If you’re a dark-haired lady, how many times have you felt a bit left out of the whole rainbow hair color trend? You’ve probably looked at photos of pretty multicolored hair and wished that you could have hair like that without having to go through an intensive bleaching process. You may have attempted a dip dye look because that’s less damaging, but you’re probably still craving an all-over hair color. Well, if that’s the case, then I have some good news: The latest hair dye technique is specifically for those of us with dark hair and it’s called “oil slick.”
“Oil slick” may conjure up imagines of what happens when you don’t wash your hair for four days, but you can rest assured that this is firmly about dye, not grease. As you might have guessed, it gets its name from an oil spill. Now, an oil spill isn’t exactly a good thing, but when the light catches it, you see a subtle multicolored sheen, which is actually quite pretty. Oil slick hair color recreates that iridescent finish. Think of it as the darker cousin to the opal hair color trend.
According to POPSUGAR, the look was created by celebrity hair colorist Aura Friedman of Sally Hershberger Salon. She explained, “I’ve been trying to re-create gasoline or oil when it’s on the ground and it rains.” Your hair colorist can use lots of different darker shades to get the iridescent finish but Aura likes when you layer a dark purple and a dark green hair dye on top of each other.
When it comes to oil slick hair, the darker the hair base, the better. For a true oil slick look, you should have a blackish base, but the technique still works on brunettes. Whatever your natural hair color, you won’t have to worry about significant damage to your hair like you would with a pastel look. There’s no drastic lightening process that you have to go through to achieve the hair color.
You were probably already convinced to try the hair color the second you saw the photo and saw the words “rainbow hair for brunettes,” but another reason you should try it is that the darker shades last longer than light pastels. You don’t have to worry about your pretty oil-slick hair fading out after a few washes like you do with other trendy hair color techniques.
Now you just have to decide whether you want an authentic oil slick look with multiple colors or whether you want to try one shade on your raven base to see what it looks like. You can debate as long as you like but you shouldn’t procrastinate about booking your salon appointment. There are a lot of raven-haired girls out there who have been wanting a rainbow hair technique that doesn’t result in lots of damage and now we finally have one. You can keep your regular ol’ pastel hair, blondes.
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I’m Iskra Banović, editor of Blufashion and the voice behind its fashion, beauty, and lifestyle stories. Fashion, beauty, and lifestyle are my playground, but I’m just as likely to share the messy side of it all, like the time I tested a “must-have” skincare gadget and ended up with glitter stuck in my hair. I love turning trends and everyday finds into something useful (and fun) for real people.
