Red Highlights
Less common than blonde, brown or black hair, red is a favorite choice of bold women who want their style to stand out. But if you’re thinking of just adding a touch of red instead of coloring your entire head, red highlights can work with any base color. Use them to bring some brightness to black or dark brown hair, subtle dimension to a brunette base, or warmth and contrast to your blonde mane. Already a red head? Adding highlights in bright copper or pale ginger will have your fiery tresses looking new and refreshed. To help you figure out how to wear red highlights in your current hairstyle or for an upcoming change, we’ve collected a huge variety of red highlights looks to try, including pretty much every shade of hair. Go red!
1Black Hair with Dark Red Highlights
Black hair can be tough to highlight in a subtle way, but dark red tones are great for warming up a raven mane without making your hair look lighter or too contrasted. These allover red highlights in a dark cherry cola shade are perfect for women with medium to dark olive complexions.
2Auburn Red Hair with Copper Balayage
Warm reddish brown hair like this medium auburn is an ideal base color for lighter red highlights. This copper balayage is applied in big, bold brush strokes to the hair’s outermost layer, making curls pop while keeping your style all in the same family of warm reds.
3Dark Brown Hair with Caramel and Red Highlights
Mixing caramel and red higlights together creates depth in dark brown hair that’s warmer and more autumn inspired than a single tone blonde highlight.
4Curly Dark Red Highlights
A deep shade of auburn or chestnut brown is the perfect way for women with darker complexions and warm undertones to switch up their natural black hair. To keep things multidimensional while accentuating natural curls, add highlights in a slightly lighter shade of brownish red.
5Red and Blonde Highlights
Natural dark blonde hair comes with tons of highlighting options, and won’t take as long to lighten as a brown or natural black base color. This style features red and blonde highlights mixed together, creating a look that’s warm and dimensional.
6Dark Brown Hair with Red Highlights
These face framing red highlights make the most of a small amount of color, and are perfectly positioned to accentuate the side swept bangs in this bob. If you’ve got green eyes, this is a perfect complementary color choice to enhance a brow-grazing fringe.
7Blonde Hair with Red Highlights
A subtle hint of red highlight brings more depth to this dimensional blonde bob. Despite being a contrasting color, muted tones in these red highlights keep the look stylish and subtle.
8Black Hair with Red Peekaboo Highlights
Vibrant panels of red peekaboo highlights create a new color style that’s bold and edgy. Although jet black hair can be tough to highlight, this deep vibrant red creates a lovely color palette that’s just the right blend of gothic and chic.
9Red Hair with Copper Highlights
Red on red highlights are a great way to brighten up your hair without causing a visual distraction.
10Black Hair with Red Highlights
Cool violet tones in these red highlights create a dark and stormy masterpiece in natural black hair. Because these red highlights blend so well with a darker base color, they show up as a natural looking sheen.
11Blonde with Red Highlights
Red highlights are the perfect way to add extra depth and warmth to blonde hairstyles. This combination of golden blonde base color and rusty red accents make for a glowing hairstyle that’ll have your strands ready for fall.
12Dark Brown Hair with Dark Copper Highlights
Copper is one of the hottest red shades of the past few years. This softer family of reds is more natural looking than cool crimsons with blue or violet undertones, and they’re an excellent choice for highlighting warm brown base colors. If you’re not looking for a bold, high contrast highlight for your dark brown hair, choose a darker shade like this burnished copper.
13Natural Red Hair Blonde Highlights
Natural red hair in ginger or auburn is the ideal canvas for blonde highlights. Using a subtle balayage technique, newly blonde strands will look sunny and fresh, but somehow like they’ve always been there.
14Dark Hair with Magenta Red Balayage
If you’re looking to add a seductive pop of red to your dark hair, choose a devilishly bold shade like this pink tinged magenta.
15Red and Blonde Color Melt
Add blonde highlights to your red hair in the most luxurious way with this seamless color melt style. This upscale technique is for ombre lovers who want a look with no line of demarcation between roots and ends.
16Copper Highlights in Auburn Hair
Medium to dark auburn hair is the perfect shade of red for natural brunettes to try. If you’ve been auburn for a while or you’re looking for a way to wear dimensional red highlights, try adding these ribbons of warm copper to your look.
17Dark Red Hair Blonde Highlights
For a very bold two-tone style, try combining your dark red hair with blonde highlights. This is a good technique for fair skinned women who want to try wearing a darker red shade without looking washed out. Ribbons of pale blonde help to brighten up your face while keeping the look bold and interesting.
18Brown Hair with Red Highlights
This chestnut brown hair already features hints of red, making it the ideal base color for shimmering red highlights. Unlike popular balayage and ombre looks, this highlighting technique begins close to the roots. It’s a great technique for warming up the hair around your face, but can require more upkeep than other highlighting styles.
19Red Hair with Blonde Balayage
Strawberry blonde usually refers to a single shade, but this dreamy look mixes red hair and a blonde balayage to create a dimensional strawberry style. We love this look on natural red heads who are looking to put a new spin on their strands without going dark or dull.
20Dark Brown Hair with Auburn Balayage
Contoured balayage highlights create luxurious definition in medium to long hairstyles. When your hair isn’t worn down in lazy waves, your braided styles and updos will look more textured thanks to these auburn red highlights.
21Beach Blonde with Red Highlights
Want to highlight your warm blonde hair with something other than an even lighter shade of blonde? Try bringing some depth to the style with these russet red highlights. Even if you live somewhere where it’s always warm, this color combo will bring a cozy fall feel to your mane.
22Red Highlights in Brown Hair
Use an auburn or dark copper shade of red highlights to breathe new life into a natural brown base color. We especially love these highlights for women with warm complexions and green eyes.
23Dark Hair with Red Violet Ombre
For red highlights that are trendy and easy to grow out, try a red ombre style over your natural hair color. If you want to keep things dark to suit your natural black hair, this deep shade of violet red adds interest without looking abrupt.
24Warm Red and Blonde Highlights
Mix together warm blonde and red highlights for a dimensional hair color to match your bold personality. Playing with multiple shades makes this look a winner in braided styles, and you’ll also appreciate how it accentuates body and movement in layered haircuts.
25Black Cherry Red Highlights
Put an electric touch of color in your natural black hair with these vibrant cherry red highlights. These allover highlights begin fairly close to the roots, which gives them lots of depth but means the style needs more frequent upkeep than a balayage or ombre highlight technique.
26Red and Strawberry Blonde Ombre
This ombre color melt style brings a dramatic mixture of red and strawberry blonde to brighten up the ends of your medium brown base color. This gradient color look rich and high-quality, and if you’re working off a natural shade at your roots this red highlighted style grows out like a dream.
27Dark Hair with Red Highlights
Put a subtle punch in your dark hair with these deep plum highlights. This red highlights style is good for women who want to keep their hair dark to flatter a medium to dark complexion. Added color helps to enhance the hair’s outer layer without looking too obvious or high contrast.
28Vibrant Red Hair With Blonde Highlights
Looking to brighten up a vibrant red base color like copper or warm ginger? Ribbons of blonde highlights throughout the middle layers of hair help to make your hair look thick and full, and leave less worry about how well they’ll grow out.
29Subtle Red Highlighted Curls
If you’re hesitant about fully coloring your natural curls, try a subtle style like these red highlights concentrated towards the hair’s ends. Curly and kinky textures are great for showing off even small hints of highlight in a variety of protective styles.
30Blonde and Red Highlights
Can’t decide whether to highlight your brown hair with sunny blonde or edgy red? This layered look shows off the best of both worlds with a combination of red with blonde highlights.
31Black Hair with Subtle Red Highlights
These red highlights are subtle enough to be almost unnoticeable from a distance. For someone looking for a very slight change in black or dark brown hair, thin ribbons of deep red highlights are the perfect accent.
32Ginger Red Hair With Blonde Highlights
If you love your natural ginger hair but you’re ready for a change, it only takes a bit of blonde to revamp your hairstyle for a new year or the upcoming season.
33Dark Bob with Red Highlights
Our list features a lot of long haired ladies rocking red highlights, but bobs provide an especially chic canvas for an extra splash of color. To brighten up a jet black bob, try a darker shade of purplish red in burgundy or berry.
34Dark Red with Copper Highlights
This vibrant red hair makes a bold statement while oozing old Hollywood glamour. To get the effect, start with a base color in a dark shade of true red, then add copper highlights to create soft definition.
35Dark Red Balayage Highlights
Vibrant, edgy, and right on trend, these dark red highlights are a great alternative for dark haired women who don’t want a caramel or blonde balayage. Of course these highlights look gorgeous when worn in lazy curls, but they also help to perk up your braided styles and basic buns.
36Brown Hair with Red and Blonde Highlights
A mixture of red and blonde highlights framing the face provide the ultimate boost to any brown hairstyle. If you’re loving your blunt lob but want to put more emphasis on your features, this color is a great alternative to an all new cut.
37Red with Blonde Ombre
If a single shade of vibrant red isn’t enough, dress your hair up with a pale blonde ombre to create this fantastic and fiery color palette.
38Brown Hair with Red and Blonde Highlights
This brown base color has been completely revamped with a series of bold red and blonde highlights throughout the outer layers. We love this look for satisfying your craving for rainbow hair in a more professional and restrained way.
39Burgundy Hair with Red Highlights
If you’ve been rocking deep burgundy for a while, try brightening your locks with a cherry red ombre. Wearing these two shades together is a style risk that pays off in this fashion forward finished product.
40Medium Brown Hair with Ginger Highlights
Medium brown hair with red undertones is the ideal canvas for ginger red highlights. With thick ribbons of color applied throughout the hair, it’s the perfect pumpkin spice hair for fall.
41Face Framing Red and Blonde Highlights
Make the most impact with a small amount of color by concentrating red and blonde highlights right around your face.
42Purple and Red Highlights
Purple and red is a great olor combination! Add a pop of purple color to your red highlights look!
43Red Peekaboo Highlights
If you don’t want to go full on red this red peekaboo highlights style on dark hair is subtle but still manages to steal attention!
44Violet red highlights
Burgundy or violet hair color are very dramatic shades and it looks striking on very dark hair.
45Copper Red Ombre Balayage
The roots are colored dark brown while the rest of the hair is full on copper red highlights and lowlights.