Highlighting Your Hair

By Alya Salon & Spa

There are various ways to highlight the hair. The most popular highlighting techniques are foil highlighting, babylights and balayage. Foil highlighting is the process of using foil to separate strands of hair, thick or thin, depending on preference. The process is done by applying lightener to the hair that has been woven and separated using an applicator brush.

In highlighting hair, hydrogen peroxide is mixed with pigment and is used to change the color of the strand. This process is also used in applying lowlights to the hair. In this process hair dyes are used to create strands of hair that are darker than the natural color. This technique is a great tool for achieving higher lifting highlights.

Babylights balayage is a fantastic technique for natural blending and giving a lighter look without entirely changing your hair color. It bumps up your base while avoiding the sometimes flat appearance of an all over color. It can also match hair color to your eyebrows and skin tone.

Baby hair is naturally lighter at the crown and ends. The babylights technique recreates the same effect by placing finer accents at the hairline while softly graduating to more saturated ends. Just like baby hair, the best babylights start softly at the scalp and are the lightest at the ends.

The balayage is a popular technique that creates super soft, sun-kissed color throughout the hair. Ombre (literally translates to “shaded” in French) is the blending of one color hue to another, usually moving tints and shades from light to dark. Sombre is a much softer and gradual shading of one color to another.

After highlighting the hair, sometimes a toner is used to get rid of brassy hair tones. The toner works most noticeably on light hair. It does not lift or permanently change the color of hair, but rather adds a tone over it. To keep highlights more smooth, shinier and less frizzy, it’s best to get a hair gloss treatment that closes the cuticles.

The last step after a chemical service is to use color-preserving shampoo and conditioner, such as Davines, which is great for nourishment, shine, protection, volume, hydration, elasticity, smoothness and daily care. It contains natural and safe ingredients.

Article written by Mina Hosseini, Salon Color Specialist