Want to try the latest hair colour trends, as seen on your favourite celebs, without ruining your original colour? Here a hairdresser explains how, and the one product you need…
As we begin a new year, if you fancy doing something a little different with your hair then now’s a great time, and award-winning hair colourist – and my go-to colour speicialist – Siobhan Haug at Haug London Haus has highlighted her top colour trends for this winter. These include ‘smokey brunette’ (a dark, cool-toned brown seen on Jenna Ortega), ‘Chappell red’ (cherry brown and cola shades inspired by its namesake, singer Chappell Roan), and ‘amber blonde’, a glossy, golden tone perhaps most famously showcased by Sabrina Carpenter.
While booking in with a hair professional will obviously give the best results, if you want to try out these colour trends without committing to a permanent colour change – and without altering your existing hair colour for good – Siobhan recommends one nifty product: colour masks. Here’s how to use them…
READ MORE: Fearne Cotton launches wellbeing supplements including ‘sleep game changer’
READ MORE: This Morning’s Nadine Baggott praises face cream ‘20 times more powerful than retinol’
“Instead of using a semi-permanent or permanent home dye, which, as a professional, I would never recommend, there are amazing colour masks you can use that do the same thing,” Siobhan says. “We mix up our own ones bespoke ones here in the salon, but there are lots of really great shop-bought ones too – for example, Josh Wood does a nice colour mask for getting an amber blonde look, and Bleach London does really nice smokey tones that you can put over your brunette.”
How long do colour masks last?
“Colour masks have larger colour pigment so they tend to sit on the outside of the hair shaft – so it depends how porous your hair is, but they generally up to 10 washes,” says Siobhan. “If you have really porous hair it could release the colour sooner than that, and if you have fine hair around your hairline it could grab onto the colour more here.”
“When I give our clients with fine hair our colour masks I always advise them put it all over apart from the hairline, then when you wash it out, wash it over the hairline, so it doesn’t grab too much pigment there.”
Do colour masks affect your existing hair colour?
We get it, hair upkeep costs a lot, so the last thing you probably want to do is ruin an expensive colour appointment by altering it for good trying an at-home product. Luckily, this shouldn’t be the case, says Siobhan.
“If you used a strong creative colour like peacock or violet then yes, it could linger. But if you’re going for something more natural like amber blonde or smokey brunette, it shouldn’t have a lasting effect on your natural colour.”
“However, if you wanted to clear this colour sooner than the 10 washes, or if it is a bit stronger than you expected, you can use a clarifying shampoo to remove it quicker,” she advises. Try Olaplex No. 4C Bond Maintenance Deep Clean Clarifying Shampoo, now £22.40, Beauty Pie Super Healthy Hair Detox Wash Shampoo, £14, or OUAI Detox Shampoo, from £12.
Best hair colour masks for 2025
Bleach London Super Cool Colour Just Like Honey, currently £5.36 from Lookfantastic
Bleach London may be best known for its bold and bright colours but it also does a lovely range of more wearable tones too, including this golden blonde semi-permanent hair colour cream that lasts between three and 30 washes.
Josh Wood Smoky Brunette Hair Gloss, £19 from Boots
From another top London colourist Josh Wood’s at-home range of products, this claims to give “the ultimate cool, dark, glossy finish” to brunettes.
Wella Professionals Color Fresh Mask, £9.96 from Amazon
Available in three brunette shades on Amazon and with hundreds of five-star reviews, with shoppers calling it “easy to use” and saying how it “definitely brightened up my dull colour and will keep the hairdresser at bay for a bit longer!”
