I called the braids my mom gave me as a child my “root beer float braids,” a nod to the blend of creamy highlights that would appear through the crisscross style. I grew up a natural blonde with light golden tones that sparkled through warmer honey shades. Every time I would tag along to my mother’s long hair color appointments, the colorists would gasp before saying, “You realize that women pay hundreds of dollars to have your hair?” I thought I wouldn’t ever color my hair until I went gray. I was wrong.
As I moved into the next phase of my life and went off to college, my hair made a big change, too. My once-bright roots started to fade into a darker taupe shade. My summery highlights were beginning to have more of a winter dullness. Not even the DIY hack of putting lemon in my hair while lounging in the sun helped brighten it anymore, though it had so many times before. My hair was now a dirty blonde color — often called “dishwater” or “mousey” due to its flat tone. Near the end of my senior year, I saw a photo and did a double-take at how dark my hair looked. In that moment, just as my hair color was fading, so was part of my identity. I didn’t look like myself.
I panicked and begged my mom (also a once-natural blonde) to book me an appointment with her colorist. She warned me that once I began dyeing my hair, it might be hard to go back. However, I was blinded with excitement that I could have that bright honey hue that made me feel beautiful. What I didn’t consider — as the smell of bleach lifted me (and my hair color) back to my youth — was just how big of a commitment I was making. I had just been inducted into a “club” of women who would routinely spend hours in the chair to emerge with fresh, glossy blonde hair.
Meet the experts:
- Emaly B is a celebrity hair colorist whose clients include Jennifer Lawrence and Dianna Agron.
- Jenna Perry is a celebrity hair colorist and the founder of Jenna Perry Hair Studio.
- Matt Rez is a celebrity hair colorist whose clients include Florence Pugh and Meghann Fahy.
I left with a brand-new shade that I had never encountered before. Soft, sandy highlights were woven through a balayage of my “dull” roots. It was even lighter than my childhood hue and I loved the brightness it brought to my face. Five months later, I returned to the chair and had my hair painted again for another four hours. It has now been a decade of this routine and I have shelled out thousands of dollars to avoid that darker root color from growing out more than two inches. Recently, I’ve begun showing my colorist photos of myself when I was younger to try to recreate my former perfectly sun-kissed golden hue.
The experience of my hair losing its “luster” is an incredibly common phenomenon. “Children’s hair is not one color blonde,” explains celebrity hair colorist Matt Rez. “It has the depth of the natural base color — wisps of warm mid-lights that pop the bright blonde highlights. It’s like ribbons of colors melting together perfectly. As natural blondes age, their vibrant multi-tonal and color shades start to darken to a more muted and flat dark blonde or light brown.” This is caused by a natural increase in eumelanin, which determines brown or black pigment, due to hormones. Some people lose their blonde locks by the time they hit puberty, while others – like me – have their colors fade in their twenties.
Only 2% of people stay bright blonde into adulthood, and celebrity colorist Jenna Perry confirms that attempting to recapture those youthful hues “is a really big topic of conversation amongst my clients.” Many former towheads turn to bleach, but recreating the exact shade from their childhood can be tricky. “A natural blonde always has many nuances,” Perry explains, noting that she tends to use balayage on her clients who are seeking this effect. “Typically, [former natural blondes] do highlights to add that lost lightness and vibrancy back into their color,” Rez says.
Shockingly though, after a decade of dyeing my hair religiously, things have changed. My natural dishwater hue is now beholden as a covetable blonde shade on the internet. Tones labeled with all sorts of positive adjectives like “golden”, “honey”, “strawberry”, and even “baby" have come into the narrative — but never “mousey” or “dishwater.” The once undesirable hair color’s popularity was recently solidified when Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour began. And since Taylor Swift is Taylor Swift, I respected her for going “dishwater”, but figured it would be a passing phase. Recently, I read her hair color is now being called “old money blonde;” it’s predicted to be a new “it” shade for 2024.
- FragranceBella Hadid’s Big New Life In Texas
At that moment, I felt scammed — and so did TikTokers. In one post, a blonde played the “how I love being a woman” sound over herself with the text: “POV: You’ve been bleaching your hair since the 3rd grade bc it was called ‘dishwater’ blonde but now it’s trending and there’s no going back.” Another simply began her caption with: “BLONDE POLICE GO AWAY,” lamenting about the fact that she’d previously been told she “wasn’t really a blonde” because her strands weren’t platinum. All of this discourse prompted an internal dialogue: Have we just been told we can’t age so we could spend thousands at the salon? Is our natural color really more flattering? Do old-money blonde women actually let their color fade? If Taylor Swift is doing it, does it mean I can save all my money at the salon?
Perry, who is responsible for blondes like Chloë Sevigny and Greta Gerwig, noted that one of her clients asked for the tone-on-tone look of Taylor Swift the day she answered my email. She says that many of the natural blondes in her chair have been going for a more low-maintenance, partially rooted balayage highlight. The not-so-dirty blonde tonal look lets the dishwater shades shine through — allowing more time in between color appointments — but still infuses some brightened strands.
“I hate that people call it dishwater blonde because it's actually a really beautiful and interesting color — and one that is very hard to mimic,” shares NYC-based hair colorist Emaly B, who dyes Jennifer Lawrence’s and Dianna Agron’s hair. She says blondes have moved past the days of “foiling the shit out of their hair” and are beginning to embrace a somewhat more natural shade akin to that childhood blonde.
- FragranceBella Hadid’s Big New Life In Texas
While it may be trending, many people aren’t going all the way back to their roots. Instead, they’re bringing back another coloring trend from the recent past. “I hate to use this word — because I think we're all scarred by it from the early 2000s — but it's kind of an updated ombré,” says B. “It's this new take on easy, less-is-more grow-out as it's seamless.” To bring some brightness to a dishwater hue, she advises natural blondes to add a frame of highlights around their face. Rez recommends if you are going for a partial balayage, you can incorporate some mid-lights — an in-between shade that connects your highlights with your base. “You need a controlled amount of warmth to be weaved in so the highlights are accentuated,” he says.
Even after speaking with experts, my next color appointment is still booked. For now, I don’t plan to abandon my dye habit altogether, but I’m trying the less-is-more approach. I still want to stay a blonde, but I don’t mind letting it get a little “dirty.” Ultimately, I’m happy that dishwater is making its way back into the zeitgeist. As older blondes are encouraged to embrace their roots, they can relive that feeling of having a natural hue that’s (somewhat) enviable and take fewer pricey trips to the salon. While we still are chasing a childhood dream, that’s a step forward I’m happy to take.
Read more stories about blonde hair.
- Will the Scandinavian Hairline Technique Make You Your Blondest Blonde Ever?
- 21 Best Purple Shampoos and Conditioners for Icy-Blonde Hair
- 19 Strawberry Blonde Hair Color Ideas
Now watch Saweetie discuss the latest beauty trends.
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