Fringes have never had so many names, curtain bangs, mullet bangs, 'French Girl' bangs, micro-fringes and more are all neatly designated with monikers, and it's no bad thing. Having the vocab to tell your hair stylist exactly what you're going for can help avert disaster (though, we still highly recommend pictures). The latest to join our dictionary is the 'gradient fringe', which Emily Ratajowski just kindly illustrated for us on TikTok.
It's dubbed a gradient fringe to describe the way it gets longer at the sides, similar to mullet bangs, but rather than a sharp combo of short and long, the full fringe gradually tapers into soft, face-framing bangs.
And unlike micro-bangs, there is plenty of it; starting further back for a thicker look, skimming down to the brows, rounded with volume, and with a full fringe at its heart.
It's a good option if you want to try out a full fringe, but still want the versatility of being able to part it or push to the side, as the longer edges set it up to seamlessly melt to the sides without looking chunky or unplanned.
You may need to watch the video a few times to get a good look at Em's, as she's dancing up a storm with her pal to content creator PhillyGoat Spence's "Vibe with Spence". But with some well timed pauses, you should get the idea.
With all these bobs and fringes, we're going to be looking through all our primary school photos to figure out what else is going to be trending in 2023.
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Elena Chabo is Cosmopolitan UK's former beauty writer, working on everything from buzzy celeb news and trending beauty, to sincere first-person reviews and engaging video content for social media. She also creates meatier features and expert-led how-to guides, for print and online. Her passion for Black beauty, textured hair, and the ways beauty interacts with culture, society, identity and relationships, quickly took over her writing career and led her into beauty journalism. Following an MA in Magazine Journalism in 2017, she cut her teeth across various roles at Stylist Magazine, before taking on a Digital Writer role at Good Housekeeping. It was here that beauty took centre stage and she launched and ran the site's first stand-alone beauty section. Remaining at Hearst, she joined the Cosmo beauty team in 2022. Find her on LinkedIn.
