Pastel Hair Color Trend 2024 Takes Inspiration from Tumblr

It’s 2014 and American Apparel tennis skirts and The XX vinyls are flooding your Tumblr dashboard. And in the sea of ​​soft, minimalist black-and-white grunge photos, pops of pastel hues are just as constant. The same few famous Tumblr girls live on your blog, and with as much influence on the internet as modern-day influencers, they have fully convinced you that you need nothing more in life than to have pastel hair, just like them.

If you were a chronic teenager on Tumblr, dying your hair a pastel color was probably one of the only goals you had for the future. And even if you weren’t one of the lucky few who had parents to co-sign on your decision, you probably still have those Photoshopped photos of pink-haired Cara Delevingne permanently etched in your memory. As a teenager on Tumblr myself, I spent every hour of my free time reblogging photos of famous Tumblr pastel goth girls with My-Little-Pony colored hair and dreaming of the day I could bleach it my own hair to oblivion.

For once, the countless hours I spent staring at a computer screen paid off. With so many Tumblr-era trends resurfacing, pastel-colored hair is once again rearing its not-so-ugly head — and scalp health everywhere will never be the same. Even though it’s been over 10 years since Tumblr queens popularized pastel pink, purple and blue hair, colored hair is back and it’s bigger than ever. Whether you’re scanning a crowd of celebrities or fashion kids in Harajuku, you never have to look far to find a pastel-colored face living among the brunettes and blondes.

Fashion Week street style gives rise to most, if not all, noteworthy beauty trends. And after noticing so many fashion week guests (from all over the world) attending shows with candy-colored hair, I was taken back to my Tumblr archives. Fashion Week guests are the crème de la crème of the fashion world. Sure, they’re not always stars, but they’re fashion editors, creative directors, and sewing enthusiasts, and they’re the ones who dictate what’s cool for the seasons to come.

And even though Megan Fox donned every possible pastel hair color this year, I’m not really convinced she was in the Tumblr notes like the rest of us. Either way, how trends become relevant again is influenced by today’s fashion designers. In 2014, they were teenagers and ran fashion blogs. And in 2024, they are guests and influencers of fashion week and publish their photos on Pinterest.

You could say pastel hair never went away out…and you would be right. But I learned the hard way that colored hair only lasts so long before your hair needs to be spared. Sure, stars like Kim Kardashian have hairstylists on call to change their hair color at a moment’s notice, but even the best stylists can’t bring back bleach-burnt hair. Not to mention, pastel hair isn’t made to last and light colors only last a few washes before needing to be touched up. So, yes, pastel hair is impractical, it’s obnoxious, and it gives you tons of unwanted attention, but it looks good. And that’s what the Tumblr era was.