Hair trends come and go, sometimes faster than we can swipe next on our Instagram feeds. Think: that hot minute we all thought tie-dye would be the biggest trend ever. Few trends ever make it out of the hype phase and into the salon hall of fame, and balayage happens to be one of them—and boy aren’t we glad!
From scrumptious-looking caramel to mermaid inspired peacock, there’s no shortage of sizzling hot balayage hair ideas for you to try out this season. Even if you’re looking for something that’s a bit more specific to your skin tone or natural hair color, you’ll still be spoilt for choice.
Keep scrolling to find your next salon inspiration!
Hype Aside, What is Balayage Hair?
Good question. Balayage is in itself a French word (pronounced: bah-lee-ahge) that means “to paint ” or “to sweep”. Basically, a colorist hand paints your hair from roots using soft pieces of color. The end result? A soft, sweeping, utterly stunning sun-kissed look.
Balayage technique is nothing like the highlighting techniques of old. No heavy foils or caps, no long hours spent on the salon chair, no trial and error—just a super efficient method that brightens and livens up your hair in half the time.
Balayage hair is characterized by subtle transitions between the chosen hues, and that’s precisely what differentiates it from its close cousin ombre. The latter lands a solid, more gradual look.
Perfect for: Brunettes wanting a natural-looking blonde ‘do, anyone wanting to visually add volume and emphasize their hair texture, anyone craving customized highlights without the harsh lines.
50 Vivid Balayage Hair Colors and Styles You Need to Try ASAP
Below, find our absolute favorite balayage hair ideas, and they include every shade imaginable—starting from natural hair shades to all the colors of the mermaid hair spectrum!
Armed with confidence and a taste of the spectacular, you’re sure to locate your dream balayage color or style in this rundown. Off we go!
1) Balayage Money Piece
Money can’t buy everything, but it sure can get you striking face-framing illumination.
2) Natural Highlights
Being a few shades lighter than your base color, these highlights promise to give your hair natural depth and incredible dimension. The hairstyle below is an absolute show-stopper, isn’t it?
3) Smokey Bronde Balayage
This cooler-than-cool silvery masterpiece is a good idea for those transitioning into their gray hair era.
4) Cinnamon Balayage on Dark Brown Hair
Apply light cinnamon near the face and lighten the layered ends. You will look as gorgeous as ever. What an extravagant look!
5) Chic Long Hair Balayage
In case you are rocking long cascading hair and want to refresh it a bit, adding balayage to the party would be the best decision. Don’t we all want to look like we’ve just been to the beach?
6) Partial Balayage in Copper Brown
A touch of copper at mid-length and around the ends will breathe new life into your locks while allowing your natural dark color to shine through.
7) Bright Tiger Eye Balayage
It’s not hard to see why the “tiger eye” hair coloring is having a moment right now. Combining soft warm caramels, gold, and copper hues, it especially looks fabulous on brunettes with warm tones and hazel, green, or brown eyes.
8) Dark Blonde Hair With Balayage
Here, the balayage creates such a sweet natural-looking dimension. We love how loose curls highlight the varying shades.
9) Short Bob Balayage
Short hair with bangs will never go out of style, and this choppy bob is an adorable yet sophisticated look with soft honey chocolate balayage for dimension.
10) Bronzed Caramel Balayage
Don’t want to go for a drastic change? Opt for this subtle balayage instead. A fantastic makeover with low-maintenance upkeep!
11) Strawberry Blonde Balayage With Shoulder-Length Hair
Strawberry blonde highlights are the answer to this no-fuss hairstyle. This stunning hair shade carries your hairstyle, no matter what length you choose. Try medium to long hair with waves and see how your hair color shines through.
12) Ash Blonde Balayage
Keep it cool with an ash blonde balayage ‘do. Since this hair color has cool undertones, it’ll be more flattering on those with warm skin tones—remember, opposites attract!
13) Curly Hair Balayage
Properly placed caramel highlights can bring life and dimension to naturally curly hair. The flavors of salted, toffee, and caramel brown beautifully blend in the mane, accentuating the beautiful texture of your ringlets.
14) High Contrast Balayage for Brunettes
Sometimes all you need is a splash of color here and there to set your dark hair ablaze. Choose a color two or three shades lighter than the rest of your hair to brighten up your look.
15) Ginger Balayage
One more thing to love about the balayage technique: the highlights blend in so seamlessly with the base color you’d think she was born that way. The outcome? A cohesive natural-looking color scheme sure to send necks craning.
16) Honey Blonde Balayage on Long V-Shaped Hair
Black hair and honey blonde always work well together, and this dreamy balayage style is no exception!
17) Shiny Golden Bronde Balayage Hair
Prefer something a bit warm? Add lightness to your chestnut brown hair with full balayage in golden bronde; just be sure to grab a purple shampoo to keep brassy tones at bay. Wear wavy for special events or straight for casual occasions—you’ll turn heads whenever, wherever, granted.
18) Ash Brown Balayage In Cool Tones
Who said a makeover has to be noticeable to be “worth it”? Subdued and understated, it’s the kind of look that screams major ATT.
19) Platinum Blonde Balayage
Behold, the mother of all blonde shades! Platinum blonde is a high intensity color for the lady who likes her hair to look posh and doesn’t mind the endless salon visits that come with it (for touch-ups, ya know?).
20) Rooty Blonde Balayage Hair
The balayage in this picture does a lot more than just lift her natural color—it utilizes shadow roots to better release the beachy blonde pieces. The result is a more dimensional style that oozes premium sophistication, enough to have Chrissy Teigen going green with envy.
21) Chunky Caramel Balayage Highlights
Caramel balayage may be a hair trend all on its own, but combine it with chunky highlights, and it’s a total game-changer. We are fans of chunky caramel highlights on dark brown or chestnut hair, in particular, though they pair well with a range of shades.
22) Red Brown Balayage and Dark Roots
Calling all brunettes: This is another balayage hair color that’s perfect for you—with the added advantage of minimal to zero root touch-ups. As your roots grow out, they blend in seamlessly with the colored sections of your mane.
23) Rainbow Balayage Hair
Get creative and change your look by becoming a real-life unicorn! Gray color will compliment your fair skin tone nicely, while vibrant highlights are a great way to stand out and get everyone’s attention in the room.
24) Sandy Blonde Balayage
Our unending love for beach-inspired hair couldn’t allow us to leave out this alluring color. To land those effortless loose waves, spritz texturizing spray onto towel-dried hair, give it a proper scrunch, and allow your mane to air-dry.
25) Caramel Mocha Balayage Highlights
The bright ribbons running along the mane grow in intensity towards the ends, filling the brunette hair with shine and movement.
26) Beige Blonde Balayage
Beige blonde is one of the hottest hair trends of 2024, so why not try it with a balayage twist? Sultry, seductive, and all things romance.
27) Soft Barely-There Balayage
It might take more than a single glance to pick out the color placement on this ‘do. It’s so subtle and natural-looking you’d think it wasn’t mixed by an extremely talented colorist (cue: it was!). Perfect for first-time balayage wearers.
28) Pink Balayage Hair
Dark brown hair and pink balayage is a combo like no other, so why not give it a shot? Pink ends get you a perfectly smooth yet cheeky look that transports you out of this world in a second.
29) Vanilla Blonde Balayage
There’s no substitute for quality vanilla—the kind that’s soft, creamy, and hard to resist. Think of vanilla blonde balayage as the perfectly irresistible hair equivalent of your favorite ice cream flavor.
30) Light Brown Balayage
Seriously, this is the closest thing you’ll find to a balayage that ticks all the right boxes. Signature sun-kissed look? Check. Shadow roots? Check. A shiny, natural-looking mane that can go from day to night with seamless ease? Check, check, check!
31) Autumnal Copper Chocolate Balayage
For the fall months, we’re all about the low-maintenance hair colors, and this perfectly blended red-brown balayage may just be our new obsession.
32) Silver Blonde Balayage
If Elsa got an extreme, cool-toned makeover, this is what you’d get. It has a beautiful balance of brightness and depth, and it’s incredibly flattering on a wide variety of skin tones (lookin’ at you, women with red and pink undertones).
33) Caffe Latte Balayage
Picture an oversized mug of espresso with milk on a cold, winter day—now translate that into balayage hair color. We especially love this coffee shade on very long manes, so the hair’s movement can show off those rich, dimensional tones.
34) Fiery Red Balayage
It’s hard to deny it—bright red balayage on dark brown hair is a near-perfect combination. Ideal for long hair, long bobs, angled cuts, and everything in between, this dramatic application of color will have you feeling like you’re playing the (glam) villain in a movie.
35) Mushroom Brown Balayage Coloring
Teetering the line between dark blonde and deep brown, this super cool, uber-trendy shade is incredibly versatile—which explains why it’s been on top of most colorists’ most beloved lists in recent years. Because of its lack of warm tones, it’s a particularly ideal choice for blondes transitioning to brown, although it also flatters olive skin.
36) Champagne Blonde Balayage
We’ll pour a glass of bubbly for this balayage color–it’s that pretty!
37) Face-Framing Balayage Highlights
This breathtaking color scheme kills two birds with one stone—it accentuates her stunning facial features and infuses the hair with gorgeous warm tones.
38) Chestnut Hair Balayage
Unlike traditional foil highlights, balayage flatters a wider range of hair types, including chestnut. For a flawless look, choose a shade that best suits your eye color and skin tone.
39) Chocolate Hair With Delicate Balayage
Super-fine, strategically placed highlights drizzled throughout chocolate hair spice up your mane for a truly multidimensional look that is as volume-packed as it is beautiful.
40) Babylights
True to the name, babylights are a subtle form of highlighting meant to replicate children’s hair that’s being toasted by the afternoon sun. That simply means your stylist will focus on framing your face and illuminating the ends of your hair; talk about depth and brightness galore!
41) Balayage Updo
We love how half updos help showcase a partial balayage creatively applied on the ends. Dream wedding look, unlocked.
42) Lob Balayage Hairstyle
The length of your hair shouldn’t deter you from hopping on the balayage hair trend. It looks just as fascinating whether your hair is barely grazing your jaw or sweeping past your hips. And the following fabolous lob with caramel balayage lays testament to this fact.
43) Light Caramel Balayage on Blunt Cut
Oomphy, buttery, cozy. An unbeatable trio that no amount of traditional highlights can conjure.
44) Peacock Balayage
Show us a fancier, dreamier, more universally flattering hair color on the balayage spectrum, and we’ll show you where aliens reside (cue: virtually impossible). Perfect for the gal who is afraid of poppy hues or those yearning for a dynamic, any-season new color.
45) Lived-In Blonde Balayage Highlights
Freehand hair has never looked more glitzy and red carpet-ready. We particularly love the stunning dimension that this long mane gives off at first stare (no quick glances here!).
46) Warm Brunette Balayage
One of the yummiest hair color options out there. A caramel balayage brunette fits any occasion, from a cozy evening indoors to a night out with that date you’ve crushed so hard on. It looks particularly flattering with tanned skin.
47) Sun Kissed Blonde Balayage Highlights
Put the much-revved theory to the test and find out if blondes really do have more fun by adding some blonde balayage highlights. In the end, you’ll land a natural, stunning masterpiece of light and dark blonde, a departure from the out-of-the-box highlights that everyone is sporting these days. Uniqueness for the W!
48) Mermaid Balayage
SIMPLY MAGICAL! Relive all your childhood princess hair fantasies, one whimsical shade at a time.
49) Brown to Blonde Contouring Balayage
The different tones of balayage on this mane are anything but unintentional. Lighter pieces around the face make for a bold, expressive look, all while adding captivating depth to the main color.
50) Burgundy Balayage on Dark Hair
Yet another great hairstyle for brunettes that seek a change! Get the bold, fiery, no-nonsense look by going burgundy red, cherry cola, or auburn from the mid-length downwards.
Balayage Hair for the Win!
When French colorists contrived the balayage technique some many decades ago (1970s, to be exact), they didn’t know they’d set the pace for the emergence of one of the hottest trends the hair world has ever seen. Fast forward to today, and that’s exactly the case.
An innately multidimensional color, balayage continues to defy odds with each passing year, and it’s now safe to say that there’s no hair texture, type, length, or skin tone it can’t flatter—and comfortably so. You just have to find the ideal shade or tone for you, with the help of an expert colorist, of course.
Play safe, go wild, get a little nostalgic…there’s a balayage hair idea for the exact situation you have in mind. We hope the above collection will help you make the best decision for your next hair coloring appointment. Let us know which shade is your favorite!