Auburn hair
A natural hair colour blending red and brown tones
Auburn hair is a natural shade that combines red and brown, most often seen in medium to dark tones. The term comes from Old French and Latin roots, and the colour appears most often in people from northern and western Europe. Its distinct hue is caused by a mix of the pigments pheomelanin and eumelanin.
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- Auburn hair combines red and brown shades
- Most common in northern and western Europe
- The colour comes from pheomelanin and eumelanin pigments
- The word 'auburn' entered English in the 1400s
What colour is Auburn hair?
Auburn hair is a human hair colour that mixes red and brown, usually ranging from medium to dark shades. It can be found in people with many different skin and eye colours. The shade is distinct for its reddish appearance, setting it apart from other brown or red hair types.
Where does Auburn hair come from?
The word 'auburn' traces back to Old French 'alborne', meaning blond, which itself comes from the Latin 'alburnus' for off-white. Over time, the meaning shifted to describe reddish-brown hair. The term has been in English since the early 1400s, and older texts sometimes used the spelling 'abram'.
How Auburn hair is defined
Auburn hair gets its colour from a combination of two pigments: pheomelanin, which gives a red tint, and eumelanin, which adds brown. The balance of these pigments in the hair creates the range of auburn shades.
Brown around the world
What the brown family means from country to country.
Brown is the colour of Nazism in German political speech, after the brown shirts of the party's stormtroopers. To call a view "brown" is to call it far right.
Politics and protestDanger and warningShameSource: SturmabteilungMasi is bark cloth beaten from paper mulberry and printed in brown and black. It is worn at weddings and funerals and given in ceremonial exchanges.
Sacred and holyWeddings and marriageSource: Tapa clothKuntunkuni is a dark brown mourning cloth of the Asante, dyed with tree bark. Adinkra cloth, stamped with symbols, was first made on such dark grounds for funerals.
Mourning and deathSadnessSource: Adinkra symbolsThe batik of the Javanese courts at Yogyakarta and Surakarta is dyed in soga brown with indigo and cream. Some court patterns were once reserved for the royal family.
Royalty and powerPrideSource: BatikBogolanfini, or mud cloth, is cotton painted with fermented river mud in browns, black and white. Hunters wear it for protection, and women after childbirth.
Protection and healingSacred and holySource: BògòlanfiniShades and relatives of Auburn hair
Auburn is sometimes confused with Titian hair, which is a brownish-red or brownish-orange shade. It also overlaps with colours like maroon, chestnut, and burgundy, but auburn is recognised for its stronger red component.
Colours that go with Auburn hair
Harmonies are worked out from the value #A52A2A. Contrast ratios follow the WCAG 2 formula.
Questions people ask about Auburn hair
What colour is auburn hair?
Auburn hair is a blend of red and brown, usually appearing in medium to dark shades. It is distinct for its reddish tone.
Where does the name 'auburn' come from?
The name comes from Old French 'alborne', meaning blond, which is from the Latin 'alburnus' for off-white. Over time, it came to mean reddish-brown hair.
Where is auburn hair most commonly found?
Auburn hair is most often seen in people from northern and western Europe, including Scandinavia, Ireland, Germany, and France, but can also be found in other regions due to genetic variation.
What causes auburn hair colour?
Auburn hair results from a mix of the pigments pheomelanin, which gives a red hue, and eumelanin, which adds brown.
Good reading and sources
- Auburn hair on WikipediaEncyclopedia
- More pictures on Wikimedia CommonsPictures
- Wikidata recordOpen data
The facts on this page come from the Wikipedia article "Auburn hair", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and from its Wikidata record (CC0). Rang rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
It may contain mistakes. The swatch is an approximation: named colours are not fixed standards, and every screen shows them a little differently. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-03.
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