Makeover: From blond to 'espresso martini' brunette

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While many of you may find it cliché to talk about changing up your look for the new year, there’s something different about this year.

Everyone, including me, is itching for a big shift. And I’m all about new colour vibes in 2025.

After 13 years of being various shades of blond, I’m kicking off the year with a massive hair transformation, and “espresso martini” brunette is the colour for me.

I love being a blond. I’ve played with different levels and tones of blond over the years and It’s been so much fun.

This year, however, I felt the need to “cleanse the palette”, if you will. I often suggest this for my clients as a fall reset for their summer hair.

Since I’ve been contemplating a change, I decided January was the right time for me. The good news is, this process doesn’t have to be permanent — I can always add blond highlights back into my hair whenever I’m ready to lighten things up again.

Now, before you attempt doing this on your own, the process of going from blond to brunette requires a few steps — and the expertise of a professional. Because blond hair is hollow and void of pigment, we need to fill the blond with the missing pigment in order to successfully get it to its target colour. In my case, I chose to pre-fill my hair with a warm-gold dark-blond tone. After processing and seeing the shift it needed, I was able to proceed with my target colour.

Brunettes are having a major moment, and to achieve this dimensional shade, I opted for a deep rich, smoky and glossy (a.k.a. “expensive looking”) brown.

Goldwell is my brand of choice and I used a demi-permanent formula that will evenly fade after 10 washes, while still maintain its rich and dimensional values. In fact, I love assessing the colour after six weeks as it often evolves into a softer variation of brown and lean toward warm chocolate Mocha Mousse — another hot colour trend for 2025.

Let’s see how things go.