It’s only a matter of time before our winter hair starts feeling a bit lackluster and our tresses start begging for a little glow up. Forget about just choosing between blonde, brown, or red hair color—no, it’s all about hitting the right spot on the spectrum of tones within your favorite hue for your most flattering look yet. Warm blonde shades, unlike cool or neutral blonde shades, give that instant brightening boost our locks crave with the coming of warmer, sunnier days. Think gold, honey, amber, caramel, strawberry, and butterscotch as the delicious pillars of warm blonde hair color. Even your light-as-pearl blonde friend can join the party by warming up her cool platinum with buttery gold balayage, and your true-to-chestnut brunette friend can boost her brown with lovely caramel blonde. It’s the rich, high-definition glow and brightening effect that warm blonde gives that flatters every lady, fair or dark skinned, from the outside in. Besides, on the spectrum of blondes, we like to think warm blondes have the most fun. From your lightest warm blonde to your darkest warm blonde, here are our favorite blonde picks for a springtime refresher.
Warm Platinum Blonde
This platinum shade looks the most natural with its warm tones instead of the expected icy, cool tones of some platinum shades. It goes with a warmer, yellow-hued blonde rather than an icy, white blonde. This shade is perfect for blonde ladies looking to brighten up for the spring and summer.
Baby Blonde
While similar to warm platinum, baby blonde isn’t quite as light. It’s typical for this shade to use balayage highlights or babylights to really blend the warm shades of platinum and gold into the body of the hair.
Champagne Blonde
Take your cooler champagne blonde to warmer days with gold or butter balayage throughout. We think of Reese Witherspoon when looking at this fair blonde with buttery touches.
Soft Strawberry Blonde
This shade combines golden dirty blonde and strawberry blonde for a naturally sun-kissed look we love for those with fair skin. While the red tones of the strawberry blonde make it inherently warm, golden balayage takes it even further.
Honey Butter Blonde
Enhance a warm honey base with pure butter balayage for a finished shade that looks absolutely lit from within. This glowing mane gives us major Rapunzel feels!
Soft Golden Ombré
While drastic ombré is going out of style, soft ombré is heating back up for spring and summer. This neutral blonde gets warmth and glow from golden balayage starting at eye-height for the most flattering look.
Cream Soda
This It hair color achieves a warmed-up look with golden and honey shades and a beige or neutral blonde or light brown base. It can start looking a bit rose gold or amber gold depending on your balayage shades.
Golden Blonde
This quintessential blonde looks spun from gold thread, making it one of the best brightening shades out there. You’ll get this look from highlights or babylights that give cohesive all-over coverage.
Honey Blonde
Honey blonde is all about capturing that warm, shiny, and sumptuous look of honey on a bronde base. It gives a light-catching, sun-kissed look that we’re dreaming of this spring.
Warm Sandy Blonde
This shade uses a warm honey or amber base color and brightens it up with golden balayage all over for that blended sandy look. This color is a great option for those with medium skin tones.
Rose Blonde
This shade has been making waves as the 2018 update on rose gold. The look gets its rosy tint by adding rose gold balayage throughout a bright golden base. You get the warm tones from the rose gold, but with an all-over lighter look.
Butterscotch Blonde
This shade is about combining golden blonde with warmer butterscotch (think: a tad lighter than caramel) touches for a rich, multidimensional color that looks kissed by the sun.
Amber Blonde
Amber blonde is a step up from your warm honey blonde with more pronounced orange and red undertones, while still keeping golden touches all over. It works wonders on fair skin, bringing out green eyes like no other.
Deep Strawberry Blonde
Go full Nicole Kidman with this vivid strawberry blonde. Full highlights will give this all-over shining look that bursts with red and orange tones.
Caramel Blonde
This popular combo is often used with a soft ombré balayage technique to create a silky gradient of warm blonde-brown. A caramel blonde base provides the perfect starting place for adding golden strokes around the face and towards the ends for spring and summer.
