Billie Eilish breaks down her 6 week black-to-blonde hair journey

Rome wasn't built in a day

Digital Beauty Editor / April 06 2021

Anyone who's ever sat down in a salon chair in the hopes of going from jet black to bright blonde in one session will know: it's simply not a thing. Not, at least, if your colourist is committed to keeping your hair in tact. That much lifting and lightening just isn't a one-and-done style job. Not even if you're the biggest pop star on the planet.

So when Billie Eilish (who yes, in fact, is actually a natural blonde) decided to trade in her iconic black-and-lime-green blend for a platinum hue, she took her sweet time to make sure it was done right.

Unlike the rest of us, however, Eilish was expected to hit the GRAMMYs red carpet in between salon sessions. Her appearance fell right in the middle of her transformation, when her hair was no longer black, but also not the vanilla shade she was waiting to debut, and so she turned to a wig and hat combo to keep her current colour disguised.

None of us were any the wiser at the time though; it looked identical to the colour split she'd been rocking, so a big shoutout to whoever was on wig-creating duty. Basically, we didn't question a single thing until the selfie-that-broke-the-Internet hit our feeds just four days after we'd seen her with black-and-lime locks.

It was then that the "she must have been wearing a wig" comments started rolling in. And while we were tempted to hit them with a "stop; what the hell are you talking about?!" lyric-inspired response at first, the theory did make a lot of sense. Eilish herself, however, has only just confirmed that it was in fact entirely true.

So when did the actual transformation occur, and what came between black and blonde? Eilish took to Instagram Stories to reveal that January 15th was the last time she had her dark hair, and by the following day it looked entirely different. It was then, though, still a full two months until the final reveal.

Eilish's hair wasn't a block colour, either, so the in-between stage did look a little unusual. The black sections were lifted to a brownish-red shade on their way to blonde, and the green area around the top (which of course would have been bleached consistently throughout that era) lifted quicker to something closer to her natural silver-blonde.

It does look like a slightly warmer vanilla shade was layered over the freshly-lightened blonde, though, to give her the gorgeous Dolly Parton-esque shade she ended up with; it's somehow warm and icy all at once. And of course, let's not forget that fringe; spectacular.

And while most bleach-aided hair journeys do seem to result in a higher amount of split ends, Eilish says her hair feels better than ever. "[It's] honestly so healthy and I wasn't expecting that at all. It's actually healthier than it's been in a longggggggggg time." And that's on allowing your hair the time it needs to make a smooth and damage-free colour transition...

Image credits: @billieeilish/Getty Images

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