A Little Naughty Streak

When it comes to style, Los Angeles has always been a careful study in laissez faire chic. Women prance about in faded T-shirts that are practically custom fitted to their clavicles and jeans distressed to look like relics from the caves of Lascaux. A messy ponytail -- seemingly a mirrorless 30-second pursuit -- is actually an hourlong exercise in tendril placement.

Ideally, you should look as if you got ready in the trunk of your car and emerged stunning.

The latest way to feign indifference to your appearance? Dark roots. Once anathema to bottle blonds, that regrowth of natural hair -- like an asphalt freeway running through a wheat field -- is suddenly trendy. So much so that salons are actually applying perfectly contrasting dark roots to their towheaded clients.

"It's a look that says, 'I haven't bothered with my hair,' " says colorist Dawn Tracey of Byron Salon in Beverly Hills. She charges $125 to hand-paint dark highlights, using a technique called baliage, onto the roots of blonds. "It's sexy and looks undone."

Undone, indeed. As in, "What? These old roots?"

Over at Frederic Fekkai on Melrose Place, colorist Brooklyn Villano calls it "root shading" and charges $265 to make you look as if you're too darn busy to spend untold hours at the salon. He also adds more highlights to the crown and tips and even softens the base color to achieve the right air of coif nonchalance. His clients, he says, request the roots and locks of supermodel Gisele.

"You want the roots to be about an inch or an inch and a half," says Villano, who has painted roots on 10 clients in the past couple of months. "That makes it look like you haven't had your highlights done in a month."

Oh, the irony. In New York, you're nothing if not polished. Here, we flaunt a self-inflicted patina. Then thank famous two-toned blonds -- Ashlee Simpson, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and Amanda Bynes -- for adding celeb cred to the fad.

Stylist to the stars Ken Paves reportedly paints faux roots on Simpson. Colorist Nelson Chan of Nelson J. salon and spa in Beverly Hills recently added darker roots to the manes of Heather Graham and model-actress Devon Aoki.

"You get a more natural look with contrasting roots," Chan says. "It looks sun-kissed."