I bring some rather daunting news: following the endless parade of ombres, dipped roots and sunkissed lowlights, the hair colour tides are finally turning. And turning in a rather unexpected, complex direction - red. Orange. Flame red. Neon orange. Ginger. Amber. Call it what you like because it doesn't care. You see, this is the toughest, punkiest take on red hair that we've seen in aeons. It's bolshy, it's loud, it bristles at the thought of any sort of concerted hair styling. No, this sort of firey orange hair is sat in the corner drinking bottles of beer and listening to Pantera. 

Just recently, you'll have noted Chanel's brazen take on the Orange Blaze trend (Orange Blaze being the colourists' secret hair dye shade of choice) with a spring/summer14 campaign starring Lindsay Wixson as a high-fashion Bam-Bam Flintstone, a look conceived at the brilliant hands of hair supremo Sam McKnight. It wasn't supposed to look particularly luxurious or expensive, nor was it supposed to look authentic - that's the intriguing element of all this auburn: it's meant to look as artificial as possible. 

Then, just this past weekend, the ultimate scion of British blonde - Sienna Miller - was spotted frolicking in the Mexican surf with her own version of zinging amber hair, residing on just the right side of hippie. It's the sort of colour you just know will wash out to an epically cool peachy tone. 

'This season was so exciting; so colourful,' observes Josh Wood, Wella Professionals Global Creative Director and the man behind the 47 one-colour dye jobs (of which a dozen were acid-red) at Prada spring/summer14. 'Looking at it from a psychological point of view, women want to look like women, they want to feel empowered and colour is a huge element to their identity. 'You can put an outfit on, or a bright red lipstick but at the end of the day you take it off. Whereas when you tint your hair red, you become a redhead, that's a huge emotional change.' Suddenly sounds oddly tempting doesn't it?

And now, as if we need further annointing of the trend, the pop-culture nucleus that is Miley Cyrus will front Love magazine's spring/summer 2014 edition with a mattified, powdery embodiment of acid-orange in place of her exclamation mark of a platinum dye job. The effect is one of post-punk, nonchalant cool. Not unlike a female Kurt Cobain for the modern world, then. 

Thing is, when you do orange, there really is no going back. Do you dare?