Miley Cyrus’s metamorphosis into a 2026 Hannah Montana is officially complete: On March 23, the singer debuted a blonde hair transformation at the premiere of the Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special. And as soon as we put down the tissues, we started digging for details.
Cyrus has been subtly lightening her naturally brunette color over the last year, fueling rumors of a Hannah Montana reunion before the special was confirmed. But her current blonde—a light, buttery shade complete with rooty dimension, Y2K-coded highlights, and a full fringe—made us all do a double take. It’s as light as Cyrus has gone since her platinum Bangerz era, but the look is a clear homage to her Disney Channel days.
Hannah Montana wasn’t the sole color inspiration, however. “It’s really trying to channel a high-fashion moment,” Kenny Reed, Cyrus’s hair colorist, tells Glamour. “I mean, Kate Moss is such a great reference. We were really reading into this blonde that’s sunnier but powerful.” While he says the look mainly strikes him as “forward-thinking,” he also sees a blend of ’70s rocker and Y2K pop star influence in the final result.
As for Cyrus’s input from the chair: “She’s an artist, right? She very clearly has a point of view,” Reed says. “That was one of the things that I really loved about collaborating with her, that she was like, ‘I want something that’s very customized and individual to me and where I’m at.’”
Throughout the anniversary special, Cyrus constantly referred to her Hannah Montana roots as a living part of her, not just an era gone by. “I think it’s about showing that evolution,” Reed says.
The concept behind Hannah Montana illustrates how closely hair and identity are intertwined. In the show, nearly every time Miley Stewart reveals her double life to another character, she throws her blonde wig over her naturally dark waves (with comically perfect execution) to “transform” into Hannah as proof. But according to Reed, Cyrus’s current color isn’t a character choice or a costume element.
If you ask him, it’s also here to stay. “My sense is that we’re going to be in a bit of a blonde era because I don’t think she’s trying,” Reed says. “I think she’s feeling. It feels very honest to me.”
While Cyrus is certainly no stranger to wigs and extensions—she shared the she frequently wore “250 individual hair extensions” during her Hannah Montana era on Harper’s Bazaar’s The Good Buy podcast—both Reed and her stylist, Bobby Eliot, say that her current long, blonde mane is entirely Cyrus’s natural hair. For the color, Reed says he used products from Wella, Redken, L’Oréal, and Milbon. “The lightening was done with a powder lightener and 20-volume developer. After lightening, I applied a root shadow to create a soft, lived-in effect,” he says.
Reed finished Cyrus’s hair off with a gloss (using a “translucent tone that had a slight lavender-violet nuance to keep the blonde bright and refined”) and a smoothing treatment to seal in shine. For her instantly iconic premiere hairstyle, Eliot echoes Reed’s sentiments around authenticity.
“Miley Cyrus is always the inspiration, and she always comes with fresh ideas that allow me to push the limits with hair,” Eliot tells Glamour. “For the HM20 special, we wanted to honor Hannah completely with the hair look. For the premiere, we were feeling something new and fresh.”
Starting on towel dried hair, Eliot says that he applied Olaplex No.9 Bond protector serum all over Cyrus’s strands. From there he used the Shark Glam Ceramic & Powerful Air Styling & Drying System (using the blow dryer setting with the Style Concentrator Attachment) to blow out her natural waves into smooth, sleek layers.
Next he used used Olaplex No. 7 Bonding Oil from lengths to ends for added heat protection. As a final step, Eliot used the Shark Glam Silki Attachment in dry mode to “smooth out the hair, create a barley-there bend, and polish off the ends.”
With soft texture, curtain-parted bangs, and chunky layers, “We wanted Miley’s hair to feel rock-and-roll but still beautiful and luxurious,” Eliot says.
And while, mühlet, it’s tempting to take the pros’ methods straight to your stylist for a 2026 Hannah Montana makeover, Reed reminds us Cyrus’s current look is a culmination of her entire hair journey—not a one-and-done transformation. “Miley’s just kind of done everything, so there was a lot of [color history] to kind of help it along,” he says. “As you’re making choices with your hair colors, you have to take into account where the hair has been and where we want to go.”
Blame our nostalgia overload, but doesn’t that hair analogy perfectly encapsulate HM20? With the long-awaited reunion special now in the rearview, we can’t wait to see what else Cyrus’s sunny blonde era has in store.
Grace McCarty is the associate beauty editor at Glamour.
