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Warmer weather tends to go hand in hand with a carefree vibe. So naturally we'd want our hair to follow suit. After all, no one likes to be hot and bothered. This is the time of year many of us desire that wake-up-and-go, fuss-free hair, and chopping it all off seems the easiest way to go. But there is a lot of versatility to sift through when it comes to short hairstyles. Below, we've rounded up the best short cuts and styles celebrities are wearing to inspire your hair's change with the warmer season.
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Wet and Wavy
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Tyla’s Met Gala bob made some serious waves on the red carpet. With heavily tapered layers in the back and softened ends, her top-heavy length manages to feel light and airy. Using a good mousse on wet hair like Saschajuan’s Ocean Mist Volume Hair Mousse will help give your natural waves a similar hold and style.
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Black and Bold
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Sydney Sweeney came over to the dark side with a black bobbed cut on the Met Gala red carpet. Her heavy, eye grazing fringe is a bold detail that's sure to offer up some shade this summer. Consider this shoulder length cut if you still want the ability to pull your hair back into a small ponytail or bun.
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Icy Contrast
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Kelly Rowland’s bob length cut shouts cool and casual, but her icy blonde color brings another level of cool that’s perfect for summer. To maintain such a stark contrast from naturally darker hair tones, keep purple shampoos and conditioners in rotation and seek counsel from your colorist about regular toning and gloss treatments to prevent fading.
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Side Swept Pixie
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Julia Garner is a great source of hair inspiration for those of you with naturally curly texture. She makes the curls work for her at any length, this pixie length included. Using that extra length up top, she still managed to get a side swept look while using the body of her texture to keep things up and lifted off the face.
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Blonde Buzz
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Jodie Turner-Smith’s buzz cut in icy blonde offers loads of character. To show a wavy pattern on such a close crop, use a soft boar bristle brush against the scalp in the direction of your wave pattern. Once your wave pattern is visible, you can use a scarf or silk wrap to help set them in place while you finish getting ready.
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Blended Bangs
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Curtain bangs like Keeley Hawes' are great for summer, avoiding that sweaty bang dilemma simply by being framed off and away from the face. These perfectly blended curtain bangs offer a subtle layering effect without losing the volumizing benefits of a one-length bob.
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Finger Waved Pixie
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Finger waves are a tedious style to learn on yourself, but the effort goes a long way. Shorter styles like Ella Mai’s pixie are the perfect length to practice on and use to your benefit. After a tighter look like Mai’s, gently brush out those waves to get a couple extra days out of your style.
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Grown-out Pixie
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Lea Oude makes a grown out pixie look just as stylish as an intentionally close cut pixie. Your favorite hairspray or gel will hold your hair back behind the ears and purposefully tucked away while its growing out. There are plenty of ways to stay stylish with a pixie in-between salon appointments.
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Over Directed Bob
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Playing with your bob's parting might be a casual hair toss, or it could be a more intentional move like Karen Pittman's, offering volume and drama. Either way, the way you play with your parting can bring a lot of different looks to your bob, making for a fun and easy styling effort with large impact.
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Straightforward Simplicity
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If your strands can’t hold a beach wave to save their lives, consider using that straight texture to your advantage. A clean, straight short-length cut like Patricia Noarbe’s is lovely in its simplicity. It’s everything fuss-free you’d want in a summer haircut.
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Twist Back
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By keeping some length on top of your short haircut, you have more styling versatility available to you. Iris Law uses her top length and wavy texture to do some early aught twist backs sans butterfly clips.
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Curly Pixie
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Coi Leray's curly pixie is a great way to keep highly textured strands low-maintenance this summer. When you want to glam it up a bit, fine tune those edges into shape with minimal effort. Plus, your favorite products will have a longer shelf life with strands this short, so what's not to love?
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Sculpted Waves
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Florence Pugh's sculpted waves are at work to keep the hair off the face, and that's what many of us will be looking for when warmer weather comes. Especially if you have bleach or other chemical treatments on your hair, shorter lengths are more conducive to going without any hair ties to minimize damage. Consider a sculpted look like Pugh's to keep shorter lengths back–no ponytail needed.
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Pearl Part
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When Sharina Gutierrez attended fashion week, she wore tiny decorative pearls of slightly varied sizes to paste in her pixie’s parting. Subtle accessories and efforts like these can make a big statement without doing much of anything to your actual hair. To do a similarly playful parting detail, you can use a strong hold gel like Moco de Gorila Gorilla Snot ($5) to keep your pearls in tact.
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Feathered Fringe
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Feathered fringes are great for summer because they are lightweight and when longer, like Sabrina Dhowre Elba's, they can be worn a variety of different ways. Here, she wore her soft feathered fringe off to the side, yet still center stage, against a minimal short haircut. If you live somewhere humid, keep your favorite barrette or hair pin on hand to sweep them off to the side entirely when the heat kicks up.
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Retro Flipped Lob
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Emma Stone’s lob length lends itself well to the perfectly flipped out ’60s mod hairstyle. When blowdrying the hair straight for body and bounce. use your round brush to curve up along those edges and place your nozzle gently underneath as your twirl your wrist around. If blowdrying isn’t easy for you, consider getting a small, circular barrel hot brush to do the work for you.
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Sculptural Mullet Pixie
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If you're looking to go short this summer, but you still want something edgier than a classic bob, look to celebs like Karrueche Tran for inspo. This pixie meets mullet look has the sculptural details of a Vidal Sassoon cut without the dense volume of a mushroom cut. There are plenty of ways to play while keeping things light.
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Retro Shape
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Retro updos are all over the red carpets lately, and if you have a cut too short to pull up you might be missing out on all the fun. Alas, Raye shows that is not worth the fret. Shorter cuts can still achieve far out volume for a very cool retro shape to your ‘do.
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Porcelain Pixie
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Michelle William's bleach and tone pixie elevates the simplicity of her haircut. The bleach and tone's soft yet icy coloring against her porcelain complexion allows her facial features to give the strength of contrast, rather than her hair. This cut-color combo is an easy boost of elegance for your summer plans.
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Choppy Fringed Pixie
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Fantasia's choppy fringe is the main character in her pixie 'do. The imperfect edge makes it a very low-key style. But sometimes you still want to feel like you've done a little extra something to jazz up your look. Adding a bright blue headband like Fantasia's is the perfect touch for any shorter pixie cuts seeking the same.
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A-Line Bob
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This short a-line bob is perfect for face shapes similar to Megan Fox. The ends of the hair mimic the angle Fox's jawline and cheekbones for mega impact. The punchy bright red color doesn't hurt, either.
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The Versatile Lob
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Lobs are one of the most versatile shorter cuts if you like to play around with different hairstyles. You can still get braids, updos and lots of brushed out curls like Viola Davis. It's also a great stylized cut to get while growing out a shorter bob or venturing back into longer hair without totally losing any shape to your strands.
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Stylized Beach Waves
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Not all of us live within reach of the beach, but a stylized beach wave has become a staple style for summer. Rachel Zegler’s shoulder length lob is the perfect length for the beach waves of your choice.
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Cropped Coils
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If your wash-and-go’s are taking up too much time, consider cropping your natural coils down to a shorter pixie length like Kennie Nicole Jenkins. The products used for your LOC method will go farther on shorter strands, and you’ll get much of your time back to soak up more fun in the sun.
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Soft Styles for Blunt Bobs
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Blunt cuts look tres chic is soft styles, as Hailey Bieber clearly knows. The larger barrel waves are prone to fall out on this length, but that gives it its appeal. And the oh-so subtle zig zagged parting, though super clean in its lines, suggests its imperfections as accidental. The cut is fun and blunt on its own, but we're loving how playful these soft and subtle details are on this type of bob.
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Subtle Mushroom Cut
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Mushroom cuts can be subtle, like Carey Mulligan’s. What defines them is the way the weight hits the bottom of the cut and gives the style an overall mushroom-cap type of shape. This blunt, layer-free bob is great for finer hair types like Mulligan’s. To break up the style’s shape, add a little wave spray to dry hair and scrunch through the strands to soften things up.
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Diffused Waves
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If you are growing out a bob similar to Laura Harrier’s, adding some diffused waves will add some interest without focus on the in-between length. To replicate, use a soft, defining leave-in cream like R+Co’s Suncatcher ($32), and gently scrunch the hair with a diffuser attachment on your blow dryer with a low-heat setting. To finish, add a soft wave finishing spray like R+Co’s SAIL ($36) and you’ll have that perfectly imperfect tousled texture that screams summer.
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Choppy Mullet
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Greta Lee’s choppy mullet is a refreshing new take to consider for warmer weather. It’s piece-y, thinned out density will be nice and airy under the sun. And with a cut this stylized, you can enjoy the wake-up-and-go attitude that’s far from lazy. This is one of the edgiest cuts popping up this summer.
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Sculpted Bevel Bob
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Mulligan’s short bob is covetable when it comes to the perfect length for summer, but here she’s wowing us again with the cut’s styling versatility. There are plenty of retro hairstyles to explore with a short bob. This Grace Kelly sculpted ‘do highlights the bevel of her jaw-grazing bob, highlighting the many perks this cut can offer.
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Lobbed A-Line
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Kristen Bell’s lobbed a-line is effortlessly simple. This cut is all about its shape. A-lines are great for rounder face shapes. The lack of face framing will help elongate, and the longer “lob” length will still lend itself to be pulled back.
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The Big Short
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Not all short haircuts need be subtle in their presence. J.Lo's shorter strands still hold a lot of body and bounce. Keeping it playful is key to your next summer style.
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Soft and Slick
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This soft, slick bob on Emma Willis is an easy day-to-night look. It holds its poise through the work days without being rigid. Blowdrying your bob tucked back away from the face with your preferred brush and a little volumizing product to help give hold will give you a style that’s soft yet will hold up all week long.
