3 K-Pop Hair Trends That Surprised Me — & May Inspire Your Look This Summer (or Not)

Don't be last year. Get up on these K-pop hair trends. Because blue sweat is never a look.

I’m thinking that I should just relabel myself as a K-pop junkie on here because I literally cannot stop myself. I consume a lot of Korean media in general, but it’s always tied back to a certain K-pop artist I like being featured on said variety show or featured in some drama. In the search for a new thing to do with my hair (I’ve had the same haircut for almost a decade), I, of course, went through recent things happening in K-pop hair trends, and honestly, I was a little surprised.

Let me explain why and what I found.

See-through bangs

Now this is a trend that’s more common among girl groups and female celebrities, but I think anyone can really take inspiration from anywhere. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I was surprised that see-through bangs were still a thing. I had honestly thought that they were a bit of a ’90s or early ’00s thing that had gone by the wayside, but IZ*ONE came back with their Korean single “Violeta,” and in the comments for the teaser video in the days leading up to the release, everyone was losing their minds over member Minju, specifically her bangs.

I’ve had a few friends who had longer hair parted down the middle transition into bangs, and it’s only gone right once. Blunt bangs can be a lot to take on as you never quite know how your hair is going to spring back when you cut off all the weight of the rest of your hair. But they will grow into your eyes within weeks, so this see-through option really does give you the best of both worlds. Plus with summer coming up, your forehead gets some room to breathe so you’re not sweating so much into your own hair, which is never a pleasant feeling.

If you want to take the plunge, just make sure you go to a professional. Please. Blunt bangs at home are very likely to be a mess, so the intricacies of thinning out and layering bangs are probably left to someone with experience doing so. Again, please. I’m warning y’all.

Everyone has the same haircut

OK, so maybe not every single person, but the boy groups that are debuting right now literally look close to it. TXT is the new group on the scene, and they set the record on their music video for the most views ever for a K-pop debut. So I’d say they’re doing quite well. I tend not to gravitate much towards boy groups, especially when they’re going for more cutesy sort of concepts, so I thought it was my lack of familiarity that was leading to me not being able to tell the members apart, but honestly, I don’t think it’s me.

There are some differences member to member in terms of styling, but the undercut/semi-mullet situation is where it’s at. This isn’t necessarily an uncommon hairstyle and, for the record, there is nothing wrong with having the same haircut all around. I think my age is just starting to show because those of us from the Big Bang/2NE1 era of things are used to so much variation not only from member to member but even performance to performance of the same song. Anyone else remember GD’s super long hair and Dara looking straight out of Whoville?

Natural colors

Speaking of trends of the early ’00s, it also looks like punchy neon and pastel hair colors have taken a backseat as of late. That’s definitely not stopping me from going light blue this upcoming fall, but I remember when Sunny from Girls’ Generation literally had every color in the rainbow through various comebacks, and it was standard to have at least one member with candy-colored hair somewhere in the lineup.

Red seems to be the most “edgy” color in rotation, and being blonde has now taken the front seat in terms of atypical hair color in Korea. ITZY and Cherry Bullet both made their debuts this year, and you can really see this trend played out in the various members.

I will say that I normally go for highlights in my hair when doing any “unnatural” hair colors, so if you’re doing your whole head and your hair is long, I can see how that would become tiring to keep up with very quickly (unless you’re going red, which I’ve heard holds on like crazy). So if you like changing your hair color but the idea of keeping your hair vibrant during the upcoming season sounds a little bit daunting, it might be nice to take a break from the constant color upkeep. Take it from someone who has had freshly dyed hair in the summer and subsequently had blue sweat staining my shirt at Universal Studios. It’s really questionable as to how worth it that was.

Are you inspired by K-pop hair trends? What are your favorites and which do you wish would come back?