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Want to get brown hair with blonde highlights? You’re in the right place. This timeless style has many variations, and it’s a nice way to add color to your hair. We’ve rounded up 25 trending examples you’ll love.
Considering Brown Hair With Blonde Highlights?
Some hairstyles tend to show up over and over again and become classics. It’s safe to say that brown hair with blonde highlights falls into this category.
This is a simple color combination—it’s just brown with some blonde mixed in—but it looks great. It’s hard to go wrong with this color palette, and it lends itself well to different kinds of looks, so it’s not limiting even though it’s simple.
With this look, you start with brown hair as the base. This can be your natural hair, but if your hair color isn’t brown, you can always dye it to begin with. Then the blonde highlights are put in to finish off the look.
25 Brown Hair With Blonde Highlights Ideas
There are many different ways to create the highlights, and of course there are so many shades of both brown and blonde. That’s a big reason why this combo is so versatile.
To show you just how versatile this style can be, here are 25 amazing variations of brown hair with blonde highlights.
1. Classic Highlights
Typically, this is what you think of when you think of brown hair with blonde highlights. It’s a straightforward mix of blonde highlights, which really pop due to the contrast between tones.
The hair is still mostly brown, but the blonde highlights are impossible to ignore, so they’re really doing their job.
2. Ombré Foliage
Ombré style is another great option for getting blonde highlights. The colors blend together more gradually, usually in terms of both color and tone.
With this look, the dark brown hair gives way to blonde highlights at the ends, which displays the prominent change. These colors were chosen for an autumnal palette.
3. Bold Blonde
Though highlights are often complementary, you can emphasize them more than normal for a bolder look. In this case, the blonde highlights take over the brown hair in many places. You can still tell the base color is brown, but it’s a lot more subtle.
4. Tonal Fade
This take on brown hair with blonde highlights starts with a dark, woody brown at the top and gradually gets lighter and lighter until it reaches the completely blonde ends. This nice, even blend is a unique way to do blonde highlights that takes major inspiration from ombré styles.
Read Next: Ash Brown Hair Ideas
5. Striped Highlights
When they’re mixed in evenly, highlights can create a cool striped appearance. This often has the result of making the hair look pretty even split between brown and blonde, so you get a balanced look without even really trying. This style of highlights also looks great at shorter lengths.
6. Blonde Waves
Wavy hair can really accentuate highlights that are placed along the natural curves of the hair. It makes a noticeable difference, and you don’t even need any specific type of highlights to get this result. If your hair isn’t naturally wavy, you can always create the waves with a hair tool.
7. Balayage Blend
Balayage is a technique that involves creating highlights by hand. This process results in natural, gentle highlights that get lighter toward the ends.
It’s an extremely popular method for getting highlights, and the look shown here highlights just what it’s capable of.
Read Next: Balayage vs. Highlights
8. Golden Brown
If bright or platinum blonde highlights aren’t your thing, try a warmer shade like this golden blonde. This style goes through three distinct color sections: dark brown at the top, chestnut brown in the middle, and golden brown at the ends. It’s a simple yet lush look.
9. Dark Foundation
For a different flavor of brown hair with blonde highlights, you can go for a darker base color that’s almost black. This will allow you to mix in medium brown and dark blonde highlights for an earth toned palette with a lot of richness of color.
10. Wavy Mix
Here’s another simple yet effective take on brown hair with blonde highlights. Like some of these other styles, this one is all about the waves that show off the mix between brown and blonde.
The highlights are most visible at the bottom, but you can still see them intertwined throughout the brown hair.
11. Striped Balayage
These balayage highlights add a ton of dimension to the hair. At the top of the head, the highlights are prominent stripes that mix more evenly into the hair as they descend. The ends of the hair change things up between light blonde, dark blonde, and various shades of browns.
12. Long Fade
Got extra long hair? One cool way to do highlights on hair that goes past the shoulders is to allow the colors to fade over the whole length of the hair. This way, you get some blonde mixed in throughout, but it’s most apparent all the way at the bottom of the hair.
13. Mixed Mohawk
This cool take on a casual mohawk involves a dark brown base and a blonde brushed back mohawk for a two-toned skunk stripe look that stands out. It’s an edgy, punk-inspired hairstyle that’s one of the most rock and roll haircuts on this list.
14. Golden Blend
Another option for a more gold-toned look, this blended style has golden brown highlights mixed in throughout the hair. Like most of these styles, the highlights are most apparent at the ends. The result is a warm, natural hairstyle that’s fun and relaxed.
15. Subtle Fall Highlights
Here’s a nice way to do highlights in a more subtle way. The base color here is a mushroom brown that’s on the lighter side.
And the highlights are a light golden brown that mixes really well with the mushroom color. Make no mistake, these are subtle highlights, but they’re super elegant and versatile.
16. Platinum Highlights
For a look that’s more inspired by long days at the beach, try out a platinum blonde style with a lighter brown base. The two colors here are similar in brightness but different in color, and that’s what makes the look work.
17. Wavy Blonde
This style toes the line between blonde hair and brown hair with blonde highlights. The highlights are very obvious and mixed in.
And the brown seems to be the secondary color in many spots. Nevertheless, this is an interesting way to get the style, almost inverting the usual proportions.
18. Blonde Ponytail
Another cool method is to focus the highlights on one area of the hair. In this case, the blonde is almost entirely contained within the ponytail section. This gives you a high contrast look with a bright ponytail that pops against the brown hair on top.
Read Next: Sleek Ponytail Ideas
19. Even Blend
Sometimes you just want a nicely blended style with some clean and subtle highlights. If that’s what you’re after, this might be the right style for you. These highlights are a bit narrower than what we’ve seen, resulting in a more low-key look.
20. Sunkissed Highlights
Here’s another use of highlights that’s subtle and looks natural. The highlights are narrow and even, and they don’t take over the hair. Instead, they complement the brown hair, and the result is incredibly unified.
21. Blonde Sides
This is an interesting way to do highlights that you don’t see often. The blonde here is concentrated on the sides of the hair, so you get two strips of blonde on either side with varying tones of brown in the middle. It’s a bolder and louder style, but it’s a fun way to change things up.
22. Honey Highlights
Yet another golden brown option, this style features honey-toned highlights paired with a medium chestnut brown for a warm, organic look. The highlights go a long way toward brightening up the hair without overtaking the brown color.
23. Wavy Balayage
This is another good example of what balayage can achieve. The hand-painted highlights follow the contours of the waves for an eye-catching result that’s fresh yet classic at the same time. This is also a good choice if you want to do highlights that are a bit dressier.
24. Bold Balayage
Here’s another look where the emphasis is really on the blonde highlights instead of the brown base. It’s another balayage look that has flowing blonde waves with healthy doses of brown peeking through for variation.
25. Blonde Ends
This classy balayage style consists of dark brown hair at the top that gives way to golden blonde highlights at the bottom. The key here is the even and natural blend between the colors. It’s a gradual fade that happens over a small surface area.
Things to Consider
As with any hairstyle, there are some things to take into account before jumping in. Thinking about these before saying yes will ensure that you’re choosing a hairstyle that works for you, which is important.
Brown hair with blonde highlights is a tried and true style, but that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.
That said, this is a pretty safe style because it’s presentable and versatile, so you won’t be taking any big risks here. Still, here are a few things to think about first:
- Book a professional colorist if possible. While you can dye your hair at home, it’s recommended you visit a pro to get the work done if you can. While this is more expensive, the results will speak for themselves, and you’ll ensure that you get hair you’re happy with.
- Know if you want balayage. This freestyle technique can provide some great results, but if you want extremely neat and tidy highlights, you may want to avoid it. Make sure you know the differences between standard highlights and balayage so you can make the call.
- Experiment with tones. There are so many options here, so don’t be afraid to explore many different possibilities.
- Know how bold you want to go. Some of these styles are louder and some are more subtle, so know which direction you want to go. For example, if you work in a professional setting, you may not want a bold two-toned mohawk.
That does it for our guide on brown hair with blonde highlights. This style is incredibly versatile, so use this guide as a starting point to know what you might want. When in doubt, consulting with your stylist or colorist will help you figure out exactly what you want.