What are shadow roots and how do I pull them off?

Roots have long been accepted into hair dye trends. Celebrities have been sporting dark roots against platinum blonde hair for years and years. Katy Perry usually seems to be rocking dark roots with her bright fashion color hair for a stunning contrast. Color melting also helps the hair grow out without making roots too obvious, but rather accepted and integrated into the look.

So it was only a matter of time until shadow roots blew up on Pinterest. This stunning look means that roots are just a different color from the rest of the hair. Hair is dyed so the color starts in a tapered manner a couple inches down from the scalp. Those roots can then be a natural dark hair color, green, red, blue or any color you want. Typically fashion color roots are paired with silvery hair for a stunning look.

This is actually one of the easier looks to do at home. If you can touch up your roots, you can do this look. It’s just a matter of applying hair dye to your hair at the roots in sections with a dye applicator brush, then waiting the right amount of time for the dye to set. You could probably even get away with applying the dye just to your hair part for a segmented look.

Another option is to dye your hair like you normally would in an all-over fashion, but leave your natural roots alone. Use a light painting motion to start the color in a slightly tapered way so the look doesn’t look to stark. Tapering will make it look like you meant to make it that way, which you did, instead of being just too lazy to handle your roots. This approach normally looks best if you have dark hair naturally. It makes a nice contrast against light silver or platinum shades, or bright rainbow hues. The darker hair at the roots creates a deep dimension to the look, like your lighter hair is springing out of some shadow realm.

A common option is to bleach out your hair with a home bleaching kit. If you want fashion color roots like blue, bleach all your hair, and then apply the fashion color to your roots after you’ve bleached. Otherwise, an option is to use the gentle painting/tapering method above when bleaching to have shadow roots against blonde hair.

This look is mostly what you bring to it. Feel free to get creative and try something wild and new. Have highlighter yellow roots and orange hair, whatever. This look is what you make of it.