Blonde hair color: trendy shades in 2025. How to choose a shade according to your skin color type?
Light brown hair is one of the most common, versatile, and natural options that suits almost everyone. It includes a multitude of shades: from soft ash and warm honey to complex blonde. In 2025, natural tones with depth and shimmer will make a comeback. One website discusses the current trends in shades of light brown and how to choose your tone based on your color type. Light brown shades occupy an intermediate position between blonde and chestnut, making them incredibly versatile. Unlike radical colors, such as black or platinum blonde, light brown tones look natural and do not require frequent touch-ups, suit women of all ages, subtly emphasize facial features without drawing attention to themselves, and also allow for experimentation with highlights,’ said stylist-hairdresser, colorist Alexandra.
The palette of light brown shades includes a vast spectrum of options. The most popular are three shades: light brown, dark brown, and medium brown. Light brown. This universal shade combines ash, flax, and wheat tones. It refreshes the image, gives hair an airy feel, and suits all color types except for autumn. Light brown is a natural base for a smooth transition to blonde, an ideal choice for those who want to transform without drastic changes. To emphasize the depth of the shade, add pearlescent highlights or soft gold in makeup. Dark brown. This rich hair color combines noble gray-brown tones with cool highlights. Dark brown with an ash tint looks particularly flattering on light skin with gray or blue eyes. The same color, but with golden flecks, is perfect for tanned girls with brown eyes. Dark brown color makes the image expressive — bright lip or eye makeup effectively highlights its depth.
However, transitioning from this shade to blonde requires special care: first, gentle lightening is necessary. And then careful toning to achieve the desired result. Medium blonde. This versatile hair color combines soft brown, coffee, and gray tones, creating an effect of light haze. It suits almost everyone due to its broad palette, from ashy to caramel reflections. Medium blonde looks very natural while remaining elegant and noble. This color is an excellent base for experiments: transitioning to darker shades can be done in one dyeing, while lightening to blonde requires careful bleaching first. Other trendy shades of blonde: ash blonde—a cool, nearly gray shade with a slight silvery sheen, ideal for girls looking to achieve a 'luxurious' blonde effect without the yellow tones; warm golden blonde—a sunny shade with honey undertones that adds softness and radiance to the face; gentle beige blonde—a slightly muted shade with pearlescent-ashy nuances that looks very natural; chocolate blonde. A deep, rich tone with caramel and coffee highlights, closer to dark blonde, yet maintaining a slight uniqueness; warm wheat — a beautiful light natural shade with subtle golden notes; a complex smoky brown-brown shade with an ashy undertone creates a "blurred" color effect, looking stylish and modern; copper-brown a soft transition between brown and red, with warm golden-copper highlights; caramel brown, features gray pigment that, combined with caramel, softens its warmth; reddish-brown the main shade in this case will be considered brown, while red will be noticeable only under certain lighting; walnut brown, a harmonious combination of soft brown shade with warm walnut highlights that make the color multidimensional and add natural depth.
How to dye hair brown: techniques. Any modern technique will work for dyeing hair brown, for example, balayage. This is not a solid color dyeing, but highlights. With its help, multi-faceted shades are created that beautifully shimmer in the sun, look stylish, and can even add volume to hair. The best coloring techniques for light brown hair: Classic highlighting is a method in which individual strands of hair are lit, creating a striking contrast with the base shade; Air Touch is a modern interpretation of highlighting that stands out for its exceptional lightness and natural transition of shades. The master carefully selects the strands to be colored with the help of a dryer, resulting in a soft, natural glow without harsh borders; toning is a gentle dyeing technique that uses translucent paint that does not disturb the structure of the hair.
It gently envelops the strands, giving them the desired shade, and gradually washes out over time. Toning helps neutralize yellow undertones after lightning or makes the natural hair color richer; balayage is a technique for gentle lightening that mimics the natural sun-bleached effect on hair. Unlike classic highlighting, balayage provides smoother transitions and a natural gradient. It is perfect for those who want to add lighter accents but do not intend to go fully blonde; this technique creates the effect of naturally sun-bleached hair with soft color transitions.
The master first teases the hair, which allows for more blurred and natural borders between shades compared to the balayage technique, and trends in dyeing. In terms of trends for 2025, hairstylist and founder of the beauty salon 'Daniel Tilmen Studio,' Daniel Tilmen, shared insights with a fashion website.' Multi-layered naturalness. To achieve the 'glow from within' effect, two to three close undertones are combined: the root area is slightly darkened with translucent toning; the mid-lengths are enriched with a beige-cream gloss; and barely noticeable micro-lights are applied to the top strands. This layered approach creates depth: as the head turns, the strands shimmer, and the color appears voluminous even without styling. The pigment fades evenly, so the shade remains "expensive" until the next visit. Warm light spectrum. The entire light brown palette shifts towards creamy-beige and caramel shades. A slight warmth visually illuminates the skin, removes the grayish tone of the face, and emphasizes a summer tan. The main thing is to maintain balance: instead of dense golden dyes, use pearlescent correctors, so that the warm undertone looks like a natural sun-kissed glow rather than artificial yellowness. Individual strands at the front lighten a maximum of one tone and are covered with vanilla blonde gloss. The width of the sections is no more than one centimeter, and the borders are carefully blended into the overall mass of hair.
As a result, a soft light "reflector" appears near the face, highlighting the cheekbones and giving freshness even without makeup. It looks especially stunning in any hairstyle where the hair is pulled back: the contrast remains, while the rest of the length seems cohesive. Complex vanilla blonde. This is a level 8-9 light brown, woven with. The finest pearl highlights are usually done in the air-touch or micro-balayage technique. Not all of the hair is lightened, but rather individual strands, which means that the hair structure suffers less than with complete bleaching. This shade gives a "Scandinavian" glow but does not require total bleaching to a pure level 10: the base remains brown, and therefore, the regrowing roots are almost unnoticeable. The trend of zero-line regrowth suggests that the boundary between natural brown and colored lengths is completely blurred. For this, immediately after dyeing, a half-tone shadow is applied at the roots, which is half a tone darker than the primary color and gradually fades to nothing by the middle of the length. After six to eight weeks, when your hair grows out by one to two centimeters, the transition will remain soft: the shade will "ride along" with the natural pigment. This option eliminates the sharp line and allows for less frequent touch-ups. How to choose a brown shade for your color type. To avoid making a mistake with your new hair shade, be sure to consider your color type.
According to colorist Alexandra, the theory of color types will help with this, which conditionally divides people's appearances into seasonal kinds. They possess a unique combination of warm or cool undertones of skin, hair, and eyes, which influences the harmony of a particular image. "Winter" and "Summer" are cool color types, with the former being intense and saturated, and the latter being calm and soft. "Spring" and "Autumn" are warm color types. The first is bright and contrasting, while the second is light. The "Winter" color type is characterized by bright eyes, often deep blue or emerald green, pale porcelain skin, and naturally dark hair. According to Alexandra, trendy shades like platinum, ash, or smoky blonde will suit this color type well—these shades are suitable for girls with light eye and skin colors. One should avoid warm golden tones as they can give the face a grayish tint. The "Spring" color type representatives have light skin, often with freckles, as well as warm hues - green or hazel eyes. "Such women especially suit golden-honey tones of hair, which emphasize the natural glow of the skin. However, overly light hair can make the face excessively pale, so it is better to avoid it," says Alexandra, hairdresser-colorist. Color type 'Summer'. Usually, women with rosy or olive skin, gray-green or gray-blue eyes, and ash-colored hair belong to the 'Summer' color type. They will look great with milk blonde, ash, or gray-brown colors, while copper and red shades might appear unnatural, disrupting the harmony of the image. Color type 'Autumn'.
This color type is characterized by slightly golden or peachy undertones in the skin, green or brown eyes, and freckles. Women of this type should choose hair dye in intense shades - chocolate, caramel, or golden-honey. This will enhance the natural warmth in their appearance. Cool ash colors are undesirable here, as they could. It can give the face a tired and lifeless appearance. If you still doubt your choice of shade, try experimenting with tinting masks: they will allow you to try on the chosen tone temporarily. For reliability, you can consult a colorist for hair care tips for ash blonde color. Recommendations to preserve the dyed hair color for a long time were provided by Daniel Tilmen and Alexandra. Ash blonde hair, like any other color, requires careful care and gentle treatment. To maintain the richness of the shade for a long time, it is essential to care for ash blonde hair using gentle products, such as special shampoos for colored hair or products with a moisturizing effect. To maintain the shade, it is recommended to use special shampoos for blonde and ash tones once a week: those with a violet pigment for cool shades or with golden components for warm shades of ash blonde. Also, don't forget about additional protection: apply serum. Apply serums and masks with amino acids and light oils. Use a spray sunscreen, as ash and beige pigments quickly oxidize from ultraviolet radiation. Allow your natural pigment to grow back one to one and a half centimeters, and only after that do the blending — this way, the border will disappear, and your hair will rest.
