My selfies have often delivered breaking news, revealing to me things I somehow missed in the mirror. More than one front-facing-camera moment has acted as the friend that tells me there’s something in my teeth, and it was a selfie that showed me that my aging, hooded eyelids now fully engulf my cat-eye wings. But my most recent selfie revelation triggered memories of an interesting beauty choice I’d made in a trend-indulgent stupor over a decade ago: I realized the last few inches of my very long hair are noticeably lighter than my more recent growth.
In other, more spine-chilling words, my hair color is inadvertently ombré.
In the most literal, most French terms, ombré means shadow, but that doesn’t really tell the entire harrowing story of what it has come to mean for hair color. "Ombré is a gradient of dark to light," explains Billy Hannam, a stylist at Anushka Spa & Salon in West Palm Beach, Florida. "Simply put, it’s dark roots and lighter ends." And back in the day — I'd say 2009 to 2012 marked ombré’s peak popularity — we kind of overlooked the gradient part and skipped straight to dark roots and lighter ends without much nuance.
If you were an adult in the original ombré era, you probably remember the trend with a blend of wistfulness and casual condemnation. When I roll my eyes thinking about it, my pupils are actually following the arc of a gauge chart from nostalgia to embarrassment to incredulity to acceptance. Because, by today's hair-color standards, it was… not good. Sure, some celebrities had a more refined ombré, but even for the rich and famous, results that aged well in photos are few and far between.
So for the rest of us who tried it, well, you can imagine how we looked. Actually, you don't have to imagine how I looked. Here's what happened when I asked for ombré in 2010.
Yeah. I think the background of the photo is so bright because my current self is angrily screaming at my past self so hard that the sound pierced the space-time continuum and made the lights in the salon explode.
"This is particularly harsh, and the color is… It feels like a non-toned color," Hannam replied when I texted him that photo. "Like, that’s giving raw lift lol." Did I mention Hannam is a dear friend who has been given express permission to mock my past hair choices? And I readily admit, it’s very mockable. But it is by no means unique for the time. Gaggles of us were out there with brassy dip-dyes and calling it ombré.
So if you, like me, went from ombré observer to participant, you’re probably loath to hear that it’s not just making a comeback, it has fully arrived, unpacked, and put its stuff in the dresser. Did it ever totally go away? No — you can see variations of it here and there over the last decade. But recent celebrity evidence points to a true ombrénaissance.
Among the famous folks who've been seen with ombré hair color lately: Kendall Jenner, Hailee Steinfeld, Ana de Armas, Beyoncé, and Victoria Beckham, just to name a few. But if you're having a hard time picturing any of these particular good-choice-making celebrities with a high-contrast line of demarcation between the north and south sides of their hair, don't rack your brain; that’s not what’s going on here.
"The biggest difference between the modern ombré compared to 15 years ago is that now the contrast between top and bottom is less drastic," says Dana Ionato, a colorist at Sally Hershberger NoMad in New York City. "Now you see a more subtle contrast between the roots and ends. The color at the bottom won't be six shades lighter, and it will be less heavy at the ends. You'll also notice it's more natural-looking and could have a couple of bolder highlights around face."
Seeing these celebrities' new take on ombré reminded me of why the concept appealed to me in the first place: I'm lazy, and it's low-maintenance. "It has no upkeep because your roots are dark," Ionato says, adding that it's something you can do once or twice a year or maybe even never again. And thankfully, that set-it-and-forget-it approach works even better on the subtler, more sophisticated ombré we're seeing now than it did on the unclear-if-she's-mid-color-correction ombré of the past.
"Today's ombré is generally a bit more polished and strategic than the ombré of yesteryear," Hannam says.
That is, of course, unless you're me and the ombré you’re sporting is not at all strategic and, in fact, the result of old, dyed-over highlights that are not so dyed-over anymore. ("Lightened hair continues to exist under any color that's put over it, and over time, even a permanent color can discolor and fade, especially when underneath that color is highlighted hair," Hannam explains.) But considering that it looks more like the new ombré than my 2010 ombré, it’s a much happier accident than I originally perceived it to be.
If you’re considering giving ombré an intentional shot, Ionato recommends asking your colorist to put highlights only towards the ends of your hair and not to lift them to bleach blonde or go too far away from your base color. Hannam adds that pictures always help communicate what you're going for, especially considering how much ombré has evolved.
"Ombré can be construed as anything from the tips being light to a rooted highlight," he says, "so an inspiration picture lets your hairstylist point to certain aspects and ask questions like, ‘Do you like this tone? Do you like how low the lightness starts? Do you like how subtle or high-contrast this is?'"
Granted, 13 years ago, I probably said yes to all of those things while showing my stylist a picture of any number of celebrities who took a similar journey of questionable judgment. (Did I mention I added a matching feather extension a few months later?) But this new, more grown-up iteration of ombré makes me think we’ll look back on the selfies we take today with a lot less hair-color contrition.
More hair color trends to check out:
- 19 Strawberry Blonde Hair Color Ideas for 2023
- Will the Scandinavian Hairline Technique Make You Your Blondest Blonde Ever?
- BTS’s Hairstylist Shares Korea’s Biggest Hair Color Trends for 2023
Now watch Maitreyi Ramakrishnan try nine things she's never done before:
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