If you happened to catch the Duchess of Cambridge’s latest public appearance, you may have noticed she has swapped her customary brunette hair for a lighter look.
The hue – dubbed bronde, or blondette – is the look of the season and a neat way to get a golden glow without looking brassy – just take a look at Khloe Kardashian, Chrissy Teigen or Cara Delevigne for more examples of brilliant brondes.
The key to a good bronde is to let your natural colour shine through, giving the hair an uplifting all-over lighter shade using multiple blonde notes, only using 40% blonde to your natural brunette. The colour is created using highlights, but they are ultra-fine microlights that give the golden halo effect we want.
So, what does it take to get hair like Kate?
We asked hair stylist to the stars Edward James (who also knows a thing about styling royals – it’s rumoured he used to do the hair of Fergie, Bea and Eugenie at Windsor Lodge) how to turn a drab brunette (me) into a glossy bronde.
He says: ‘Creating the perfect bronde (or blondette) is about getting the proportion of blonde tones to brunette right, and also knowing where the placement of the colour needs to appear for it to look flattering and for it to grow out seamlessly.’
Edward is aiming for ‘seamless colour transition’ from brown to blonde to create a natural look that blends the multi-tones without lines or an obvious ‘stripey’ look. To get the natural appearance, he uses freehand balayage technique to paint a blend of lighter blonde tones through the hair.
He adds: ‘Around the hairline and parting, super-fine micro-highlights create a natural-looking shimmer that grows out softly but allows you to inject some blonder tones in a subtle way around the face.’
Why go bronde?
Bronde is the perfect way for brunettes to add a new dimension to their colour – and it is also the easiest way to blend away grey hairs, should you want to. ‘You may only have a couple of grey hairs, but on dark hair they stand out in stark contrast, whereas on lighter shades of hair the greys are not as noticeable,’ says Edward.
‘Taking your dark locks to a slightly softer multi-tonal colour distracts the eye, gives the illusion of more shine in the hair and also allows you to add a bit more excitement to your brunette mane.’
How much blonder do you need to go?
Edward says: ‘As a general rule of thumb, the proportion of blonde tones to brunette is 40% blonde, 60% brunette, and depending on how much of a ‘pop’ of colour you want, the colour placement should be staggered down the hair seamlessly so that it creates natural blended tones that are more pronounced around the edges of the hair and around the front of the hairline.
But beware of going too heavy on the blonde. If you take the proportion of blonder tones higher than 40% of your hair, you will edge towards being more blonde than bronde, so this relies on your colourist assessing how much they are lightening your hair.
You could also do it gradually, going lighter with each visit. This is what Khloe Kardashian did – over the course of a year she went lighter bronde. It will give you more control over the finished result.
Across four hours in the chair, Edward added dozens of microlights in foils across the full head using 3 different shades of blonde to suit my skin tone and avoid enhancing the pink notes. He used a sand tone through the mid-lengths and ends, a muted caramel further up the hair and around the face and a soft, mid-golden brown on the mid-lengths and fringe to soften the contrast with my natural dark base colour and the blonde highlights.
The maintenance
Most of us do not have the time, team or budget for high maintenance hair – especially given the current restrictions. With that in mind, I ask Edward how much work it will take to maintain a high-end hairdo.
While the initial look took 4 hours – thanks to dozens of microlights that take just a few strands of hair at a time – ongoing maintenance of bronde is much simpler and less time-consuming.
‘The initial session takes a while, but you won’t need to come back for two months, and even then it will be quick,’ he says (music to my ears). ‘I am a huge fan of softening highlights in at the roots so that there is no obvious colour demarcation line.’ For that, Edward uses a root shadow technique so that the blonder tones seem to gradually appear through the hair.
That means it not only looks natural, but you don’t get a root line when it grows out – so you can go longer between salon visits.
Styling at home
This is where it usually all falls down for me. I leave the salon with my influencer hair then can never recreate it again. Edward has the answer.
‘Keep it simple,’ he says. ‘Blowdry with a round brush then take straighteners and just bend back the longer layers around the face.’ He demonstrates with small straightening irons – it is admittedly a simple move and one I have managed to do at home in less than a minute.
If you are keen to use a gadget at home to make life easier, Edward recommends the Remington heated brush which rotates and dries your hair simultaneously or at the more expensive end of the market, the Dyson Airwrap, which he says does a ‘great job’.
Get Kate’s gloss
Let’s talk about Kate’s glossy locks – how does she get her enviable shine?
First, let’s not forget that Kate has a professional team to tend to her hair before she steps out in public, which helps with the finish.
Meanwhile, I am even more low maintenance than usual having just had a baby – Edward is shocked to hear I’ve been using a 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner for the past three months – so I’m all for a cheat’s way to get gloss.
In the salon, to help get Kate’s shine, he ran a keratin smoothing treatment through my hair after the colour. This smooths the cuticles and helps them to sit flat, which gives the light-reflecting quality needed to promote shine.
At home, Edward advises using Olaplex No.6 leave-in conditioner on the ends of the hair even if I do nothing else – a shortcut to shine if I don’t have access to Kate’s follicle SWAT team.
For a more lasting shine, Edward James offers a British Blowdry, a treatment that smoothes the cuticles for weeks at a time without affecting volume.
Maintaining the perfect shade
Edward says: ‘It is easy to lose track of the level of blonde tones in your hair, especially if you have more than 50% white hair, so colour retouches will require a balance of brunette and blonde tones being added back into your hair each time.
However, avoid alternating between being blonder and darker as your colour will fade out more with increased colour processing and colour fade will become a bigger issue.
Edward warns that clients who tend to change their hair colour too frequently often end up with more brassy tones (orange and yellow) as their hair colour fades more quickly. To assist with colour fade, a good colour-balancing shampoo and conditioner which adds subtle ash tones back into your hair will work a treat, as well as using products that offer UV colour fade protection.
Another word of warning, this time for Kate: Edward says that while Kate’s bronde is softer and works with her golden complexion, she has to be careful of orange brassy tones in her hair and will need to use a maintenance shampoo and conditioner to balance brassy tones.
He recommends Aveda’s Color Conserve Shampoo and conditioner to prevent colour fade and Redken’s toner shampoos and conditioners to balance colour.
The cost:
How much silver hair you have will determine whether you need a base colour as well as your lightening shades. Obviously that will require more work and cost more, but generally some face-framing balayage to create bronde will start from around £100 while follow-up appointments will start at around £75 to refresh.
The result:
I have gone from mirror avoidance to mirror addiction and can’t stop watching the video of my hair – which looks like it belongs to some else far more groomed than me.
The best bit? Since getting my royal warrant bronde I’ve been let into the biggest beauty secret out there: I thought going bronde would be high-maintenance when actually the opposite is true. Spend just one session in the salon to go glossy bronde and you look like you’ve made an effort every day. So now (sorry Edward!) I really can just wash and go.
Kate and her fellow blondettes are right: brondes really do have more fun.
Edward James has salons in Putney, Balham and Battersea. Find more information at edwardjameslondon.com
If you have a question for Edward on going bronde, drop it in the comments below and we will do out best to get you the answer.
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Get in touch at MetroLifestyleTeam@metro.co.uk.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/25/how-to-go-bronde-aka-blondette-like-kate-duchess-of-cambridge-and-get-hair-like-an-influencer-13414933/
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