Dyeing your hair from your natural blonde or brown to red can sound intimidating. But red doesn’t have to translate to a vibrant, Little Mermaid-esque fire-engine shade. When you think about red on the colour spectrum, there’s a shade that lives right next to blonde — think strawberry — that’s really more like a warm golden tone with a kiss of red.
In this week’s episode of Refinery29’s YouTube series Hair Me Out, we see Emmie take her hair from a light brown to a dimensional (and believable) strawberry blonde. Inspired by enviable faux-redhead celebs like Julianne Hough and Gigi Hadid, Emmie is looking for a soft colour change, but one that feels “a tiny bit spicy.”
For the transformation, Emmie visits L.A.’s trendy Mèche Salon, where she meets with colourist Adriana Pinto, who loves working with strawberry-blonde colour. “Strawberry blonde is that alluring kind of sexy,” she explains. “Like, ‘Oh, what’s she about?‘”
Pinto begins by applying a demi-permanent red gloss over Emmie’s hair to create a warm base. She then adds highlights, creating a dimensional blend of red that’s a bit deeper at the roots and a shade and half lighter through the ends. After the highlights are rinsed, Emmie gets a golden copper gloss to lock in the strawberry tone. Pinto then tints Emmie’s eyebrows using the same shade of dye — which is a step that many people forget, but as Pinto explains, “It’s crucial to bring the whole look together.”
In the end, Emmie is elated with her fresh strawberry-blonde hair. “It looks so good,” she exclaims, adding that the shade is perfectly suited to her colouring and complexion. “It’s such a big change, but it’s perfectly ‘me.’ I’m glad I did my brows, too; I got exactly what I wanted, but better.”
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