A Golden Lob

This textured cut on Karol G is seriously amazing, and the hair color looks effortless, too. Rez says it’s best to keep the base and lowlights on the neutral/neutral-cool side. Incorporate a warmer midlight to keep hair from looking disconnected and muddy, and opt for a neutral to warm tone with the highlights, he says. “This way the allover appearance of the silhouette is neutral and will flatter most skin tones, as skin is multi-tonal usually.”

Dimensional Hair

This style often incorporates a darker dimensional tone to the hair, and it’s how Rez actually came up with the concept of a midlight technique.

The midlight technique uses a color that’s darker than the highlight and lighter than the lowlight/base color. It’s typically used to clear up the bridge between highlights and lowlights.

Blended Babylights

When done correctly, lowlights are not a high-maintenance choice, and Goddard says they can even help add longevity to any color.

Chocolate Base

Daisy Edgar Jones’ look pairs a chocolate-hued base with blonde highlights and lowlights. We love how the lighter shade is concentrated near her face, which draws attention to her features. Dirty blonde or blonde hair shades, as well as medium brown hair, all require a lowlight to be added in or preserved while coloring—this is “in order to have separation of color vertically along the hair to keep contrast and from hair looking muddy,” Rez says.

Evenly Toned Waves

Martha Hunt is known for her silky highlighted hair, but after taking a second look, it’s the lowlights that bring everything together.

Burnt Caramel

Looking for fall hair color inspiration? Jordyn Woods is our muse. The side part, the burnt caramel highlights, the smokey eye and the coordinated sage green knitwear? We’re obsessed.

Warm Blonde

The warm blonde base of Zendaya’s bowl-cut pixie offers a honey-hued contrast to the darker lowlights throughout. For this look, use a texture spray, which amps up the dimension in the hair.

High-Contrast

Beyoncé’s mix of highlights and lowlights look especially dramatic when worn stick-straight. The style allows for a closer look at all the dimension and the contrast between the dark and lighter shades of blonde. Celebrity hairstylist Lorri Goddard prefers to do lowlights either wrapped in foil or hand-painted slightly between key highlights. She calls it a “foilyage” technique and says that adding specific low-lights helps make highlights pop. “Adding strategic pieces of lowlights truly enhances one’s natural skin and eye colors,” Goddard says.

Toasty Blonde

Nicole Kidman is the queen of multidimensional blonde. Her warm, strawberry blonde base is brightened with toasty blonde lowlights, and even a few strategically placed warm platinum pieces as well.

Warm Bronde

Whether lighter, darker, or strawberry, Blake Lively’s warm blonde hue always has such a great dimension in terms of lowlights.

Face-Framing Highlights

J.Lo’s mix of highlights and lowlights looks natural, thanks to the lighter color being focused on the hair that frame her face. It’s where the sun would naturally hit, with a few lighter pieces scattered throughout her bob, as well.

Sun-Kissed

Jemima Kirke’s sun-kissed ‘do looks evening-worthy with a side part and waves. Adding texture and movement to the hair draws further attention to the use of color throughout. “The more textured and or curled the hair, the more piecey the lowlights should be,” Rez says, noting that he spaces out weaves and does chunkier lowlights so that when hair is naturally styled, “lowlights shadow along the lengths without being too blended and drowned out by wavier textures.”

Blended Blonde and Brown

When done correctly, lowlights are not a high-maintenance choice, and Goddard says they can even help add longevity to any color. We love this medium-toned bronde shade on Olympic skier Eileen Gu; the lowlights add such great dimension.

Cool Blonde

Like most highlighted hair, a lowlight is often required to preserve hair while coloring. Lowlights actually bring down the depth of the base so when new roots come in, the color is more broken up and regrowth is less eye-catching, Rez says.

Golden Curls

Jasmine Sanders has the prettiest curls and here, you can see how her lowlights add extra depth and blend into her hair naturally.

Blended Blonde

Margot Robbie is generally our all-around inspiration but we’re really coveting her perfectly blended lowlights that make for a more seamless root grow-out.

Tousled Ombré Lob

This textured lob shows off the way lowlights and midlights can make the transition from brunette to blonde in a seamless ombré.

Naturally Blended

Another great creation by Rez, these darker highlights really help the lighter colors pop, creating a beautiful, natural look we love.

Perfect Blonde

Here, Hilary Duff shows off the perfect lowlights. While her hair looks amazing here, and Nikki Lee at Nine Zero One Salon does an amazing job creating her natural-looking color, Goddard warns that if you’re working with parched or over-bleached hair, adding lowlights can pull a hollow tone. She recommends speaking to your colorist about a custom combination as that’s the best way to figure out what works for you.

Balanced Tones

Skin tones tend to differ throughout someone’s complexion, so it’s important to create a well-balanced allover appearance. Blending warm, cool, and neutral tones is the best way to go. 

“Glossing the highlights to complement the primary skin tone of a client’s hair is always a good idea,” Rez says. Just make sure lowlights are neutral.

Neutral Blonde

Mae Whitman’s blonde waves incorporate a great mix of neutral tones. Rez uses a demi-permanent hair color when depositing a lowlight, opting for the most neutral tone. “I want the depth of the base color to carry through,” he says, looking to the client’s natural tone for direction (which often ranges in the neutral to neutral-cool category).

Honey Caramel

Keke Palmer is giving us 90s pop star in the best way possible, down to the honey caramel bob.

Glossy Waves

Karlie Kloss looks exceptional no matter what, but her lowlight-toned waves are a particular favorite of ours.

Slightly Highlighted

If you have a dark base, don’t worry, you can totally get lowlights, it just might not happen right away. When moving to more subtle highlights such as these, it’s best to start slow and add as you go.

A Darker Root

The good thing is that keeping a dark root doesn’t change the coloring process. Just carrying down the base color along with the strategic placement of lowlights allows for a natural root and a more graceful grow-out.

Textured Lowlights

The more texture, the chunkier the lowlights should be—so as not to lose them within the silhouette. You can see that method at work here.

Darker Waves

Gigi Hadid usually keeps to a darker blonde hue, and it’s easy to see how the added lowlights help create movement and body in her long waves.

Bronde Lowlights

For brunettes who want a touch of the blonde lifestyle without potentially damaging processing, a bronde style achieved with highlights and lowlights can be a great choice.

Caramel Tones

This beautifully blended brunette to caramel bronde style hits all the right notes. Something you always want to avoid is too dark or red-based lowlights as they don’t always mesh well with dirty blonde to medium brown hair.

Dimensional Blonde

This flowing style incorporates so many different blonde tones, but really, it’s the subtle highlights and lowlights that give it an edge. It’s the perfect blend.

Baby Blonde Curls

This is just another example of exceptional dimension. The key to achieving this particular style hinges on creating a contrast between color and tone, which these amazing curls definitely have.

Beachy Lowlights

Take it from Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Camille Kostek’s beachy look when we say lowlights are the way to go. It looks so natural, we almost believe that like her freckles, these light blonde strands were brought out by the sun.

A Deep Base

Lowlights bring down the depth of the base. That way, when new roots grow in, the color looks more broken up, making regrowth less noticeable.

Honey Highlights

Besides the fact that Ana de Armas’ honey-colored eyes perfectly match her hair, it’s the honey highlights and caramel lowlights that really get us. The lighter colors seem to enhance her darker base, not hide it, which is what lowlights are meant to do.

Seamless Blonde

We can’t have a blonde roundup and not include Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Here, her base at the root is a shade or two darker than the rest of her hair, which sprinkles in a few golden blonde highlights to further illuminate her face.

Golden Beige

As Rez explains, the best technique for mixing highlights and lowlights depends on your individual hair texture. Straight, fine hair allows for much more contrast, making the flow of depth look more natural, while curlier hair works a bit differently. Serena Williams’s golden beige color with deeper lowlights is a testament to that.

Multi-blonde

Sofia Richie Grainge’s swept up hair has so many different blondes going on that it somehow melds beautifully into a high contrast look of deep lowlights and almost white blonde ends.

Brunette Base

If you are a brunette but want to gradually incorporate some blonde, adding lowlights to a wavy lob will help to give your hair dimension, even if the color change happens towards the middle to end of the hair.

Super Subtle

Gwyneth Paltrow is known to keep her hair pretty simple and low maintenance, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t let her blonde hair take center stage. An ever so subtle mix of ash blonde roots that cascade into lighter yellow blonde waves has become Paltrow’s signature look.

Balanced Warmth

Bronde, ash blonde, yellow blonde, the gang’s all here. This is one of Chrissy Teigen’s warmer looks, and we can see why. The blend of colors complement her skin tone perfectly.

Strawberry Blonde

You might be surprised to know that Sydney Sweeney’s natural hair color is a rich chocolate brown, considering just how stunning her strawberry blonde color looks on her.

Sleek Honey Blonde

We’re obsessed with Laverne Cox’s honey blonde hair—and her ash blonde brows to match. If you’re not on board with such a dramatic (and expensive) hair color change, you can always opt to wear a wig.

Face-Framing Creamy Blonde

One of the easiest ways to bring depth and dimension to your hair is to do a few face-framing low and highlights in a creamy blonde shade like Winnie Harlow’s.

Warm Champagne

Miley Cyrus turned all the heads at the 2024 Grammy Awards, thanks to her 70s-inspired blowout. Her teased, dark brown hair is brightened with warm, champagne-colored highlights.