Monday, November 17, 2008

Hair Highlights

Highlights are a great way to get that subtle change we all need from time to time. Instead of undergoing a drastic complete color transformation, adding highlights throughout your hair will satisfy that craving you’ve been contemplating.
When deciding to add hair highlights, you generally have (2) choices,
1. Beauty Salon Highlighting
2. Home Hair Highlighting
Lets first talk about getting your hair highlights done at a beauty salon.

Going to a hair salon for hair highlights will give you more possibilities, especially when dealing with a hair stylist that does hair highlights every day. Picking the right shade for your skin tone, in particular if your looking to go more than 2 to 3 shades lighter than your natural hair color could be tricky task. So leaving it up to your professional hair stylist would definitely be a smart move.
Hair stylists also use several techniques when it comes to hair highlights.
• Foil Highlighting, is a precision-based procedure, which involves painting color onto the hair, and folding the hair into a foil. Its time consuming and hard to touch up, however the results are second to none.
• Another technique is Bialiage, which is commonly used because of its simple painting technique.
• Chunking and Piecing will give you a unique look with thicker strands of color throughout your hair.
• Low Lighting is a technique, which is used to minimize harsh tones by adding darker pieces or just to darken the overall appearance of your hair.
Hair highlights from a professional hair salon that know all the techniques, will most likely result in a smooth transition to your new look.
Don’t be shy to ask your hair stylist for a consultation to discuss color options. It’s better that both of you are clear about what the end result should be. Communication is key.

Now highlighting your hair at home is becoming more and more popular with so many fantastic choices available from all the leading hair product manufacturers. Getting your hair highlights done at a beauty salon can be quite costly, so with patience and some careful decision making those do-it-yourselfers can also achieve amazing results at home.
Many leading product manufactures offer how-to videos online so if this is your first time highlighting your hair at home make sure and do some research before you begin.
Here are a few general guidelines you may follow in choosing the perfect color…
• Those with a skin tone more on the pink side should stay away from shades of red.
• Those with a skin tone more on the yellow side stay away from colors that are orange or yellow based.
• Those with an olive-toned complexion may want to stay with darker base colors and use low lights

Sticking with the hair manufacturers directions that are on the box is usually a safe bet that the end result will be as expected. It is suggested that you do an allergy test before using a specific product.

Maintaining Your Hair Highlights

Whenever color is applied to your hair, special maintenance should always be taken. There is sometimes a few pit-falls with the chemicals used to highlight your hair. Such as, leaving your hair dull and frizzy.
Here are a couple of hair care tips to help keep that new color shinning oh so bright…
• Use a shampoo and conditioner for color treated hair. There are a few product manufacturers that have fantastic lines on the market that specialize in color treated hair.
• Use a deep conditioning treatment on your hair once a week.
• Chlorine is NOT your friend when you have color treated hair. It’s true your hair can turn a shade of green. If you must swim in a pool, try a leave-in conditioner on your hair before getting into the water.
• Chemicals that are used to color your hair can be damaging. So it’s advised NOT to do another chemical treatment for at least a few weeks. After all, you don’t want your hair to fall out, do you?
• Touch up every 6-8 weeks, for long hair, depending on how drastic of a change from your original hair color.
• Shorter hair will show roots more obviously, and may have to be done every 4-6 weeks.
Hair highlights are very beautiful when done tastefully.
Whether you like to be pampered at the beauty salon or are one of the brave souls that like to do-it-yourself, subtle hair highlights can certainly add that touch that’ll put your hair over the top.

1 comment:

pate thomas said...

Where in Birmingham can you go for bialiage highlighting?