Though Dakota Johnson, a natural blonde, has dabbled over the years in all shades of chestnut and caramel, the actor has a signature shade of brunette—a chocolate brown with cool undertones through her longer lengths—and let’s not forget those brow-skimming bangs. But now the actor has debuted a striking new shade of brown, just in time for fall’s darker hours.
Our first glimpse at Johnson’s new hair arrived yesterday, when she was photographed in Los Angeles heading to Warner Bros. studios. Now deep and dark, she styled it glossy and straight, her bangs in their typical lithe shape. The rest of her look was recognizably classic: a white tank, black pants, a slouchy black bag, and gathered ballet flats.
Johnson looked to Tracey Cunningham—the celebrity colorist and Schwarzkopf Professional US creative director of color and technique—for the job. Cunningham, who is known for her deft work on everyone from Emma Stone to Julia Garner, Madelyn Cline, and Michelle Monaghan, also created Johnson’s previous “dirty blonde” look. This time, she took Johnson’s brunette to what she’s calling “glossed espresso,” a richer tone that follows fall’s shift into deeper and more sumptuous color palettes.
“I wanted this to feel like a true dark brown—rich, glossy and dimensional—but never like a flat, inky black,” says Cunningham. “The goal was depth you can see into, not a solid block of color. I layered different tones so everything melts together seamlessly.”
Cunningham applied multiple tones of Schwarzkopf Professional’s Igora Vibrance throughout Johnson’s hair simultaneously, blending the base into Zones 2 and 3 while the hair was still wet to create a seamless gradient with no visible line of demarcation. She describes the technique to Vogue as “placed, not painted.” She also switched from lotion at the root to gel through the lengths, allowing her to work the color through each section for even saturation and a glossy finish.
