Beyoncé knows how to mark a milestone. Last week, the singer celebrated her birthday in London, where her husband Jay-Z was performing, with a subtle but significant hair transformation: a deeper, warmer take on the blonde that has become one of her signatures.
The timing was particularly apt. September 4 marked not only Beyoncé’s 45th birthday, but 20 years since the release of B’Day, her second solo album, which arrived on the same date in 2006. For the occasion, she and her longtime colorist Rita Hazan looked back to the era, stopping short of simply recreating it and giving the look a more contemporary twist.
“Beyoncé’s new look was created for her actual birthday and her 20 years since her B’Day album release,” Hazan tells Vogue. “Her color back then was darker with very few highlights, and not so much dimension.”
The 2026 interpretation retains some of that depth, while reflecting the way Beyoncé’s color has evolved over the intervening two decades. “Her new modern version has a bit darker base than what we did the last few times to add depth,” Hazan says. “I added amber tones of highlights to make it softer and have more movement.”
To achieve it, Hazan first lightened Beyoncé’s base color with a single process before adding what she describes as “strategic highlights” to create depth, dimension, and brightness. The result sits somewhere between brunette and the glowing blonde shades Beyoncé has favored in recent years: richer at the roots, with warm ribbons of amber running through the lengths.
After years of working together, the process between Beyoncé and Hazan is an intuitive one. “We understand each other without having to say too much,” the colorist says. “We have a similar aesthetic, so she’ll say, ‘I’m going for this vibe,’ or ‘Look at this pic,’ or ‘Remember the time we did…’ and then I’ll say, ‘Got it,’ add my vision, and start working.”
While Hazan gets on with the color, Beyoncé gets on with everything else. “She works on whatever she has going on,” Hazan says. “We catch up on life and have many laughs—B is very funny.”
Of course, there is plenty of material in their shared hair archive to draw from. Hazan counts the “sun-washed blonde” Beyoncé wore during the Renaissance tour among her favorites, alongside the singer’s signature honeyed, sun-kissed blonde and the ultra-light shade she debuted for the Met Gala.
This latest color feels less like a radical departure than another evolution of the Beyoncé blonde—and, fittingly, one that looks both backwards and forwards. 20 years after B’Day, the darker base may be familiar, but the amber highlights and added dimension make it distinctly 2026.