What Is Balayage?

By Shana Mouhssine, Stylist

The name balayage originates from the French word for “sweeping.” It is a very specific type of hair coloring, and it’s created by a hand painting technique that gives a very natural, blended look. The hair is painted in an upward and downward motion, the way you would stroke a paint brush on canvas. Because of this method, a balayage coloring will have no harsh or obvious regrowth lines showing through. As your hair grows, the color blends with it, making it a very low-maintenance style.

The balayage has been around for decades, but it has made a massive come back into the hair industry in the last couple of years, not to be confused with highlights.

When balayaging, the hair is painted freehand, creating a beautiful and dimensional sun-kissed color, where as with highlights, foils are almost always used for coloring. That being said, sometimes a client’s desired balayage cannot be achieved without using these foils. That’s why in some cases, it is best to use a foilage technique to give clients the best results possible.

So, what is foilage? Foilage is tecnhique that involves painting the hair inside pressed foils.

When creating highlights, a favorite technique is to back tease each section of a client’s hair before applying a lightener. This insures the best transition between dark and light colors. Taking extra time around the face creates baby lights, also called “money pieces.” Baby lights are achieved by taking very small sections of the hair around the forehead into foils, and brightening them up to frame the face.

After all the foils are processed, and the hair is washed, a toner or a glaze is used, usually a cool or warm tone to create the perfect color and shine combination.

Customizing and combining these different techniques on each client will give them a one-of-a-kind signature look. Although these coloring services might take a couple of hours, they are well worth the wait.