Every year new trends come about. What will be the hair color of the year in 2023? The haircut of the year? BeautyMatter has dived into the data to find out what the big hair trends of 2023 will be.
Gray Hair
Many celebrities like Andie MacDowell and Michelle Visage made headlines in 2022 for embracing the graying process, and now it seems everyone wants a silver style. Spate has predicted a +25.3% growth in searches for “gray blending” in 2023, and the term “oyster gray hair” shot up from 0 to 72 out of 100 in terms of Google Analytics search popularity (100 means a search term is at the peak of popularity) during the week of January 15. Gray blending is the idea of mixing in highlights and balayage to seamlessly blend together gray hair with another color. At the CFDA awards in November, actress and model Julia Fox transformed her brown locks with a gray roots look achieved through spray-on hair color, something that may be seen as odd to those who have spent their lives trying to cover the appearance of said hair hue. Instead of covering gray roots, methods like gray blending accentuate the color instead of hiding it away.
Side Part
For the better part of the 2000s and 2010s, the side part reigned supreme; however its reign came crashing down when the middle part became the go-to style. But with the current desire for snatched cheekbones, tight jaw lines, and angular faces, wearing a sleek side parting helps to create a more contoured appearance by adding more angles and height to the face. An emphasis on old Hollywood glamor in award-nominated films like Blonde and Babylon has influenced the rise of this trend, as well as influential stars like Sydney Sweeney and Alexa Chung sporting the style. Will people turn back time and embrace the side part, or will it remain dated, unable to shake the shackles of association with millennials?
Raccoon Hair
Raccoon hair is a striped dyed style inspired by the tails of racoons.The two-toned style was popular throughout the 2000s with the “emo” and “scene” communities, and has recently started to sneak into the mainstream. The brand 16Arlington teamed up with Sam McKnight to create a more subdued take on this style for the fashion brand’s AW/22 show. Marc Jacob’s Heaven brand featuredmodel Paloma Elsesser rocking a long raccoon ponytail for one of the brand’s campaigns, and used hand-painted wigs and hair pieces by Tomihiro Kono, who has 118K Instagram followers, for promotional social media posts. For the week of February 12, the term “raccoon hair” ranked 91 out of 100 in terms of popularity according to Google Analytics, while hairstylist @empalmm’s TikTok videos showing off her raccoon hair creations have garnered close to one million views on just one of her videos.
Tinsel Hair
The latest Y2K trend to resurface, hair tinsel, offers the effect of holographic highlights that wouldn’t seem out of place on the set of Euphoria. Hair tinsel can be applied easily at home; tiny threads of tinsel in iridescent hues are secured to the hair around the roots with clips or through heat tools to create a glitzy pop of color without the permanence of hair dye. Back in 2010, Beyoncé wore silver streaks of hair tinsel at the Grammy Awards, creating dimension in her hair as well as being party appropriate. In more recent times, rapper Megan Thee Stallion and actress Hilary Duff have explored this nostalgic style. With a steady increase on Google Analytics and a predicted growth of +45%, by Spate, hair tinsel is set to become the latest must-have hair accessory.
Mixie
The latest haircut hybrid, the mixie, combines the elegant glamor of a pixie cut with the rock-and-roll edge and length of a mullet. Emma Corrin, Mia Eegan, and Kristen Stewart have all taken to this trend that sees the top of the hair shaggy and cropped while tendrils fall down the nape of the neck in the fashion of a mullet. This haircut offers a more elevated take on the mullet—which has been trending for the past few years—is suited for a range of hair textures, and embraces rough edges. The style infuses inspiration from the ’70s and Noughties—Paris Hilton famously wore her hair in this short style for her 21st birthday in 2002, embracing flicky ends, something that is also key to 2022’s popular butterfly cut.
Bows
The balletcore aesthetic has taken over in beauty, clothing, and particularly hair. Everyone from Instagram “it girls” like @Linmick (273K followers) to Haute Couture shows have been embracing bows. At Giambattista Valli’s SS23 Haute Couture show Kitschy, bow-shaped updos were worn by models, while a more spiked take on the style was seen at the Chet Lo AW/23 show. It’s not just the hair itself creating bows but ribbons being adorned in plaits, ponytails, and half-up, half-down do’s. Bows made out of pink and black ribbons were worn by models at Sandy Liang AW/23, and Simone Rocha’s AW/23 collection featured lengthy bows dangling in front of models’ faces in shades of wine red and white. TikTok creator @arminarshe gained 667.5K likes on a video she put out of her trying a new way to tie bows in her hair, and @morveskim received 102.3K likes on a video that shows her with different hairstyles incorporating bows made out of ribbons. This trend modernizes a stereotypically feminine form of accessorizing for today's consumer through experimentation of styling to incorporating bows into the hair in nontraditional ways.
