Gen-Z Is Going Red. Blame Sadie Sink.

29.07.2026, 20:01 allure.com

On the eve of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day premiere, Kaitlyn Paulk was touching up her roots with a box of L’Oreal True Red dye. The 27-year-old is a natural blonde—the kind of pale cornsilk that costs $600 a session at Warren Tricomi—but she’s pretty annoyed with her hair color of origin.

“Everyone is blonde,” says the real estate assistant, a Georgia native who moved to Manhattan for college. “I’d rather be noticed than just to conform to what people ‘say’ is pretty, which is why I love being a redhead… You know, like Sadie Sink. I love Sadie Sink.”

Paulk isn’t alone in her adoration. Ever since Sink joined the Netflix mega-hit Stranger Things in 2017, the natural redhead has garnered millions of social media followers (and considerable Hollywood clout) thanks to her talent, her gracious fan encounters, and her knack for picking scream-it-out projects—the feminist parable John Proctor Is the Villain; the Renaissance fable Romeo and Juliet—that appeal to bright young women who know the girlhood game is rigged.

Sink is now 24, and her fiery hair has become a green flag among fans that represents intelligence, rebellion, and deeply-felt emotions. The surest proof is the music video for “All Too Well,” starring Sink as Taylor Swift’s younger self and hitting screens in 2022, right when most of Gen Z was in peak adolescence. At the end of the movie, the [RED] singer appears as a redhead herself. The film has 112 million YouTube views—three times the total population of California.

Big tech has been tracking The Sadie Sink Effect, and the numbers are staggering. Google Trends reports a 5000% increase in searches for “Sadie Sink Hair Color” since 2025. Over 1 million TikTokkers have tuned into a video by Arizona colorist Chrissy Rasmussen titled, “I want Sadie Sink red hair.” On Reddit, thousands of armchair analysts break down Sink’s hair color and texture. The actor is a living, breathing human navigating the batshit world of online fame with real grace and smarts. But her hair has also made her a living hashtag.

Tommy Buckett has been working on Sink’s hair since the actor was 15. Based out of New York’s Marie Robinson Salon, the hair artist says he’s been “flooded” with DMs and salon calls about Sink’s hair color. “What’s exciting is it’s so many young women being like, ‘Can I get this? Can you do this to me?’”

Buckett has a theory about why Gen Z is gravitating to the color, “I've seen a lot of nudie blondes come through the salon asking to be red,” he says, describing “nudie blonde” as a wheaty, darker shade. “They’re worried they look exactly like everyone else on TikTok. They look like every other girl on a [dating] app. They need a digital point of difference for who they are.”

Cass Kaeding, the co-founder of Crane Los Angeles salon and an ambassador for the tinted treatment Glaze Hair, says his Gen-Z clients “are increasingly gravitating toward reds, coppers, cherry reds, and warm auburns instead of classic blonde.” That’s because unlike a healthy transition to platinum hair or warm brunette, both of which can take two salon trips (and multiple deep conditioning treatments) if your base color and hair condition aren’t in optimal shape for the drastic change, going red can happen in a single session. “Young salon-goers want instant gratification,” he says. “And redheads are seen as unique and special online.”

Red hair is a fast lane for change. Historically, it’s also a signal flare for magic, and often, for deviance. In ancient Troy, the priest and historian Dares the Phrygian described the outspoken seer Cassandra as a loud-spoken redhead. Lilith, the Judaic “queen of hell,” is traditionally a redhead whose hair is literal fire. Botticelli’s Venus and her nymphs were strawberry blondes; Shakespeare’s magically transported Perdita in A Winter’s Tale is often painted as a redhead, too. By 1908, redheads became synonymous with charming but mischievous girls thanks to L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. In 1939, Ludwig Bemelman’s Madeline let a petite rousse run wild in Paris. Ariel the little mermaid, who defied an entire ocean for a random dude who never skipped an arm day, made a flame-haired splash in 1992; the actress Chloe Bailey later played the seawater sprite with red braids.

Gen Z also appreciates the cash advantage of red hair. “It’s too expensive to be blonde,” said Annie Cho, a 17-year-old student in Harvard Square near Boston with a single-process auburn wash. “The touch-ups are crazy… Like, blonde? In this economy?” Cho says she likes Sadie Sink because “she looks like she’s not trying. Obviously she is. She’s a movie star. But her hair is just cool.” See also: Joey King, 26, going strawberry blonde on her press tour of Practical Magic and Charly Barby, the flame-haired 25-year-old Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders on America’s Sweethearts.

“Let's be honest,” says Buckett. “With inflation being so expensive, it does play a role in young people's hair. If you don't have the money to keep up with your blonde, you have to do something else.”

Still, he anticipates Sink’s hair will remain a touchstone for beauty seekers even if we ever stop paying a gazillion dollars for gas. “Her hair color is alive. It changes colors in the sun and in a photo flash. It doesn’t conform to one shade or one shape. It’s romantic in a way that a computer could never ‘get,’” Buckett says. “That’s why people, especially young people, want that red. It’s human.”

More recent hair trends:

Zendaya Just Invented Venom Bangs

Sun-In Finds a New Generation of Fans

Kaia Gerber's Summer Brunette Hair Color Was Inspired by Her Mom, Cindy Crawford

Now watch Millie Bobby Brown get ready for the day: