How to Highlight Your Own Hair With Foil
This article was written by Amber Katz and repurposed with permission from Refinery29.
To the uninitiated, hair highlights can be daunting. Just as the Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow, the nuanced results you can achieve using the various methods on the full spectrum of base colors, from dark to light, are legion.
To demystify the process and help you ensure you get the look you want, we talked to the best colorists in the beauty game for their tips on everything from what words to drop in your color descriptions to the difference between buzzwords like babylights, sombré, and ecaille. But, first let's take a look at what you need to know before your head even goes near the dye.
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Before You Arrive
Come with your root-flag flying. "Using root-camouflaging products before getting your hair colored doesn't let us see the base color we're working with," explains Redken celebrity colorist Tracey Cunningham. So skip the root touch-up pen just on the day of your appointment, though Cunningham specifies that dry shampoo is okay to apply pre-coloring session. Coloring dirty hair is also fine, but be kind to your colorist and skip the just-worked-out sweatiness.
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The Consultation
Colorist Jack Howard uses his own hair-color Pinterest board to communicate with clients. Bringing in photos is encouraged. "It can be more helpful for your colorist if you bring in a picture of what you don't like!" says Cunningham. Become acquainted with the universal hair-color chart used to describe natural and dyed hues: 1 is black, and 10 is the lightest possible platinum. Lastly, consider your cut before your color. "I always recommend first cutting hair into the style you're looking for, then consider what color would accentuate that cut," says Reyad Fritas, artistic director of Fekkai Fifth Avenue.
Now that you know the pre-appointment basics, keep reading to get the full breakdown on all the different highlight options and which one is right for you, plus a roundup of all the products to keep your color going strong between appointments.
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Warm Vs. Cool
If you're going for a cool tone, avoid using the words "ash" or "ashy," says Suite Caroline owner Lena Ott. "When people emphasize ashiness, what I see is that their colorist is overtoning them and they don't feel blonde enough," she explains. She recommends saying "cool blonde" instead.
Neglecting the "blonde" part, if that is indeed the hue you're going for, could potentially wipe out all the blonde in the toning process. "Saying you want a cool-blonde hue means you'll be a level 8 or 9, and most of these women want to be a 10," says Ott.
Howard says the quickest way to determine whether a client prefers a warm versus cool tone is to see what kind of jewelry they like. "If you prefer silver, then you're going to prefer cool or neutral tones and if you like gold, generally you'll prefer warmer tones," he says.
There are two ways of doing highlights: balayage (hair-painting) and foils.
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Technique 1: Balayage
This method is great if you like a low-maintenance look. "If a client hates coming in on a regular basis, it's more likely that balayage is going to work for her," says Howard. Ott solely applies highlights via balayage. "With balayage, you can pop the ends a bit more for a more natural effect," she explains. Sally Hershberger colorist Dana Ionato also uses the method, calling it hair-painting.
"For a beachy-blonde look, I paint a 'V' shape on each small section of hair, working my way up from the nape of the neck toward the front of the head, working with the shape of the head," explains Ionato. This leaves a chevron-shaped piece of base color at the root, lightening gradually toward the ends. She leaves 1.25-inch sections between each highlighted piece to avoid saturation.
For a lighter look achieved with balayage, Ionato paints a "W" shape onto the hair section, creating skinnier highlights. She highlights the hairline last, as it gets more wear-and-tear from restyling, and even your twice-daily face-wash session. "Here, I incorporate brighter pieces," she says.
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Technique 2: Foils
Foil highlights are more noticeable than balayage, specifically at the roots and middle of the hair. "At the ends, the color blends," says Ott. "At times, they may appear as almost visible rows," says Cunningham. "The upside of foil placement is the closeness and proximity to the scalp, which can create a fresh initial look, but shows a line of demarcation when growing out."
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How to Highlight Your Own Hair With Foil
Source: https://www.womenshealthmag.com/beauty/a19927125/the-right-way-to-highlight-your-hair/