Mushroom Blonde Hair Is the Coolest New Hair Color to Try
From Toasty Melt to Peach Cobbler, the food-inspired hair color names keep on coming. The next trend being served up? Mushroom Blonde hair, which according to Pinterest is quickly outpacing other popular shades like Cold Brew hair and Toasted Coconut, with searches on the site for it up by 308 percent. While it sounds a little boring (mushrooms are delicious, but aren’t exactly the most exciting to look at), the final result is anything but.
The shade mirrors the multi-tone, ashy look of mushrooms, and isn’t really blond in the traditional sense. Mushroom blonde is an in-between color—not quite blond, not quite brunette, making it the perfect transitional shade. “It’s right in between light brown and dark blond, like and ashier version of bronde,” says Stephanie Brown, master colorist at New York’s IGK Salon Soho. Because it doesn’t really fall into either blond or brunette, it’s a great shade for blondes looking to dip their toes into the dark side, or for brunettes wanting to go a little lighter.
“I love the idea of using mushrooms to describe the tone of the hair color,” says Joel Warren, celebrity colorist and founder of The Salon Project. “They have so many different tones of beige and grey that are hard to describe. These tones evolved from the grey and silver trend to a slightly more natural look. The combinations with highlights and low lights gives a beautiful modern look.”
While your instinct may be to go warmer with your hair for the summer, that’s the perfect reason not to: doing something on the cooler side is a more unexpected look than summery baby blond or sandy brunette. According to Brown, it’s also super low maintenance, making it a great choice for summer. Because it’s a more grown-out look, it only needs to be touched up every three to six months (even up to a year) depending on the length of your hair.
To get the color, Brown recommends asking your colorist for a light brown or dark blond subtle ombre, with a variation of both light brown and dark blond pieces. It’s important to ask for something ashy, or else you’ll be left with a more traditional brond. And as always, bringing in photos as reference always helps.