Are Splashlights The New Ombré?

OK, OK – as we’ve established, ombré isn’t going anywhere any time soon, but it has got some equally edgy competition in the form of a spiritual styling sibling – the splashlight.

In short, achieving splashlights involves bleaching a horizontal section of hair that stretches from ear to ear. After that, the top and bottom of the band is tinted with a colour close to the wearer’s natural hair colour to create a blending effect and voila – trend-tastic. If you’re more of a visual kind of person, then here’s a visual aid for you:

Created by colourist Aura Friedman, the up-and-coming style is ever so cool and fashion-forward. Friedman herself explained the inspiration behind the look: “I wanted to create the effect that a laser beam is hitting your hair at a certain spot.”

Given Miss Friedman’s styling CV, we reckon she knows what she’s talking about – in fact, the colourist has been credited with inventing ombré after bleaching the ends of singer M.I.A.’s hair in a style she referred to at the time as ‘surfer hair’, so odds are she knows a thing or two about setting trends where colour is concerned. She’s also known for championing the pastel trend which, unless you’ve been trapped under a rock for the past year or so, you’ll know has been big news from the catwalks of fashion week all the way to your local high street.

We love the splashlight look, and can’t wait to see it evolve over the months as more and more hair-worshipping fashionistas take to the spotlight and rock the halo-referencing look.

That said, whether it will reach the giddy, now-legendary heights of ombré in the public consciousness remains to be seen. It’s a tricky one to gauge and trends can be difficult to predict, but ombré is a tough master to overthrow. We reckon it’ll take off in a big way, but its perhaps more statement-making spirit (when compared to its subtler sibling) may make it a less obvious choice for a standard hair makeover than the tried-and-tested dip-dying phenomenon. In the meantime, we’re stalking Aura Friedman’s Instagram account for our daily dose of splashlight news. The most exciting thing we’ve seen so far?

If it weren’t for the seriously high-maintenance nature of this style, or its inappropriate-for-the-office look, we reckon everybody would be experimenting with this wacky ‘do. Or if not in real life, certainly in their dreams. We certainly know we’ve added a new style to our ever-expanding, increasingly-infinite hair wishlist.

We can’t wait to see what happens to this mini-trend, and we’ll be watching the red carpets to see whether we spot them on the trend-making-or-breaking A-listers. What do you think of splashlights? Will they ever be as big as ombré? Would you give them a go?

Switch up your style with splashlights. Check out all our Colour Offers at Rush Hair