Top 27 Light Ash Blonde Highlights Hair Color Ideas For Blonde And Brown Hair

Those cool-toned icy blonde highlights everyone has been losing their minds over have an official name – ash blonde highlights. While there are many blonde shades to choose from, it is high time ash-blonde gets the recognition it deserves! This versatile shade works on any hair type and color. It is often paired with brown or blonde hair to frame your facial features and shape. You can also get salon services to follow this beauty trend as a professional stylist can be of great help with hair bleaching and hair styling and also guide you well in post-bleach hair care and hair maintenance. Scroll down to check out 25 surreal ash blonde highlights to apply on blonde and brown hair. But first, if you love coloring your hair, here’s how you can achieve ash blonde highlights yourself! Swipe up and keep reading!

Quick Hair Color Guide: Ash Blonde Highlights

How To Choose A Shade: Ash blonde highlights paired with warm-toned hair base shades suit warm undertones. Ash Highlights on cool-toned hair base shades suit cool undertones.

Level Of Maintenance: Medium to high.

Suitable For: Straight and wavy hair

Looks Best With: Smokey eyes with bold lip colors

How To Get Ash Blonde Highlights At Home

You Will Need

• Ash Blonde Box Dye
• An Old Shirt
• Hairbrush
• Vaseline
• Plastic Bowl
• Toothbrush
• Gloves
• Tail Comb
• Shampoo
• Conditioner

Method

1. Choose an ash blonde color that is not more than 2 shades lighter than your natural hair. If you have dark brown hair, choose an ash bronde (brown+blonde) color to work with.
2. Ensure that you are working with 2-day-old hair. The natural oils in your hair will help the highlighting process.
3. Put on your gloves and an old shirt that you wouldn’t mind getting stains on as the process is likely to get messy.
4. Apply vaseline all along your hairline and on your forehead, ears, and neck.
5. Following the instructions on the box, mix the hair dye and developer in a bowl. Conduct a strand test with the mixture to avoid disastrous results.
6. If the strand test meets your expectations, you are ready to start highlighting your hair.
7. Part your hair as you normally do and use the tail comb to separate a ½ inch of hair on either side of the part (work with smaller sections if you have fine hair.) These sections frame your face, and so are going to be bigger than the highlights at the back.
8. Using your toothbrush, apply the dye onto these strands. Once done, leave about ½ an inch of space and separate another section that is slightly smaller than the last one.
9. As you move towards the back of your head, ensure that the space in between the highlights is increasing while the thickness of each section is decreasing to about a quarter of an inch.
10. Repeat the process with the lower layers, spacing the highlights out even more.
11. You do not have to be too strict with the placement as highlights tend to look best and more natural when they are not evenly spaced.
12. Feel free to use generous amounts of dye near the tips of your hair.
13. Once you are done highlighting, leave the dye on for the indicated amount of time.
14. Wash and condition your hair.

As important as it is to get the color right, maintaining it is equally important if you wish to enjoy your new hair color for some time. Here are some tips to maintain those amazing highlights.

Color Maintenance Tips For Fresh Highlights

Scroll down for essential maintenance tips for your colored hair that will keep it looking fresh and healthy for long.

1. Wait Before Washing

After getting highlights, it’s essential to wait at least 48-72 hours before washing your hair. This allows the color to be fully set and helps prevent early fading.

2. Use Color-Safe Hair Products

Invest in sulfate-free hair products to help preserve the light ash blonde tone in your highlights. Using products designed for color-treated hair will keep your highlights vibrant.

3. Incorporate Purple Shampoo

To prevent your highlights from turning brassy or yellow, use a purple shampoo once or twice a week.

4. Limit Heat Styling

Excessive heat from styling tools can cause color to fade faster. So, avoid heat styling as far as you can, and when you can’t, make sure you use a high-quality heat protectant.

5. Schedule Regular Gloss Or Toner Treatments

Visit your salon every 4-6 weeks for a gloss or toner treatment. This will refresh the color, eliminate brassiness, and add shine, ensuring that your highlights stay vibrant and cool-toned.

6. Avoid Hard Water

Hard water contains minerals like calcium and magnesium, which can cause color fading and brassiness.

7. Keep Your Hair Hydrated

Color-treated hair tends to dry out easily, especially after highlights. Use deep conditioning treatments or hair masks at least once a week to restore moisture and nourish your hair.

8. Limit Sun Exposure

UV rays from the sun can fade your highlights and cause brassiness. When spending time outdoors, wear a hat or use hair products with built-in UV protection to shield your hair from harmful sun exposure.

9. Touch-Up The Roots As Needed

Touching up your roots as they grow out is essential to keeping your overall look polished. Depending on how fast your hair grows, schedule touch-ups every 6-8 weeks.

Following this post hair color tips will make sure you look stylish without compromising on your hair health. In the section below, check out some amazing highlight options for your hair to make sure you look your very best!

Top 27 Light Ash Blonde Highlights Hair Color Ideas For Blonde And Brown Hair

1. Ash On Brown

Highlights and balayage are two of our favorite hair coloring techniques, and this one is a perfect combination of the two. The dark brown natural hair is coupled with ash blonde highlights to create contrast and depth. The highlights grow heavier at the lower lengths of the hair, creating a balayage effect.

2. Smooth Transition

This is yet another ash blonde balayage-highlight style. The highlights are heavy at the face-framing and lower sections of the hair. They’ve also been meticulously placed all around the crown with varying thickness to create a very natural look. This style is perfect for women with fine hair.

3. Ashy Babylights

Babylights can never go out of style and this ashy babylights style is cool-toned perfection. The perfect ash blonde lights have been swept onto the hair in thin sections to create texture. If you have fine hair, this style will help create an illusion of volume and depth.

4. Cool Baby Blonde

We love how this style is not too particular about highlight placement. The framing sections have been lightened generously and the distance and thickness of the lights start to vary as you move around the back of the hair. The contrast is not too severe, making this style perfect for all hair types and textures.

5. Beach Sand

This extremely light ash blonde style was meant for summers and beaches. The perfect beach waves enhance the texture created by the pale ash blonde highlights. If you love platinum hair but are looking for something that looks more natural, this might be the right style for you.

6. Smokey Brown

Granny hair had us head over heels in love, and this brown-toned alternative does the look complete justice. Not only does the style look extremely trendy, but it also helps cover grays to give you a natural, trendy, and youthful look.

7. Rooted Silver Ash

This pale blonde has been highlighted and toned to perfection. The dark roots help create depth in the style, adding an illusion of volume. The hair has been highlighted in even tiny sections and the subtle ash blonde color of the highlights also help add dimension, making this style perfect for extremely fine hair.

8. Perfect Ash Blonde

If you have fine natural bronde hair and are looking to spruce it up with some ash blonde tones, this style is meant for you. The contrast created by the blonde highlights and light ash blonde hair color makes this style extremely dimensional. The darker natural hair also creates the perfect lowlights effect, adding the perfect amount of depth.

9. Heavy Ash Bronde

There’s nothing that gets us swooning more than heavy bobs that have been highlighted to perfection. The natural ash brown hair has been perfectly highlighted with light ash blonde streaks, creating high contrast and perfect dimension without making the style look too bulky.

10. Textured Root Drop Highlights

We love good hair texture, and this style has great texture. The dirty brown roots drop to a light multi-toned ash-brown hair color all around the crown. The messy hair just goes on to add more dimension to the hair, making it look completely beach ready.

11. Dirty Ash Blonde

Dirty browns are the best natural colors to work with when trying to achieve an ashed out look. This style has the perfect dirty ash blonde finish. If you have dirty brown hair, achieving and maintaining this perfectly highlighted look will be super easy.

12. Bronde Magic

Talk about perfect dirty ash shades. This bronde style has everything we look for in hair from smooth blending to perfect dimension with the right amount of contrast. The framing bits have been heavily lightened while the beautiful light blonde highlights around the crown have been painted in thinner sections. This style is perfect for all hair types and textures.

13. Deep Rooted Icy Ash

The contrast on this style is very high, but the style has been blended to perfection. The balayage-highlights style starts off with a dark, dirty brown base that has subtle warm tones. The highlighting begins very close to the roots, where they are subtle. As you move down the length of the hair, the lights fade, ending in an icy ash blonde at the tips.

14. Ash On Champagne

Sparkling champagne. That’s exactly what this style looks like. The light ash blonde highlights have been toned to perfection on this style. Closer to the roots, the toned warm tones create an ashy champagne color that soon fades out to a sterling ash. If you love cool-toned hair colors but don’t wanna bid farewell to all the warmth in your hair, this style is for you.

15. Ashy Ice Melt

The perfect ash bronde melt is what this style is. The natural bronde hair at the base has been hand-painted to create icy highlights that fade out to a smokey sterling. The look has texture, depth, and dimension, making it perfect for fine to wavy hair types.

Quick Tip

Icy blonde is the latest trend and is all over Hollywood and Instagram influencers. It gives your hair a hint of violet or blue undertones and adds shimmer to it.

16. Blonde Frost Bite

Braids just up the oomph factor of any colored style. The ash-brown roots of this style have been faded to a two-toned pale blonde. The style fades to the lightest pale blonde at the tips. The ash roots help add depth to the style and the highlighting close to the roots adds texture, creating volume at the base.

17. Root Melt Highlights

Root melts are an absolute favorite when it comes to ash highlights. The natural dark hair has been lightened and toned to create the perfect ash blonde that fades out perfectly in this lob style. The highlighting begins very close to the roots to create a natural looking fade and to add volume near the roots.

Quick Tip

To get rooted ash blonde, your colorist has to lift hair as light as possible to eliminate its warm tones. Hence, you might need more than one session to get darker roots.

18. Cafe Latte

Adding texture to fine hair is an art, and this artist has certainly nailed this masterpiece. This look incorporates high contrast with expert blending. The highlights begin a little away from the roots and have been placed unevenly to create a natural looking fade. The highlights are spaced almost evenly to create texture and volume. As you move down the lengths, the style fades to an amazing dark ash blonde.

19. Perfect Placement

This style is so smooth, we are in love. The highlights on this style have been so judiciously placed. Around the framing bits, in the lower layers, and around the crown of the hair. Each highlighted section is thick, but perfectly blended and smooth. If you have smooth voluminous hair, this is the stuff you need to go for.

20. Icy Bronde

We love the dimension in this style! It starts with a dark bronde base and fades into an icy ash tone at the lower lengths. The multiple ash shades add so much dimension to the style. The highlights have been painted on in thick sections, making this style perfect for wavy or curly hair.

21. Fine Ash Blonde Highlights

The highlights on this style are so fine, we are completely smitten. The look has a subtle drop root effect that blends out to the highlights that have been swept on so perfectly. The fine highlights help add texture and are the ideal style for people with fine, straight hair. If you have a frizz problem, this look is not for you.

22. Soft Ash

These subtle ashy highlights are possibly one of the best things we’ve laid our eyes on. The Ash blonde base has been highlighted perfectly with a lighter ash shade. There is barely any contrast, giving the style a perfectly natural finish. The colors are soft and the highlights are extremely fine, creating another perfect look for fine hair.

23. Bronde Contrast

We love our perfectly painted bobs, and this one is on our list of favorites. The contrast in between the ash brown base and ash blonde highlights has been perfected by keeping the tones cool. The highlights have a hand-painted look to them, making the style look natural despite the contrast.

24. Ballylights

We love all that is going on in this look, and there is so much going on. The ash blonde highlights have been placed perfectly in fine sections, all around the style. As you move to the lower lengths, the cool tones have been blended out to take on some warmth with a subtle pastel peach. The color has been painted on balayage-style.

25. High Gloss Ash Blonde

Who doesn’t love glossy hair? We absolutely love this two-toned ‘do. The base is an ash bronde, which has been highlighted with ash blonde streaks. The artist has added cooler splashes of ash at the mid-lengths, creating movement in the style.

26. Ashy Blonde With Caramel Tones

Start off with a classic ash bronde at the top, giving the hair a soft golden shine that melts into a soft strawberry-caramel shade at the bottom with ash tips peeking through at the ends. This hairdo looks stunning on wavy hair but especially sophisticated on sleek, straight hair.

27. Ashy Mushroom Blonde

Word on the street is that ashy mushroom blonde is the new platinum blonde! Notice how the gray shade is highlighted, especially at the crown and roots. Dark gray bleeds into an icy light gray that flows downward and merges dramatically with a light ashy blonde shade, making for a captivating smoky infusion.

Colored hair attracts attention whether you style it or not. But if you want to up your hair styling game, check out some tips below that will enhance the beauty of ash blonde highlights.

Cool Styling Tips For Ash Blonde Highlights

There are several ways to style your ash-blonde highlights for a fresh look. You can try straightening your hair to show the smooth, cool tones of the highlights. This works especially well with blunt cuts or long layers.

Beachy waves or soft curls are another popular choice, adding texture to the highlights. For added flair, consider braiding your hair or styling it into a messy bun or ponytail. This will enhance the multidimensional tones of the highlights as different shades catch the light.

To complement the cool tones, opt for clothing in neutral or pastel shades, such as soft greys, blues, or whites. This will bring out the best of your hair color and make you look insta-ready always!

Infographic: The 6 Most Cool-Toned Ash Blonde Highlights For Brown And Blonde Hair

Ash blonde is a craze and for good reason. It is a naturally cool-toned hair color that looks fantastic with those with cool or neutral skin tones. But as it is mostly done on blonde and brown hair, not all the shades come out as cool as others.

Check out the infographic to find the coolest ash blonde highlight ideas which should be embraced by those with cool-toned skin and avoided by the ones with warm-toned skin.

Illustration: StyleCraze Design Team

Frequently Asked Questions

Does light ash blonde look gray?

Yes. Ash blonde is a very light tone and has a grayish tint in it.

Does ash blonde make you look older?

Cooler tones like ash blonde can absorb light. Therefore, it may make you look older.

Is ash blonde cool or warm?

Ash blonde is a cool shade and is one of the many smokey blonde shades.

Illustration: Light Ash Blonde Highlights Hair Color Ideas For Blonde And Brown Hair

Image: Stable Diffusion/StyleCraze Design Team

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Tiffany YoungCertified Trichology Practitioner

     

Tiffany Young is the CEO and founder of ThinHairThick and a certified trichology practitioner with 6 years of experience. She is also a recognized expert in the hair and beauty industry with celebrity clientele. Her own personal struggles with hair loss created an opportunity for her to deep-dive into learning all things related to medical conditions and external factors that contribute to hair loss.

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