Style Hair Warm Blonde Hair Shades Perfect for Brightening Your Locks By Kaitlyn Yarborough Kaitlyn Yarborough Part of the Southern Living team since 2017, Kaitlyn Yarborough is a Georgia native living in Austin, Texas, who covers a wide variety of topics for both the magazine and website, focusing on culture and lifestyle content, as well as travel in the South.She earned a B.A. in Journalism at the University of Georgia. She hopes to inspire your travel bucket list with her features on road trips through Texas Hill Country, bourbon tours in Kentucky, and the best beach getaways on the Gulf Coast. Southern Living's editorial guidelines Updated on June 27, 2022 Share Tweet Pin Email Trending Videos Photo: Ada Summer/Getty Images Does your hair feel a bit lackluster? Could your tresses use 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. 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 sweet refresher. 01 of 16 Warm Platinum Blonde Pinterest/Love Hairstyles 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 their look. 02 of 16 Baby Blonde Pinterest/Love Hairstyles 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. 03 of 16 Champagne Blonde Pinterest/Glaminati Take your cooler champagne blonde to warmer with gold or butter balayage throughout. We think of Reese Witherspoon when looking at this fair blonde with buttery touches. 04 of 16 Soft Strawberry Blonde Pinterest/The Right Hairstyles 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. 05 of 16 Honey Butter Blonde Pinterest/Kim Jetté 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! 06 of 16 Soft Golden Ombré Pinterest/Stylecaster While drastic ombré is going out of style, soft ombré is heating back up for an all-over boost to your style. This neutral blonde gets warmth and glow from golden balayage starting at eye-height for the most flattering look. 07 of 16 Cream Soda Instagram/@chandlercleveland 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. 08 of 16 Golden Blonde Pinterest 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. 09 of 16 Honey Blonde Pinterest 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 make our tresses sing. 10 of 16 Warm Sandy Blonde Pinterest 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. 11 of 16 Rose Blonde Pinterest This shade has been making waves as the update to 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. 12 of 16 Butterscotch Blonde Pinterest/Redken 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. 13 of 16 Amber Blonde Pinterest 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. 14 of 16 Deep Strawberry Blonde Pinterest 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. 15 of 16 Caramel Blonde Pinterest 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. 16 of 16 Bronde Pinterest Bronde just might be the most popular color of the year so far. Ladies are drawn the natural-looking light brown base, while honey and butter balayage gives a fresh glow to keep it from looking hum-drum. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit