Short Hair with Highlights: 45 Stunning Ideas for Modern Women

Short hair with highlights offers the perfect solution for women seeking a fresh, vibrant look without committing to a full color transformation.

They can also be considered protective since you don’t have to go for an entire dyeing or bleaching job if you want a change your look. And when you have short hair, short hairstyles with highlights offer endless creative possibilities.

So here is a list of short hair with highlights ideas that range from the traditional blonde, brown, and red, to purple, rainbow, and sea colors.

1. Short Hair with Red and Blonde Highlights

The beauty of highlights is that they are virtually limitless. You can get as many shades as you want, as long as you confer with your stylist and they all work with each other. This, for example, is an A-line bob with red and blonde highlights.

2. Marsala Highlights for Short Hair

Why go for the very traditional red when you can try marsala? It’s a funky approach to red hair with just a touch of purple in there, enough to make everyone ask – what exactly is that color? We love it!

3. Pink and Blonde Highlights on Short Hair

This is a stacked bob that started in a plain platinum blonde. Then the stylist added some hot pink and purple underlights which also caused the blonde to take on a pinkish hue.

4. Indigo Short Hair with Highlights

Jazzing up a traditional haircut and color has never looked better than with this idea. This is a short bob or overgrown pixie cut which has been puffed at the back. It’s brown with different shades of blonde highlights and just a touch of indigo carelessly thrown in.

5. Dark Short Hair with Caramel Highlights

Caramel highlights have been the go-to choice for the past seasons as women everywhere turned to this beautiful and safe color. You can start with a simple brown base or even with your natural color if you don’t want to dye all your hair.

6. Short Hair with Ombre Highlights

Short ombre highlights? Is this possible? Yes, of course, it is! This is a light brown base with blonde ombre highlights that go from sandy blonde in the back to chai blonde for the front strands which will help showcase the color of your eyes.

7. Short Brunette with Blonde Highlights for Short Hair

Another great combo that you can try is brunette and blonde. This is a shoulder-length bob with loose beach waves. It is a brunette in the back and opens up to lighter shades of blonde in the front.

8. Gold Blonde Short Hair with Highlights

There is no way we could have written this piece, talked about blonde highlights, and not mentioned gold blonde. While it is difficult to wear a whole head of golden blonde hair, a few highlights will do the trick.

9. Peacock Short Hair with Highlights

This long pixie cut borrows heavily from the peacock palette. That means the only colors it uses are the ones you can see in the tail of a peacock. So admire this mix of green, blue, orange, and yellow. It’s a fascinating trend, especially if you go for metallic hair dye.

10. Vivid Short Hair with Highlights

The base color here is the teal you can see underneath. The highlights are the purple you can see in the back and in the front as well. There’s also the navy you can notice in the middle. Of course, you can copy the style as it is or pick only one of the many shades.

11. Copper and Purple Highlights for Short Hair

Now that matte is out as far as trends go, metallics have taken its place. And with them came copper and brass as the world’s favorite shades. Here’s a very messy short bob, hot copper in color, with purple highlights.

12. Short Red Hair with Highlights

This is a fiery red asymmetrical bob cut at chin length and styled by adding several chunky black highlights in it. The strong, opposing color bring each other out superbly.

13. Lilac and Purple Short Hair with Underlights

Here’s an interesting way of doing highlights. These are called underlights – evidently because they are placed under the main color of your hair. We suggest you get the stronger color on the bottom and the lighter one on top.

14. The Feathered Pixie Cut with Colored Highlights

What could possibly top a feathered pixie cut in terms of coolness? How about one that’s canary yellow and has burgundy and turquoise highlights in the front? This might just be one of the coolest haircuts we’ve ever seen.

15. Toffee Short Hair with Highlights

Always remember that even when you’re sticking to traditional colors, they don’t have to be boring and old-fashioned. For example, instead of getting brown highlights on your dark hair, you can get toffee ones instead. Much warmer, cooler, and delicious!

16. Grape and Blonde Highlights for Short Hair

The purple family has no shortage of shades to choose from. This, for instance, is grape. It’s perfect as a highlights shade when you have dark hair. Remember to add a handful of blonde ones as well to light things up a bit.

17. Orange Highlights for Short Hair

Nothing says Christmas better than this hairstyle. These orange, tangerine, and blonde highlights and lowlights will really get you in the mood for the holiday season, so get ready to shine come wintertime!

18. Short Hair with Lilac Highlights

Even though the whole world seems to be leaning more toward strong colors nowadays, pastels are still in, especially given the fact that they fall under the unconventional colors category. This is lilac with a few smoky blonde and gray highlights.

19. Short Hair with Day and Night Highlights

This amazing layered bob is called ‘the day and night’ and it’s quite obvious why. The base layer is a dark brunette whose upper portion has been dyed as milky white as the dawn. It will look good on all hairstyles for short hair, not just the bob!

20. Rainbow Short Hair with Highlights

We cannot express how much we love this idea. The underneath layer of peekaboo highlights is composed of several strands that are rainbow-colored. Moreover, they are hidden away so that you can completely disguise them if you need to.

21. The Rachel McAdams

Our Hollywood inspiration for short hair with highlights comes from the impossibly pretty Rachel McAdams. Here, she is wearing one of the prettiest layered sandy blonde bob hairstyles we’ve seen – and it’s made all the better by the touch of candy floss pink placed here and there.

22. Short Hair with Blue Hair Highlights

It’s impossible to feel blue when you’re wearing this hairstyle simply because it’s that awesome. However, you need to pay attention to the type of makeup you wear so as not to upstage the hair color.

23. Short Hair with Barely Visible Highlights

This might just be the epitome of peekaboo highlights. They are so small and subtle that you simply cannot see them unless you push back your hair behind your ear. That’s when you reveal that you have a second hair color.

24. 90s Pink Highlights

Do you remember that awesome pink hair color you always wanted to get in the 90s, but your parents wouldn’t let you because you had school? Well, now you can! It’s called neon pink and you can either get your hair dyed or get extensions.

25. Dusty Pink Short Hair with Highlights

Still, if you’re not that into hot, neon colors, but still love pink and want it in your hair, you can go for a more subdued version. This is dusty pink on a shaggy, stacked bob which you can wear with a bright red lip for a bit of contrast.

26. Short Hair with Cherry Red Chunky Highlights

There are many types of highlights, which means that you don’t always have to go for the classic type. These are chunky highlights on a round, asymmetrical bob. They are cherry red and look totally awesome on dark brunette hair.

27. Powdery Iris Highlights

Brown and iris may seem like a strange combination at first, but it can work. However, you should not attempt it at home. It’s best if you go to your stylist as she or he will know how to mix the colors perfectly for you.

28. Short Brown Hair with Highlights

Here’s the classic version or the one that started it all. It’s safe and low maintenance, and you cannot possibly go wrong with this. The base is a neutral yet glossy brown while the highlights are an elegant beige and sandy blonde.

29. Red Hair with Teal Highlights for Short Hair

It’s time to get creative! How about dark red hair with a touch of teal highlights in the front? Plus, what do you say if the haircut was a short and shaggy pixie with feather strands and blunt cuts everywhere?

30. Silver Hair with Blue Highlights

This is such a perfect highlight job that you can’t tell which used to be the base color – the silver or the Arctic blue. But it doesn’t matter because they both look amazing. The back is all silver while the front is arctic blue with a few silver highlights.

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31. Platinum and Mint Green

We cannot possibly express how much we love a good underlights job. In this case, it’s mint green and platinum with the white strands carefully cut into a V-shape so that they can reveal the beautiful green color underneath.

32. Navy, Blue, and Glitter Highlights for Short Hair

Here’s an idea for short hair with highlights for New Year’s Eve. You don’t have to wait around for snow since you can easily fake it with some hair glitter. The color combo is, of course, amazing as well, mixing forest green with midnight blue highlights.

33. Winter Colors Highlights

Let’s keep it wintery for a minute longer with this fantastic display of cold colors broken up by a single dash of warm color highlights – sunny yellow. The choice, as well as the display of colors, makes them pop up unforgettably!

34. Atomic Turquoise Short Hair with Highlights

In fact, this is a combination between atomic turquoise and psychedelic sunset on a shoulder-length choppy bob. The color combination here is reminiscent of Morocco and its stained glass lamps, which makes it perfect for summertime!

35. Jungle Short Hair and Highlights

Inspiration can come from everywhere, as proven by this jungle color pattern. It’s made up of jungle greens, lime, yellow, moss, lichen, and a bit of purple to mimic the water and warm it up a bit after all that green.

36. Colors of the Sea Highlights

This is dip-dye hair, not to be confused with ombre. It’s a special technique that hairstylists use to put in chunky, mass highlights into your hair, breathe life into it, and lighten it a bit. It’s different than classic highlights and it’s also so beautiful!

37. Afro Short Hair with Highlights

You can also get some blonde highlights if you have a short pixie cut afro. It will add some depth and dimension to it, making it a lot more interesting at the same time. The hair will seem more voluminous and a lot more modern.

38. Dark Blue Short Hair with Highlights

A very demure way of jumping on the highlights trend is by going for a color that’s very close to your own but also non-conventional. For example, this is a raven brunette hair with some navy highlights at the front.

39. Sandy Blonde Short Hair with Highlights

You can see the same principle from above applied on blonde hair right here. This is sandy blonde hair with beige blonde luminous highlights. The haircut is an overgrown pixie with an undercut.

40. Matte Gray Highlights for Short Hair

Matte is a fantastic trend and it works great on highlights. Here is an example of an overly long brunette pixie cut with a comb-over pompadour and a few matte gray highlights. The result is steely gray coolness all around!

41. Teal Green Lowlights

Do you want to vamp up your hair a little bit but without making any big changes or a big splash? Then teal is always the color to go! This combination of raven hair, teal green lowlights, and glam goth makeup are to die for.

42. Short Hair with Highlights and a Weave

If you want to protect your natural hair, you can always get a short weave. In this way, you will be in complete control of your color choices, especially if you want highlights. Since everything is based on synthetic extensions, there’s no way you can go wrong.

43. Copper Short Hair with Highlights

If you’ve been keeping an eye on styling trends, then you know that the stars of the show are copper and its friend rust. Therefore, there’s no point in waiting. Jump on this trend and get yourself some lovely copper highlights.

44. Frosted Tips

Do you remember back in the 90s when everyone used to wear frosted tips? They were the real thing. You will be happy to hear that trend is back and it received a huge makeover, so this is what it looks like now! World, meet the contemporary frosted tips!

45. Blue and Amber Highlights and Lowlights

The highlighting work for this pixie cut is exquisite! The base is a natural dark smoky brown. However, the highlights are blue with just a touch of teal, bringing them a lot closer to sea colors than anything else, while the under lights are amber.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I choose the right highlight color for my short hair?

Choose highlight colors that complement your skin tone and lifestyle. Warm skin tones look great with caramel, gold, and copper highlights, while cool skin tones suit ash blonde, platinum, and cool-toned browns. Consider your maintenance commitment – vibrant colors require more upkeep than natural shades.

Will highlights damage my short hair?

When done professionally, highlights can be less damaging than all-over color since only selected sections are lightened. Use deep conditioning treatments weekly and protect your hair with heat protectant products to maintain healthy highlighted hair.

How often should I touch up my short hair highlights?

Short hair highlights typically need touch-ups every 6-8 weeks due to faster visible root growth. Subtle highlights may last longer, while dramatic color differences require more frequent maintenance to keep the look fresh.

Can I add highlights to any short hairstyle?

Yes! Highlights work beautifully on pixie cuts, bobs, shags, and any short style. The key is working with your stylist to place highlights strategically to enhance your haircut’s shape and your facial features.

Ready to Change Your Look?

As we all know, the use of color can enhance the appeal not only of one’s hair but of their entire appearance.

Short hair can be easy to wear, simple to maintain, and super protective of your locks, both when you have thin, thick, and fine hair. But what happens when you don’t want to dye your hair entirely? You go for one of our amazing short hair with highlights ideas, of course!

Which of these short hair with highlights ideas inspired you the most? Share your favorite style in the comments below!

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