Brunette is stunning, but brown hair with blonde highlights? That’s how you command attention the moment you walk into a room.
Whether you're going for a bold and fierce statement or a subtle and soft look, choosing the right blonde shade to blend with your brown hair makes all the difference.
What You Should Consider Before Choosing Blonde Highlights
Brown hair with blonde highlights gives the versatile yet elegant look to put on in the UAE. In addition to enhancing your facial features, it offers you a budget friendly maintenance option, together with a blank cheque to fit any outfit or occasion.
To achieve the exact blonde highlights for your hair, here are the things you should look out for.
Your Hair’s Depth
Hair depth shows how light or dark your hair is. It is commonly represented in levels one to ten, with one being the darkest shade (black) and ten the lightest (platinum blonde).
Your hair’s depth tells you how light your hair can go without much damage, what warmth appears when your hair is lifted (undertones), and what blonde shades will come out neat, not brassy.
Levels 1 to 6 hair types require more lifting than the other levels when they’re going for light colours such as blonde. It's much easier to lift from levels 7 to 10.
Your Hair’s Undertone
Beyond the depth of your hair lies the undertone, which is a very important factor in choosing the highlights that go with your hair.
When you lift your hair, red, orange or yellow pigments are exposed — each getting less warm as the levels increase. You’d either enhance the warmth or neutralise it, depending on the blonde highlights look you’re going for.
If you’re going for cool shades of blonde such as ash blonde or platinum blonde, you’d have to neutralise your undertones. Whereas, if you're going for a sun kissed look with bolder, warmer blonde shades, you’d enhance your undertones.
The Products You Use
Even with the right products, achieving your desired look takes effort and skill. You can imagine then, how your hair will look when expired or low quality products are used.
In the quest to save cash, you shouldn’t sacrifice your potentially gorgeous highlights for inferior products.
Using the wrong developer, lightener, toner or hair dye may be the difference between your final highlights and that of your favourite celebrity.
Let’s say you get what you wanted, did it come at the expense of your hair’s health?
GK Hair Blonde Juvexin Cream Colour, Cream Developer and Lightening Powder are trusted products in the UAE to help you in your dyeing process.
The Overall Health of Your Hair
No matter the look you want, you should consider the effects it could have on your hair.
Before colouring, assess your hair’s health. How is its texture and porosity? Can it take the amount of lifting you need to get your dark hair with blonde highlights? Is it healthy enough to come out of the process with very little damage?
First timers with healthy virgin hair have the upper hand with dyeing their hair because it lifts predictably, and for the first time ever, experienced players in this game have to be more careful each time they are on the field.
The Colouring Techniques
Like a painter who uses different techniques to create his artworks, brunette hair with highlights can be created using different techniques, depending on the style you’re going for.
For subtle highlights, babylights, balayage, face framing highlights and fine foilyage gives a natural, blended, low contrast look. Chunky highlights, moneypiece, ombré, heavy foils create a strong contrast with more visible blonde highlights.
The Cost of Maintenance
The excitement that comes with getting the exact highlights you want is unmatched, but to continue in that joy, you must maintain your blonde highlights.
In the UAE, where the hot sun and hard water work 24/7 to steal away your gloss and replace it with brassy, yellowish colours, maintaining your highlights costs more than money. It requires time (lots of it) and effort.
Brown hair with blonde highlights should be protected from the sun and hard water using UV protecting sprays, hats, and a shower filter in the bathroom. Because of dryness caused by bleaching, moisturising, sulphate free and colour shield shampoos and conditioners such as GK Hair Moisturizing Shampoo and Conditioner should be applied.
GK Hair Ultra Blonde Bombshell Masque keeps brassiness out of your blonde highlights.
Blonde Highlights: How Do I Know the Shade That Works for Me?
There are over 10 shades in the blonde palette — from caramel blonde and honey blonde to ash, platinum, copper, and everything in between. Each of these shades can work beautifully on brunette hair, whether your base colour is light, medium, or dark brown.
The key is understanding which blonde complements your natural skin tone and moves you closer to the look you want to achieve.
For Dark Coloured Brown Hair
Unless you're intentionally going for a dramatic, high contrast look, dark brown hair pairs best with subtle blonde highlights.
Subtle blonde highlights for dark brown hair give it a natural look and require 1 to 2 levels of lift, subtle placements of blonde colours, and techniques like babylights and balayage to achieve.
Natural highlights for dark brown hair include caramel blonde, honey blonde, bronde blonde, golden beige, and copper blonde for warm dark brunettes and ash blonde, sandy blonde and platinum blonde for cool brunettes. They soften the transition from dark brown to blonde, creating a seamless, sun kissed effect rather than a harsh contrast.
However, if you’re going for a shock striking look, you can opt for shades in contrast with your hair’s undertone. You’d need an experienced colourist to perform the magic, as little mistakes affect your final look and your hair’s health.
Want to DIY Ash Blonde Highlights? Read Salon-Quality Ash Blonde Highlights at Home: The Secret Is in the Formula to know how to go about it.
For Medium Coloured Brown Hair
All brunette hairs are gorgeous, but if yours is medium brown hair, you hit the jackpot!
Medium coloured brown hair levels the playground for both warm and cool blonde shades. It provides you a luxury of options to play with when you dye your hair.
Honey blonde, copper blonde, and other warm blondes give your hair the warmth, depth and dimension you’re looking for, while ash blonde, matt dark blonde and iced chestnut blonde give your hair an icy, bright look.
A combination of warm and cool blonde shades can be used as highlights and lowlights on medium brown hair to create an ideal eye grasping statement.
For Light Coloured Brown Hair
Light coloured brown hair—which is lifted easily with less damage when compared to dark hair—provides a canvas for both bright and bold and subtle and soft highlights.
For subtle highlights for light brown hair, your hair will be bleached 1–2 levels lighter than the base. Honey blonde, beige blonde, soft caramel blonde, warm champagne and golden blonde sit close to light brown and melt naturally.
Ash blonde, platinum blonde, icy blonde and cool pearl blonde create a stronger contrast with more visible blonde when used as highlights on light brown hair. This requires going very light, and you’d need a proper toner to neutralise exposed undertones and prevent brassy looks.
You Should Know…
Blonde highlights on brown hair create a one of a kind multi tonal hair look; very soothing to the eyes. The combination of knowing what shade(s) go better with your hair type, with good colouring and aftercare products from GK Hair, makes you rock it even better!
