By Juliane Kim
The burgeoning rainbow trend, which has turned everything from food to fashion a spectrum of bright hues, seemingly landed out of nowhere. Rainbow pizza and grilled cheese have popped up in restaurants, and the gradient hairstyle has become a fashion statement with staying power. The trend is even more present as of late as the LGBT community celebrates Pride Month this June.
In the growing realm of rainbow food, bagels were one of the first multicolored consumables to go viral. Google Trends, which documents a word or phrase’s search history on the platform, shows “rainbow bagels” first gaining traction in fall 2015 and spiking in popularity at the beginning of 2016. Soon thereafter, vibrant shades found in grilled cheese, coffee, pizza, sushi and donuts all experienced an upswing in popularity, according to the search engine. West Elm even recently delivered a rainbow crepes recipe for all the ongoing Pride celebrations. And while funfetti—which dots desserts with rainbow-colored sprinkles—has maintained a much steadier interest since the mid-aughts, it’s also seen an increase in Google searches in recent years.
Rainbow is also taking over the beauty world, as depicted by hordes of bloggers showing off their ombre tresses on Instagram, Pinterest and other social media sites. The hairstyle, which varies in levels of saturation from pastel to glow in the dark, has been making waves since last year. It doesn’t stop there, though, as painting or dying eyebrows and even eyelashes the gradient shades has also become a significant beauty trend. With celebrities such as Britney Spears and Ke$ha dying their hair all the colors of the rainbow, a do that once would have been considered extreme is quickly becoming a dime a dozen.
Likewise, rainbow soap and bath bombs like the decadent one shown above are all the rage, and both artisan dealers and larger companies are cashing in. Lush, for instance, hawks its Intergalactic bath bomb, and Etsy seller ZarahBody delivers a Dr. Seuss beauty bar to eager customers.
Elsewhere, a rainbow highlighter that sold out faster than Etsy retailer Bitter Lace Beauty could supply the product and a colorful purse zipper from Sord, another Etsy store, prove the trend is making its presence known just about every which way consumers look. The sudden boom in rainbow everything could be explained by collective childhood nostalgia or simply a new and trending form of self-expression, but one thing is for sure: The rainbow isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
