Shakira Is Almost Unrecognizable With Natural Hair Color

For Grammy-winning artist Shakira, her hair is part of her story. Since she had her big break in the English-speaking world in 2001 with her fifth album, "Laundry Service," we've known her as a belly-dancing, belting talent with mega vocals and a long, blond mane. "I use my hair on stage," the Colombian-born singer explained to Elle in 2025. "You see how much I use my hair in the choreography. I end up literally sweeping the floor with my hair like a mop." It's hard to believe because she pulls off her go-to honey shade so well, but Shakira's signature blond isn't actually what she was born with. Throwback footage from the '90s shows her with a black tone, proving she's another celeb who is unrecognizable with her natural hair color.

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"I've been brunette, blonde, red," she went on in her Elle interview. "I've had straight, wavy, curly hair. I've been under the hair dryer, the flat irons, the curling irons, every kind of iron." Since she's so open to experimenting with her hair, and the receipts show that she does look beautiful, though different, with her natural color, some fans might be keenly anticipating a return to black in the future. But as far as we know, the "Hips Don't Lie" hitmaker has only ever reverted to her natural color once since going blond, and it was by accident. "So I was dying [sic] my hair the night before the Super Bowl, with the exact same hair dye that I use every time. And that night, my hair decided to turn black!" she told Glamour in 2021. "We had to dye it again, using 40 [volume] peroxide water. My scalp got really irritated." Shakira occasionally lets her naturally dark roots go, as she did in one 2021 Instagram post. But given her track record, we're not counting on her embracing her natural hue anytime soon.

Changing from black to blond was an important part of Shakira's stunning style transformation, but it wasn't insecurity that prompted her to reach for the bleach. "I just wanted to see my hair a different way," she explained to Cosmopolitan in 2021. "I changed my hair many different ways throughout my career. I love dark hair ... But it wasn't a calculated move. It wasn't like, 'Oh, I want to reach the American audience — let me be blonde and let me get a pair of blue contact lenses and bleach my skin.' I didn't want to be white. I just thought my curls looked cool with a blonde, beachy style."

The "Underneath Your Clothes" singer doesn't regret her decision to go blond — it doesn't seem like she's one of the celebs who pushed their bleached-blond hair too far — but she does acknowledge the damage that years of bleach can do. "I've messed with my hair too much," she added in the interview. "I sometimes miss my super-shiny black, dark hair. It never got to be the same because once you put bleach on your hair, it just never shines the same way." 

Her experiences with changing her hair, for better and worse, have prompted the star to found her own haircare line, Isima. While launching the line in 2025, Shakira opened up on Instagram about her relationship with her hair, noting in a May caption, "Hair has always been such a big part of who I am on stage and in my everyday life ... looking back I can see how much the way I chose to wear my hair defined the era I was in and the way I felt." In hindsight, even if there are no plans to go dark again, the raven-haired era will forever mark Shakira's rise to fame in Latin America and cement her as a natural beauty.