Highlights are an innovative color application technique that involves painting several strands of hair with lighter hues than your base color, adding an eye-catching pop of color or a subtle shimmer to any style. They can add both vibrancy and elegance. Highlighting is less commitment-heavy than coloring, only needing touchups periodically. Multiple hair-lighting techniques range from traditional foils to more innovative approaches like balayage.
Shades
Highlights are an effective way to add shine without undergoing a drastic transformation. These lighter pieces of your hair, two or three shades lighter than its natural shade, add texture, reflect light differently, and make your locks appear much healthier. When combined with lowlights, they create fuller and richer locks. Your stylist may use foils or the more natural technique known as balayage, which involves hand-painting highlights onto smaller random sections of strands more quickly – giving a fuller and richer finish while being gentler on their locks! Try opting for deep purple highlights to bring an instant mystery into your look, or keep things subtle by including some ash-blonde highlights for a natural-looking glow. To keep them looking their best and looking fresh and stunning, ensure they get touched up every few washes; the darker your hair, the more often it needs retouching!
Techniques
Your choice of highlights will significantly influence the look, as will their application method. Various techniques are available for use when adding highlights; these include foiling, hair painting, frosting, and chunking.
Foil highlights are one of the more traditional techniques, using strips of aluminum foil to cover specific strands with color dye and create sun-kissed highlights all over your head or in smaller sections for an allover sun-kissed effect. Unfortunately, this style requires more frequent touchups due to its more structured pattern.
If you prefer something more natural, tell your colorist about balayage highlights. This highlighting technique gives your stylist more control to create soft caramel highlights or bold and vibrant berry hues that match perfectly with your base color and require less maintenance than full highlights, growing out more gradually over time.
Ingredients
Whatever style you are after – bold and dramatic or soft and sun-kissed – there is an array of products to help achieve it. But what ingredients exactly go into creating each look? We consulted several experts to get their expert opinion.
Foil highlighting is one of the most effective techniques for adding highlights to your hair, using strips of aluminum foil laid over sections of hair that will be lightened, helping trap heat faster and process color more accurately for an even result.
Balayage highlighting is another technique that uses hand-painting lighter shades onto smaller and random sections of hair for an organic effect, creating a gradual transition from dark to light throughout your lengths, like this smokey silver-grey balayage ombre look.
Maintenance
hair highlights typically require touchups every six to eight weeks due to exposure to harsh chemicals; more frequent highlights mean more damage! Your maintenance schedule may depend on several factors, including your colorist’s techniques, how quickly your hair grows back out, and your dedication toward this process.
At-home maintenance involves removing shampoos containing sulfates such as sodium lauryl or laureth sulfate (which can strip away color). Instead, opt for conditioners with vitamins A, C, E, and F, amino acids, and proteins. Graham Nation from UNITE hair Ambassador and celebrity stylist is fond of suggesting, “Wash your hair with lukewarm water rather than hot; hot temperatures cause the dye to fade faster,” as lukewarm temperatures cause less fading of dyed locks than hot temperatures do, alternatively switch your blow-dryer for a heatless dryer or try braiding damp hair to air-dry before leaving air-drying naturally!
