8 Dreamy Hair-Color Ideas to Start Planning For This Summer

Highlights are the definition of an easy, breezy summer look, but they don't really get much more natural-looking than the "midlights" trend. The term, coined by celebrity colorist Matt Rez, is a hair-coloring technique that connects your base color to your highlights for a seamless blend that doesn't look stripe-y. The difference: while highlights lighten the hair and lowlights darken the hair, midlights are a midway point that adds a sun-kissed tint without using bleach. "To achieve the lift of a midlight, color is used; not lightener," Rez previously told PS.

The best part? "All hair colors and hair types can look enhanced and more seamless with a secondary color and tone for dimension," Rez says. "Those with permanent base colors can achieve 1-1.5 levels of lift since bleach is not used; so just make sure highlights are not more than two levels lighter than the midlights for cohesion."

Think of the smoky brunette color like the hair equivalent to makeup's smoky eye. It's just as seamlessly blended and meant to give a deep, sultry look. The difference in this shade of brown compared to others is that it typically features cool undertones. The ashy hue gives off an edgy, mysterious vibe and is the perfect choice for anyone looking to make a small tweak (but get a big impact).

The trend works best on someone who has a light, medium, or dark brown, or dark-blond hair already. According to hairstylist Jamie Mazzei, the hue looks the most flattering on skin tones with cool undertones, but if you have warm undertones, work with your colorist to custom blend a shade to make it suit your skin tone.

Your stylist might choose to add in cool-toned highlights, tone highlights you already have, do a color melt, or give your entire head one all-over hue — all depending on whether you already have highlights or are working with virgin hair — but either way, smoky brunette is the perfect dimensional, ashy brown idea for summer.

The prettiest tweak on balayage: dark honey highlights, which create ribbons of color while maintaining dimension. The key to this of-the-moment look? Blend, blend, blend. "This is a soft, natural-looking golden-blond color," colorist Stephanie Brown says.

Brown adds, "The highlights are more blended to make the color look less highlighted and more like it's lightened all over. It's a creamy honey color that's wearable for many skin tones."

The latest white-gold blond trend is inspired by model and actor Pamela Anderson and her iconic hair color. Everyone from Dua Lipa and Ciara to Kim Kardashian and Anya Taylor-Joy have tried the look on for size.

What sets this color apart is its crystal-clear tone. "This bright blond is achieved with lots of highlights and is left 'untoned' to give a slightly raw, bleached look," Smith says. "This particular shade is best described as white gold: it's not as cool as a silver or ash shade but most certainly not warm enough to be golden. Platinum blond is high maintenance and expensive to achieve, so this color trend is best left in the hands of the experienced professional."

Summer's answer to the expensive-looking hair color? "Teasylights," a decidedly low-maintenance alternative with just as much shine. "Teasylights are a highlighting technique used by colorists to achieve an elevated, lived-in look while also preserving the client's natural color for a bespoke, beautifully blended, and most natural result," colorist Ryan Dickie previously told PS. "Though it's highly customizable, the process always involves "back-combing, or teasing the hair toward the scalp."

"Since the pandemic, it's wonderfully more acceptable to show your natural grays, and celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Sarah Jessica Parker are leading the way when it comes to incorporating their gray hairs into their iconic hair colors," Smith says. "Using a herringbone pattern of highlighting, various shades are woven in among the gray strands, giving a finely balanced mix of warm and cool tones. This really celebrates gray hair by including them in a hair-color design as an additional highlight color."

To get the color, ask your stylist to mix (not nix) your grays and incorporate warm- and cool-toned highlights in an irregular way. "Not alternating each shade but scattering and diffusing the various shades around the irregular pattern of your own gray hair — since gray hairs tend to arrive sporadically and scattered — to work with this rather than fight against it for a hair-color design that is totally tailored to you."

You've seen the shade on everyone from Kendall Jenner and Kaia Gerber to Sophie Turner, but the trend you'll be seeing all summer takes the copper hair color to a new level. "A copper contour ties two huge trends together: copper and hair contouring," Smith says. "It's clear to see that there has been a great focus on all shades of copper, strawberry blond, and auburn."

This look will add extra dimension woven throughout the hair to play with light and shade. "Replicating this with hair color requires a bespoke approach to place complementary shades of copper, strawberry blond, mahogany, and auburn throughout the hair based on the structure of the haircut," he says. "I love seeing lighter or brighter tones placed around the face and through the ends to replicate the effects of the sun on natural hair."

Plus, it works for all skin tones. "Copper hair is not just for those who are fair-skinned," celebrity colorist George Papanikolas says. "This tone can be warmed up for golden skin tones or also cooled down to a more auburn copper."

This low maintenance look is a fan-favorite among stars like Hailey Bieber. "This works with a strong base color and pops of a slightly lighter tone," Mazzei says. "This allows the hair to have a different look with every turn of the head."

If you're ready to test it out, asking for the look is simple. "Ask your colorist for an all-over color (or work with your own natural base) and soft balayage around the bottom," Mazzei says. "Then you will want your colorist to gloss it all over with the chosen tone."

Renee Rodriguez is a staff writer and social producer for PS. She writes across all verticals, but her main areas of expertise focus on fashion and beauty content with an emphasis on reviews and editor experiments. She also produces social content for the PS TikTok and Instagram accounts.

Kelsey Castañon is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and content strategist with more than 13 years of experience in publishing. She is currently the senior content director at PS, where you can find her stockpiling (and reporting on) everything from skin care to wine.