Hair Highlights

Hair Highlights

Coloring your hair is a cool attractive way, to make your hair look unique. You can go with skinny streaks for a subtle look, go for a punk look with chunky highlights, or use lowlights to create a fall look. There is so much you can do, when it comes to hair highlights and lowlights. However, the first thing you need to do is pick the right color which suits your skin tone and eye color, so that you can understand which side of the hair color wheel you belong to.

Like various other hairstyles, highlighting is usually a variation or modification of the age old understanding of hair henna. The only real difference stated is actually extra maintenance together with care. This happens because earlier natural products were used for highlighting and today the style trend has recently been swayed away as a result of chemicals. These chemicals have harmful effects with natural hair as soon as used for a longer time and destroys the natural shine together with original texture. These also brings about hair breakage, locks shedding, splits stops and dryness. So, be careful and cautious as soon as you plan to aquire a hair highlight.

Highlighting Your Hair
1. Assemble the Materials: For highlighting your hair, you will need a hair dye, fitted latex gloves, a plastic or glass bowl, a towel, a conditioner and a wide-toothed comb. While picking up a hair color from the supermarket shelves, stick with some of the best home hair color brands, like L'Oreal or Garnier. For the funky greens and pinks, try the home hair color kits by Manic Panic.

2. Wash and Condition the Hair: Two to three days before highlighting your hair, wash your hair with a clarifying shampoo and use a good conditioner. This will enable you to flush out any traces of hair care products, so that your hair is more receptive to the highlights.

3. Methods for Highlighting the Hair: Highlighting with a brush is the simplest method and is more applicable to people with long hairstyles. This is done using a small acrylic brush, nearly half an inch wide. Before you start, read the instructions on the kit and mix the ingredients accordingly. The process involves parting your hair in your usual style and applying the product, starting from the back of your hair, using the brush. This will allow you to avoid accidentally smearing parts of your hair. Depending on the intended effect, you can choose thick or thin highlights. Once you are done rinse thoroughly with a shampoo and use a good conditioner. For the shorter haircuts, 'pull through' or applicator caps are used, to accurately target just those the parts of your hair, that you want to highlight. They are covered with little holes, and come with metal hooks, that are used to pull strands of your hair through some of the holes in order to highlight them. You can highlight using foils also, but since foiling hair is complicated and risky, it is best that you have it done by a professional.

Highlights for Light Hair
Highlighting blonde hair looks really gorgeous without losing the original color of the hair. Blonde hair with brown highlights is very common. So, what colors to mix match depending on your skin tone? Opt for wheat, taupe, beige, ash, gray highlights if your complexion is fair. Tanned skin with dark brown or copper highlights look damn sexy. Teens and young generations can opt for bright color highlights with shades of red, orange, pink, etc. Black highlights in blonde hair is also a great combination for pale skin tones. Platinum shades and mulberry look exquisite in blonde hair with either dusky or fair complexion.

Highlights for Dark Hair
Dark hair color forms a great base for hair highlights shades. Dark hair on brunettes can go for bronze, burnt red and burgundy hues. Opt the contrast effects with blonde shades to get the bold look. Streaks with copper and chestnut brown look glamorous. Ash blonde or strawberry highlights are also demanding. If your hair is dark brown, streaks of black will also render a subtle look to it. Golden or honey highlights are for fair skinned brunettes. Richer or darker brown shades like coffee or mocha suit dark complexion. Never opt for pink or blue shades just to uplift your rebellious beauty. If you wanna get the bold look, stick to platinum or wine red highlights.

Hair Highlight Techniques
Hair highlight techniques vary with the lasting effect you wanna wear. The highlights can be temporary, permanent, semi-permanent or demi-permanent. There are also different types of brushes to make the effect prominent. The techniques are as follows.

1. Foil Highlighting: The highlighted strands are wrapped in foils to separate it from the surrounding area. The strands are separated and lightened from the base, thereby retaining the natural color. You can also separate 'low' and 'high' lights using a foil. The foil is wrapped as per the 'processing time' to get the desired effects.

2. Chunking: This technique is applied to highlight a 'chunk' of hair with bold and bright colors. This is also known as 'size' highlighting. A part of the cut is colored to get a sassy look.

3. Slicing: Slicing gives an extremely fashionable look that is unmatchable to any other technique. This style basically includes coloring strands underneath the top layer of hair. One of the tips for this style is to work on thin strands. These thin highlights look awesome when you part hair and leave them free.

4. Low Lighting: Low lighting can just be opposite of highlighting. Highlights are done with darker shades to cover up the light hue of the hair color. Low lights are very subtle and also need to be done with precision.

5. Hair Painting: Hair painting is easy and can be done at home. A painting brush is used to highlight the hair. Semi-permanent or temporary brushes are used for hair painting. You can also highlight thin strands of your hair using combs.

6. Frosted Tips: Frosted tips give you a funky look. Also known as dip-dyeing, this method includes highlighting only the ends of your hair. Usually 1 - 2 inches or more inches in case of long hair are colored with vibrant shades. You can choose to get a subtle look or a dramatic look by choosing one of the various hair color shades.

7. Paneling: Paneling is sure to give you a trendy look. In this method, layers of hair are colored in various shades and each one is secured using the foils. This idea gives a superb and extremely dramatic look to your hair. It is one of the best ideas, if you are planning to go for a party.

Hair highlights can change your look completely, in either way. It's always wise to get the highlighting done from a reputed salon to get the perfect hue and accurate effect, rather than slogging the brush yourself.

Ideas on Highlights & Lowlights
• No matter what you do, at least get 8 streaks in your hair, despite wherever they are placed.
• How about a blond faux Mohawk, with black streaks at the top?
• If you wish to get skinny highlights for a sober look, then take a hair section, and with the tip of a hair dyeing brush, pick up skinny strands of hair, and then color them.
• On a good layered haircut, with the crown hair also cut short, try these. Get 2 skinny highlights on each side, 2 skinny highlights on the back and one skinny highlight on the bangs. And for a cool effect get skinny highlights on the hair section above, this way when you tie your hair behind, these highlights will get displayed.
• Dark blond hair with black lowlights in hair.
• If you have a typical layered haircut, which has middle parting and equal layered hair on both sides, then get some popular highlights for hair like copper or blond chunky highlights.
• Try on blond hair, red colored chunky streaks for a unique look.
• On a bob cut, with blond hair base color, get hot pink color at the tips of the hair ends.
• On a bob cut, with a black or dark base color, get bright purple at the tips of the hair ends.
• Blonds for a fall look, can go with brown lowlights and get them done by a professional.
• If you have brown or dark brown hair then go with an extra dark shade to almost black shade of hair color for low lighting.
• A scene haircut with green highlights in front, near the bangs and front hair strands.
• If you have base black hair, then go with many multiple highlights, so that only few black hair are visible.
• If you want a textured subtle look, then take your base color, and take 2-3 hair colors which are minimum 2 shades darker than your base color. With these colors, get skinny hair highlights all over your hair.
• If you have blonde hair, then add some black lowlights and add golden highlights.
• Looking for hair color ideas for brunettes with highlights, then try platinum blond highlights on dark brown hair.

Highlighted Hair Care
• The chemicals used in highlighting the hair can damage your hair, make it dull, sensitive to breakage, coarse and frizzy. Therefore, you need to be careful and spend some time and labor to take good care of your highlighted hair. Some suggestions, which usually work well, are given below.
• Use shampoos and conditions that have been formulated specifically for color treated hair. Even if you have a few highlights, consider using them on a regular basis. Such products will keep your hair from drying and breaking.
• Deep condition your hair at least once a week.
• Avoid swimming in chlorine-treated hair. Chlorine may discolor your hair. If you have to, then wear a shower-cap or put a leave-in conditioner before going into the water.
• Before going out in the sun, wear a hat or apply products containing sunscreen on your hair. This will prevent your hair from getting damaged due to reaction between chemical and the sunrays, fading and drying out.
• Don't brush your hair when it is wet. It weakens the hair from roots.
• Use a wide tooth comb to loosen the knots. This will prevent your hair from weakening and breaking.
• You may use a hairspray or spritz with moisturizing ingredients and sunscreen to keep your hair protected and moisturized, both at the same time.
• To keep your highlights looking great, go for touch, particularly on the new growths every 6 - 10 weeks.
• Never do another chemical treatment for at least 1 - 2 weeks. Over processing with chemicals can make your hair very weak. It may even fall out or break off.

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