The Top Winter Hair Colors of 2024 Are Simply Delectable

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Like wearing white after Labor Day or open-toe shoes before spring, 2024’s winter hair color trends are breaking old-school seasonality rules. “During winter, people typically want to go darker or get lowlights—this starts in fall—but this year, I’ve had a lot of people come in wanting to go lighter or make major color changes,” says LA-based colorist Matt Rez, who recently took Emma Chamberlain from brunette to platinum blonde.

That being said, not everyone is going with the unexpected: Some of the top-searched hair trends this winter lean into the season’s coziness as the obsession with gourmand shifts into the hair-color space. According to search data on Google and TikTok, interest in gourmand hair is rising, says Yarden Horwitz, cofounder of Spate, an AI-powered trend-forecasting platform: “It includes a palette inspired by food and beverage—coffee, strawberry, and cherry cola hair—that brings richness and warmth to trending looks.”

If you’re not looking to totally change up your look this winter, there are still plenty of ways to give it a refresh. There’s a growing desire for effortless, natural-looking color. “Clients are asking for ‘old-money’ color that’s warm and natural,” says Nikki Lee, colorist and cofounder of Nine Zero One salon in LA. “This is especially good for brunettes who just want to add some dimension and richness. It’s low-maintenance and really elevates their color.”

Whether you want a major transformation or just a little zhuzh, getting the look you want requires good inspiration. That’s why we spoke with the industry’s top experts about this winter’s top hair color trends—and how to maintain your new look after you leave the salon.

Meet the experts:

• Matt Rez is an LA-based hair colorist and Moroccanoil global celebrity colorist.

• Yarden Horwitz is the cofounder of Spate, an AI-powered trend-forecasting platform.

• Nikki Lee is a hairstylist and founder of Nine Zero One salon in LA and In Common.

• Jenna Perry is a hair colorist and founder of Jenny Perry Hair Studio in New York City.

• Rachel Bodt is a hair colorist and founder of Homecoming Hair Salon in New York City.

• Harriet Muldoon is a hair colorist and blonde specialist at Larry King Salon in London and a brand ambassador for Redken.

• Daniel Moon is a hair colorist, founder of Hair Los Angeles salon, and K18 ambassador.

• Ben Bobby is an Australian colorist and stylist at The Hair Bros salon in London.

• Meri Kate O’Connor is an LA-based hair colorist at Salon Benjamin in West Hollywood.

• Freddie Leubner is a hair colorist and stylist who works in London and Brighton in the UK.

NYC Blonde

When Jenna Perry took Kendall Jenner blonde in September, people rushed to name the trend, but it’s actually a color the NYC-based colorist and salon owner created and named over a decade ago. “The inspiration for Kendall’s color was Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, but it’s what I call ‘NYC blonde,’” Perry says. “This warm golden blonde hue is chic, healthy-looking, and shaded at the root so that it’s effortless when it grows out.”

Rachel Bodt, hair colorist and owner of Homecoming Salon in NYC, predicts this color will be requested a lot in the salon this autumn and winter. “It has that soft, golden base color with highlights throughout, making it more of a classic, timeless type of blonde,” she says.

Old-Money Blonde

“Hamptons meets the South of France,” is how London-based colorist Harriet Muldoon describes this bright blonde, which has more to do with holding on to the light and warmth of summer than an illusion of inherited wealth. Sabrina Carpenter is a fan, as are Nathalie Emmanuel and Margot Robbie. An allover blonde, this luxurious hue is full of brightness and dimension thanks to slightly deeper roots and subtle, strategically placed highlights.

“It gives hair a gradual lift,” says Muldoon, who notes its bronzing effect. She adds that the technique requires highlights with a root smudge, and involves using a shade similar to your natural root color to slightly bump up dark roots, allowing them to blend more seamlessly with your lighter highlights. “A root can make such a difference on blondes,” says LA-based hair colorist and bleach expert Daniel Moon, who recently took model Gabbriette from nearly black hair to a sandy cream. “Not only does it soften the blonde but it also makes the color look less wiggy.” That slight depth at the roots also directs attention to your facial features.

Old-money blonde is all about adapting the look to your unique cut and hair texture. Explains Muldoon, “Working with the layers and texture of the hair, you are adding blonde all around the edges—right where the light would hit if it were exposed to the sun.”

Cool-Girl Platinum

“This season some of our favorite cool gals are chopping off their hair and bleaching it platinum,” says Ben Bobby, colorist at The Hair Bros salon in London. This phenomenon isn’t just happening across the pond; colorists in the US are also seeing many clients looking to go lighter for winter. Says Rez, “I’ve had blondes and brunettes ask to go platinum.”

There are a couple ways to make this change. “I love an icy-platinum blonde, which tends to look good on cooler skin tones,” says Meri Kate O’Connor, colorist at Salon Benjamin in LA. “Warmer skin tones tend to need a more golden platinum.”

Icy or golden, platinum hair color is created with bleach, so it’s important you prep your hair pre-appointment with strengthening and conditioning treatments, and then be diligent about adding deep-conditioning masks, protein treatments, and heat protectants into your regular hair routine. “It’s important to manage your expectations,” says Rez, “because once you go platinum, your hair will no longer feel like virgin hair.”

Fortunately, there are products that help keep your hair smooth and silky after you’ve seriously lightened it. Associate Beauty Director Sarah Kinonen uses the Ceremonia Mascarilla de Guava once a week on her bleached blonde hair. “I only wash my hair once a week, so I use it in place of conditioner,” she says. “I love how it doesn't weigh my hair down once it's dry and it smells so good.”

Moon and Bobby both swear by the K18 at-home repair system to keep hair healthy after bleaching (Moon is a K18 ambassador). “It’s a two-step mist and leave-in mask that is very user-friendly and helps replenish keratin lost through color services," says Bobby. Virtue’s Restorative Treatment Mask, as well as Davines Heart of Glass Shampoo and Conditioner, also make it on Bobby’s list of the best at-home products for platinum hair.

Honey Bronde

Honey bronde isn’t just one of the most popular color trends for brunettes this winter, it’s also the most low-maintenance. “It’s a rich and impactful honey tone that livens up the dark and drab colors of winter, without having to be back in the salon regularly,” says Bobby. It also warms up your skin tone, making it the hair color equivalent of bronzer.

Tate McRae’s honey highlights are the perfect example of this look and Rez’s handiwork. “To create that really natural effect—like that of children’s hair—I use two different color highlights,” he explains, noting that he adds highlights and what he calls “midlights” (which are not as deep as lowlights). “Doing that really makes the hair sparkle.”

Strawberry Brown

Strawberry brown hair is one of Google’s fastest-growing hair color trends, according to Spate, with a 16.5% boost in searches quarter over quarter. But what exactly is this color? In short, “strawberry brown is like strawberry blonde, except brunette,” says O’Connor. ”Think brown with a hint of copper or red on top, even a slight pink tone.” Primarily, the color leans toward reddish-brown, but it can range from lighter strawberry to deep, rich browns with subtle red undertones.

If you’re a natural brunette—the ideal base for this color—there’s no one way to go strawberry brown. You can blend a pink tone throughout your natural hair color, go for rose-tinted balayage for a more effortless effect, add a few threads of reddish-pink during your next lightening appointment, try strawberry money pieces, or dip-dye your ends. Whichever style you choose, you’ll need to pre-lighten strands to make the color stand out, and get yourself a color-depositing mask because pink dye fades quickly. Wella Color Fresh Mask in Rose Blaze and Overtone Rose Gold for Brown Hair Coloring Conditioner are both rosy pink shades designed to be used over brown hair and can be easily swapped out for your regular conditioner when your color starts looking dull.

Rich Chocolate

A solid, rich brunette adds shine and warmth in the winter months. Whether you have a warm chocolate brown (like Selena Gomez) or a cooler, smoky brown (like Laura Harrier), “a solid brunette color looks sophisticated and expensive,” says O’Connor. “People who have warmer skin tones tend to look better with chestnut and amber tones, whereas cooler skin tones tend to look better with an ashy or espresso tone, but you can ask your colorist which brown suits your skin tone best and go from there.”

It takes a few different colors to create the effect of a glossy, natural-looking, solid brunette shade, as with a fine-art painting. For Kaia Gerber’s brunette, Perry added richness through dyes with burgundy and blue backgrounds, calling the effect “jewel-toned brunette.” “These colors shine in the sunlight or pick up in a camera flash,” she says.

Bodt, on the other hand, likes to add dimension with a combination of highlights and gloss. “Sometimes, it’s nice to add highlights with paint or foil, only lifting a few levels lighter than your base color,” she explains, “then doing an allover gloss to marry it together so it’s shiny and blended. It adds interest without looking highlighted.”

Rioja Red

“As brat summer transitions into demure fall, I am seeing more toned-down reds,” says Freddie Leubner, a colorist who splits her time between London and Brighton in the UK. “Summer was bright and bratty, but for winter, saturated vibrant reds are turning deeper and resembling a full-bodied rioja—the kind consumed on a rainy day accompanied by a huge pub roast with friends. Others are going even more subtle with mahogany shades of brunette.”

If you want to try one of winter’s red hues but are nervous about what happens when you want to return to your natural color, Leubner suggests embracing the in-between shades as you transition back to brunette or blonde. “That means copper if you’re going lighter, or mahogany if you are going back to brunette.”

Cherry Cola

Cherry cola hair is nothing new (we wrote about the trend in 2023), and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. According to Spate data, cherry cola hair is one of the fastest-growing hair color trends on TikTok, with a 56.5% spike in searches quarter over quarter. Trend-forecasting agency WGSN is also predicting deep berry tones will be strong for beauty into 2025, including for hair color, inspired by late ’90s and early 2000s aesthetics and today’s celebs, like Dua Lipa.

“To me, cherry cola is like that ’90s-model red with more burgundy undertones and no orange,” says Bodt. How you get cherry cola hair depends entirely on your present color. “If your hair is currently dark, you would either need to lighten or tone to this shade,” says O’Connor. “If you are already light, you can just dye it to this shade using a semi, demi, or permanent dye depending on how committed you are to the hair color switch and what you want maintenance to look like.”

As with most reds, the color fades quickly, so it's best to touch it up with a gloss every few weeks, adds O’Connor. That means heading into the salon, or investing in color-depositing shampoo and conditioner and a product like Paul Mitchell’s The Demi Color Gloss, which O’Connor says is perfect for at-home color refreshes because it’s an easy way to keep any hue, but especially reds, looking vibrant and fresh.

Almost Black

“Almost black hair is the moment,” says Bobby, who names Charli XCX, Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Demi Moore as examples of celebs with the hair color. “This isn’t a blue-black box dye, but a brunette-black that’s sleek, dark, demure, and very reflective.”

Anyone can go this dark, but it’s a great seasonal switch for those who have naturally medium-dark brown hair. “You stop in to see your colorist for a root refresher and a gloss for a boost of shine every eight to 12 weeks,” says Bobby. The trick to not having this look appear flat and dull is to allow some natural dimension to peek through. “You want to make sure your colorist isn’t pulling the color through to the mid-lengths and ends every single time you go in for a root touch-up because then the hair color can look over-saturated and one-dimensional over time (the same logic would apply if you’re doing it at home). Plus,” Bobby continues, “if your ends are dry they can grab the color and end up looking darker than your roots. You also want to use a lighter or clear gloss to refresh the color and bring a lot of shine into the hair.”

Winter Violet

For those not interested in sticking to a traditional category of blonde, brunette, red, or black, the most unexpected color trend for winter is violet. “No color embodies mystique in the same way as purple,” says Leubner. “For winter, I especially love the idea of a deep and gothy, almost navy purple. I imagine the low winter sun striking the dark hair and revealing the intense saturated color.” Leubner’s inspiration this winter includes Kate Bush’s hair in the artwork for her 1985 Hounds of Love album and Katy Perry’s shiny, deep-purple color from circa 2012.

Most hair needs to be lightened to get this look, and you’ll need to keep on top of upkeep and monthly salon appointments to avoid the purple fading green, a common gripe with any dye that contains blue. If you’re confident enough to touch-up at home, Leubner recommends the Bleach London Bruised Violet direct dye: “It contains a blue pigment that doesn’t stain the hair, which is perfect for topping up the violet tone to keep it saturated all winter long.”

Read more winter beauty stories:

• The Winter Nail Art Trends of 2024 Are Moody Twists on the Season’s Beloved Designs

• The Best Winter Makeup Tips for Glowing Skin, According to Experts

• Dermatologists Explain Why Your Skin Gets So Dry in the Winter

Now, watch Suni Lee's 10-minute beauty routine:

Originally Appeared on Allure