is not used; so just make sure highlights are not more than two levels lighter than the midlights for cohesion."
Summer Hair Color: Copper Contour
You've seen the shade on everyone from Kendall Jenner and Kaia Gerber to Sophie Turner, but the trend you'll be seeing all summer takes the copper hair color [8] to a new level. "A copper contour ties two huge trends together: copper and hair contouring," Smith says. "It's clear to see that there has been a great focus on all shades of copper, strawberry blond, and auburn."
Summer Hair Color: Copper Contour
This look will add extra dimension woven throughout the hair to play with light and shade. "Replicating this with hair color requires a bespoke approach to place complementary shades of copper, strawberry blond, mahogany, and auburn throughout the hair based on the structure of the haircut," he says. "I love seeing lighter or brighter tones placed around the face and through the ends to replicate the effects of the sun on natural hair."
Summer Hair Color: Copper Contour
Plus, it works for all skin tones. "Copper hair is not just for those who are fair-skinned," celebrity colorist and Matrix expert George Papanikolas [9] says. "This tone can be warmed up for golden skin tones or also cooled down to a more auburn copper."
Summer Hair Color: Smoky Brunette
Think of the smoky brunette color [10] like the hair equivalent to makeup's smoky eye. It's just as seamlessly blended and meant to give a deep, sultry look. The difference in this shade of brown compared to others is that it typically features cool undertones. The ashy hue gives off an edgy, mysterious vibe and is the perfect choice for anyone looking to make a small tweak (but get a big impact).
Summer Hair Color: Smoky Brunette
The trend works best on someone who has a light, medium, or dark brown, or dark-blond hair already. According to Jamie Mazzei [11], creative director for NuBest Salon & Spa in Manhasset, NY, the hue looks the most flattering on skin tones with cool undertones, but if you have warm undertones, work with your colorist to custom blend a shade to make it suit your skin tone.
Summer Hair Color: Smoky Brunette
Your stylist might choose to add in cool-toned highlights, tone highlights you already have, do a color melt, or give your entire head one all-over hue — all depending on whether you already have highlights or are working with virgin hair — but either way, smoky brunette is the perfect dimensional, ashy brown idea for summer.
Summer Hair Color: Barbie Pink
On the opposite side of the spectrum — and if you're ready for a little more maintenance — there's no bigger trend coming out of summer 2023 than the "Barbiecore" pink moment [12]. The last few months has seen more celebrities, influencers, and people across social media embracing the color. With summer around the corner, Barbie pink hair [13], nails, and makeup couldn't be more fitting.
Summer Hair Color: Barbie Pink
The best part: the exact tone and level of saturation you choose can be customized based on your preferences, since, technically speaking, Barbie seems to embrace all shades of pink. If you're ready to fully commit to pink hair [14], make sure you head to a professional colorist so they can pre-lighten your base color with bleach before applying the bubblegum hue. If you want to just test out the shade, try a temporary or wash-out hair color [15] from brands like Splat, Hally, or L'Oréal Paris.
Summer Hair Color: Dark Honey Highlights
The prettiest tweak on balayage: dark honey highlights, which create ribbons of color while maintaining dimension. The key to this of-the-moment look? Blend, blend, blend. "This is a soft, natural-looking golden-blond color," NYC-based colorist Stephanie Brown [16] says.
Summer Hair Color: Dark Honey Highlights
Brown adds, "The highlights are more blended to make the color look less highlighted and more like it's lightened all over. It's a creamy honey color that's wearable for many skin tones."
Summer Hair Color: "Pam Anderson" Blond
The latest white-gold blond trend is inspired by model and actor Pamela Anderson and her iconic hair color. Everyone from Dua Lipa [17] and Ciara to Kim Kardashian [18] and Anya Taylor-Joy have tried the look on for size.
Summer Hair Color: "Pam Anderson" Blond
What sets this color apart is its crystal-clear tone. "This bright blond is achieved with lots of highlights and is left 'untoned' to give a slightly raw, bleached look," Smith says. "This particular shade is best described as white gold: it's not as cool as a silver or ash shade but most certainly not warm enough to be golden. Platinum blond is high maintenance and expensive to achieve, so this color trend is best left in the hands of the experienced professional."
Summer Hair Color: "Ripple" Highlights
Summer's answer to the "expensive blond" hair color [19]? "Ripple" highlights, a decidedly low-maintenance alternative with just as much shine. "Typically, highlights are woven in fine strands that melt through the hair, while balayage tends to be chunkier pieces painted away from the root, but ripple highlights are a fusion of the two: larger slices of color but painted precisely in foil right up to the root," Smith says. "This is followed by a shadow-root toner that blurs the part nearest the scalp to keep a modern, blended result and a soft root as your hair grows."
Summer Hair Color: "Ripple" Highlights
The key, then, is to make sure outgrowth of the color is soft and flattering and not at all harsh. "Ask your stylist for sliced highlights that blend all the way through your hair and then a second-stage shadow-root toner that stops the highlights from looking streaky and helps them grow out softly by blurring the part nearest to the scalp."
Summer Hair Color: Herringbone Highlights
"Since the pandemic, it's wonderfully more acceptable to show your natural grays [20], and celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston [21], Gwyneth Paltrow [22], and Sarah Jessica Parker [23] are leading the way when it comes to incorporating their gray hairs into their iconic hair colors," Smith says. "Using a herringbone pattern of highlighting, various shades are woven in among the gray strands, giving a finely balanced mix of warm and cool tones. This really celebrates gray hair by including them in a hair-color design as an additional highlight color."
Summer Hair Color: Herringbone Highlights
To get the color, ask your stylist to mix (not nix) your grays and incorporate warm- and cool-toned highlights in an irregular way. "Not alternating each shade but scattering and diffusing the various shades around the irregular pattern of your own gray hair — since gray hairs tend to arrive sporadically and scattered — to work with this rather than fight against it for a hair-color design that is totally tailored to you."