Mushroom Brown Hair Is a Low-Maintenance, Fungi-Inspired Shade

If you’ve spent any time searching online for new hair color ideas, you’ve most likely stumbled upon the mushroom brown hair trend on TikTok or Pinterest. It sounds a little weird, but it’s a major hair color trend this season for a reason.

It’s potentially low-maintenance (we’ll elaborate on this!), earthy tone lovers’ dream. Caught your attention? Good! Keep reading to get the complete lowdown on mushroom brown hair.

What is mushroom brown hair?

Earthy colors like brown, grey, and green are incredibly trendy in both the fashion and design industries right now. As Kim Kardashian keeps reminding us that it seems like nobody wants to work these days, we instead look towards nourishing earth tones to ground us in reality.

It makes sense that we’re also looking towards nature for our hair inspiration. Our hero? The portobello mushroom.

Just like how each mushroom uniquely presents its colors, especially depending on the lighting and angle, mushroom brown hair is a multidimensional look that can’t be boxed in with one label. With its ashy grey-brown hues, the portobello mushroom has inspired a hairstyle that might work for just about anyone. 

Whether you’re a natural brunette or blonde, the mushroom brown hairstyle will meet you in the middle. We might venture to say mushroom brown hair is the perfect bronde, a brilliant mixture between blonde and brunette with an added complexity of ash.

It’s also great if you’re looking to cover up gray hair due to the ashy tones or make small changes to your appearance with mushroom babylights or brown highlights.

The specifics of mushroom brown hair color

Getting into the nitty gritty specifics, mushroom brown hair features a natural-looking brown base color paired with cool-toned blonde highlights, lowlights, and ashy shades. Looking through Southern Living, Hair Adviser, or Cosmopolitan’s round-ups, you’ll see mushroom brown shades have limitless possibilities.

What’s even more appealing is that, according to Byrdie, you can find your perfect mushroom color based on your undertones determined by your unique skin tone and eye color.

One of the classic mushroom brown hairstyles you’ll see is portobello roots (shout out to Hailey Bieber). When visualizing a portobello mushroom, you immediately think of its dark mushroom underside. This is where the quirky term portobello roots come from. The hairstyle centers on rich, dark brown hair roots that beautifully blend into a shade of light ash brown hair or blonde.

How to get it at home or from a salon

Creating the perfect mushroom brown hair color at home is a little risky. Of course, if you’re up for the challenge, you’ll want to develop a brown base. Head straight for a light brown, dark blonde, or light ash blonde hair dye (from a store that you trust). Of course, this requires some creative skills, so be sure to take time to test and experiment until you find the right one for you.

If you’d rather not go through trial and error — or if you’re afraid you might cause your hair to look like it was foraged from the forest floor — the best way to get this natural-looking vibe is to visit a trusted hairstylist or colorist.

Mushroom brown hair is a big trend right now, so when chatting with your colorist, they’ll likely know what you’re talking about. If they don’t … run! Just kidding. However, as with all these hairstyle trends, we recommend going to someone who has done it.

With any hairstyle, finding pictures to share with your hairstylist is extremely useful. Be sure to search for terms like mushroom brown hair color, mushroom blonde hair, mushroom brown ombre, or mushroom brown balayage. Any of these will give you some great inspiration.

Beware! Depending on your hair’s color, you may have to use bleach to lighten it in the fight against brassy tones from appearing. This may cause intense hair damage, especially if you’ve had color-treated hair for some time. A good rule of thumb is if your hair is dark blonde, you most likely won’t need any bleach.

How to maintain the mushroom shades

The good news is mushroom brown hair can be really low maintenance. If you’re starting with natural hair fairly close to where you’re going, you’ll have little to no care. This might look like touching it up at home or the salon every 6-8 weeks. 

The potential bad news is that the more ashy you want the tones to be, the higher maintenance it’ll be. These colors tend to come out of hair after a couple of weeks, so you’ll end up at the salon every four weeks or so. However, certain hairstyles like balayage or ombre, for example, can lower maintenance.

Your at-home hair care may need to include a blue shampoo, toner, or color-safe conditioner, so your hair stays healthy, and your mushroom brown color lasts even longer. And, of course, whenever you bleach your hair, have a deep conditioner or nourishing hair mask on hand.

The mushroom brown color looks so good on many skin tones, hair types, and colors. Due to the spectrum this trend covers, it makes sense that it’s a trend. Pair your beautiful new mushroom brown hair with a face-framing cut and some cute braids, and (maybe) you’ll be a viral TikToker in no time.