Highlighting your hair is one of the most dynamic ways to change your appearance. It can change your look entirely.
In this post, we will discuss “how to highlight your hair at home?”
Various methods are available for hair highlighting, right from balayage to traditional foils, etc. But these solutions take a lot of time and are costly too.
So, what should we do then?
Well, dyeing your hair at home can save you a reasonable amount of time, and most importantly, it’ll save you money.
Home highlighting kits can be found in stores at low prices and are a great way to color your hair.
Types of Hair Highlighting:
There are various types of hair highlighting, and their results vary according to the procedure followed.
1. Foil Highlights
This is one of the traditional ways of highlighting hair, and hairdressers often use this method.
In this procedure, the highlighted strip of hair is covered with foil paper during coloring.
This foil paper traps the heat in that region and makes the highlighting process fast. It also makes sure that the color does not spread, giving you exact highlights.
What Do You Need?
- Foil Paper
- Highlighting kit (You can find it at any drugstore)
- Hairbrush
- Rubber Gloves for applying the color
- Sectioning clips
- Hair tinting brush
- Rat Tail Comb
- Color Safe Shampoo with Conditioner (Again, you can purchase this at any pharmacy)
Process Of Applying The Color:
- Mix the hair dye according to the instructions mentioned on the packet.
- Remove all tangles and knots from your hair for effective results.
- Put on the rubber gloves before applying the dye. Don’t touch the dye area directly. Part your hair in the middle.
- Ensure that the foil paper’s strips are 4 inches wide and 2 inches longer than the length of your hair.
- Now, here’s the tricky part. You need to divide all your hair into 3×3 inch squares and make sections with sectioning clips.
- Now get the rat tail comb, hold its tail side precisely parallel to the midsection. Pull up all the hairs from that area, place a strip of foil paper under that section, and ensure that the foil paper’s end is placed precisely at the root of that section.
- Now apply hair dye in this section right from the roots to the ends.
- After you ensure that the color is applied thoroughly, fold the foil paper from the bottom edge of the hair to the top edge. Repeat the same process one more time.
- Apply this process to all the sections of hair.
- Let the color to absorb into your hair for a specific duration that is mentioned on the label. The time depends on your hair’s type, and length, the average time-period for highlights is 2-4 hours.
- Remove the foil paper strips and wash off the dye with color-safe shampoo and conditioner.
2. Hair Painting (Balayage)
Hand-painted highlights, AKA balayage, are trendy right now. There are various reasons for it. But the reason that we love it is its stunning appearance.
This technique makes the color seem flawless, but it’s not easy to balayage your hair. Highly skilled professional hairdressers do it.
How can you make it simple?
That’s for what we are here. Below is a simple procedure through which you can balayage your hair without any hassle. Let’s dive into it.
What Do You Need?
- Highlighting Kit
- Rubber Gloves
- Flat Paddle Brush
- Hair Tinting Brush
- Sectioning Clip
- Color-safe Shampoo and Conditioner
Process Of Applying The Color:
1. Mix the color according to the instructions specified on the packet.
2. Put on your rubber gloves; as I stated earlier, never touch the color or dye mixture without wearing rubber gloves.
3. Divide your hair into different sections.
4. Coat the bristles of the paddle brush with the dye with a hair tinting brush.
5. Now, run this coated brush on all sections of your hair one by one.
6. Flip the brush and then run it through the back of the same section of hair.
7. Keep applying the mixture into your hair with the brush until you cover every hair section. Apply a little more color in some sections and less in other sections, giving a natural and flawless look.
8. Leave the dye for 1-4 hours, depending on your hair’s type and length, and then wash it off with color-safe shampoo and conditioner.
3. Frosted Highlights
A unique cap with several holes is placed upon your head in frosted highlighting.
This technique results in gorgeous highlights that blend with your natural hair and gives a seamless look.
What Do You Need?
- Highlighting Kit (There are special highlighting kits for frosted highlighting available in the market. Make sure the kit you are buying contains a highlighting cap and hooks).
- Rubber Gloves
- Hair Tinting Brush
- Color Safe Shampoo and Conditioner
Process Of Applying The Color:
1. Mix the dye according to the instructions specified on the package.
2. Put on the highlighting cap and rubber gloves.
3. Now, the tricky part starts, pull out the hairs from every single hole of the cap with a hook; make sure you pull out the group of 5-7 hair-strands from every hole.
4. Make sure you are applying the color from the roots to the end. It can be tricky due to the cap.
5. Leave the mixture on the hair for 1-4 hours (this duration depends on your hair type and length), and then wash it with shampoo and conditioner.
4. Hair Chunking
Do you love a different vibe around your hair? Well, then you need to go for hair chunking.
Hair chunking creates a dramatic look. Its process is the same as the regular highlighting’s process; the only difference is that it focuses on the thicker sections of hair.
It creates a contrast between the original hair color and the highlighted part. If done in the right way, it’ll give you a funky look.
What do you need?
- Highlighting Kit
- Hairbrush
- Rubber Gloves
- Sectioning Clips
- Hair Tinting Brush
- Aluminum Foil
- Rat Tail Comb
- Color Safe Shampoo and Conditioner.
Process Of Applying The Color:
1. Mix the hair dye according to the instructions given on the package.
2. Apply the same procedure as specified under the foil highlights method, except while sectioning your hair, divides them into bigger sections, and slice off more hair into each section’s upper layer.
3. Wash off the color with a color-safe shampoo and conditioner after 1-3 hours (time-period depends on the length and type of your hair).
Tips While Highlighting Your Hair:
1. Be Careful While Choosing The Product
It’s always preferable to use the special highlighting kits. Especially if you have dark hair going for a lighter shade, you’ll need a color containing enough bleach to get that, unlike blonde hair, where you can go for the bleach-free highlighting kit.
2. Always Opt For Strand Test
If you are a brunette, your hair color might go from brown to red, orange, and finally turned into yellow.
You need to be very careful while changing your hair color from darker to lighter; your hair color might get stuck somewhere between red and yellow and acquire a blazing orange color.
That is why you should always start with a strand test. It will help you determine what amount and type of hair color will give your hair the exact shade you are looking for.
If you find the shade perfect, your mixture is ready to go. If you are going to choose a lighter one, then you can reapply the coat. But don’t go for too light otherwise, it’ll look unnatural.
3. Streak Hair The Right Way
The technique for center-parted hair is different than the side-parted hair in this case. So you need to know how to streak your hair to get perfect and flawless highlights.
- On dry hair, apply the mixture on a one-inch section in the front. Keep the cream a few centimeters away from the scalp.
-
After working out on the middle of the head, gradually thin out the sections to half an inch.
- At the under layers, reduce it to quarter-inch pieces.
- Don’t be too paranoid about the placement of streaks. The coolest highlights are always asymmetric.
4. Ready Your Hair For Moisture Again
After applying the hair color, your hair will dry out. You must reapply the moisture in the hair at this time.
To maintain the highlights’ quality for a long time, you should look-after every strand and wash it individually with an excellent color-safe shampoo.
After that, use a conditioner and leave it on the hair for at least 5 to 10 minutes. If you are using hair color with ammonia in it, then this process will become more important.
5. Using Hair Toner Will Also Help
Toning your hair always helps to enhance the contrast and makes it looks natural. You can use a home glossing kit for toning hair.
As I mentioned above, you must choose the right color for your hair. Always go for a shade darker than you can go for lighter from darker, but it’s hard to go darker from lighter.
So, these were a few methods through which you can highlight your hair at home. It can be a bit complicated at the beginning. You might even face a few failures; that’s why the strand test is so essential; also, do enough practice to make this topic handy for you.
Once you achieve a good command of all the processes, you will save lots of money and time you probably spend at beauty salons and boutiques.
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Last updated on: December 17, 2020