How To Highlight Your Own Hair Without Creating Zebra Stripes
Yes, most of the salons are open again, but if you are still uncomfortable with the idea of coming back, you can try touching your color at home. Proper root coverage or hair color at home is not easy, just a little walk in the park instead of highlighting your own hair. Pros will all tell you to wait to get back to them – but the desperate time requires desperate action.
Even so, we spoke to seasoned colorists for our best tips and tricks on how to make your own highlights while sitting at home. One more quick tip: you may want to contact your local salon or the colorist whom you can go to. Most are used to using FaceTime or Zoom and can give you personal advice or even continue with the process. Some even offer custom colored kits that you can use to buy carbide instead of playing games for guessing at the drug store. This is a victory – you have the support of your desired stylist and made sure that after adding highlights, you no longer hate your hair than you did before.
Here are some things you need to know before you start:
1. Choose a kit for highlights.
There will always be a lightener included, no matter what type of highlighting kit you choose at home – this is not your default hair color. “All-over color kits cannot pick up, lighten, or erase other permanent colors, so” highlighting “the full color won’t work if the hair is colored,” said Shovon Perkins of Training and Education at Madison. The creamy consistency of the dye doesn’t match the thick brightener used for highlights. The allover color can also be shifted through the sections, shifting the colors into areas you don’t want. This leads to surfaces.
When deciding on a shade, “choose a kit that is labeled for your starting point rather than your preferred highlight color,” says Kyle White, color artist at Oscar Blandy in New York City. If you grab a box that says “Caramel Highlights”, it looks very different to see someone with a brown base than a strand of red. So look for highlight kits that say things like “for brown hair” instead.
Bridget Hill, a NYC colorist and trichologist, recommends keeping your “Home Highlights” expectations unchanged to keep hair healthy. “Most home highlighting kits don’t provide lighting that has the control power to achieve brighter tones,” says Hill. “So I don’t recommend lightening more than two shades of your natural hair color, or you can get brassy, solid orange highlights.”
2. Use the right tools.
New York based colorist Mary Kate O’Connor recommends using aluminum foil to highlight your hair. The only difference between aluminum foil and foil is the use of salons, which are usually pre-cut, which makes the paint work much faster. In fact, Reynolds wraps make professional grade film that is sold in beauty stores. O’Connor says, “Foil hair separates what is not colored hair.”
But be careful about using foil at home: “It’s also a heat conductor, so it goes faster if you wrap your hair in foil.” Bristles will pick up the right amount of dye and lightly (and not too perfectly) spread it over each section as you apply it.
Applying highlights to curly hair? Wear gloves and apply the paint to individual curls with your fingers. “It gives you more control over the placement and creates a more natural – unpainted – look,” says Hill. For curly girls, she recommends avoiding the middle and back of the hair where the curl textures are stiffer. Instead, he said, “Place the highlights on the crown, frame face, and bottom of both ears.”
3. Make sure your hair and clothes are prepared too.
Make sure that you have everything you need in your finished product and that your hair is in perfect condition. “Start with dry, unwashed hair – ideally a day after your last shampoo,” says Parkinson. Wear an old button-down shirt or hoodie with a zipper as a Parkinson’s tip: “You don’t want to pull anything over your head when it’s time to shampoo.” Make sure you have some old towels nearby (“one on your shoulder, the other to wipe your hand”) and gloves.
4. Check the strands first.
“With a strand test you can determine the exact processing time of the amount of light you want to get on your hairpiece before you start the whole process,” explains Parkins. First, you are going to add a small amount of highlights to a small section of your hair. “After ten minutes, clean your hair and see if you have achieved the desired clarity. If not, keep applying the lightening cream, checking every five minutes until you like the color. Then write down the total processing time, ”he said.
5. Hit the right way.
Part your hair however you want so you can clearly see which strands frame the face (the side part is highlighted separately from the middle part). Then do the following:
For dry hair, draw the mixture an inch on the front, leaving the cream about a few inches above the scalp.
- When you are working the center of your head, slowly move the part half an inch.
- Apply the paint to the quarter inch pieces as you fold and return.
- In particular, don’t be too strict with placement. Most scenic highlights are not evenly distributed or perfectly symmetrical
A few tips to keep in mind:
- Paint at least 2 inches from your roots.
- Keep hair straight for even application.
- Don’t apply too much pressure or the color will transfer to the hair underneath.
- As you pull the section of hair forward, make sure it is thick enough so you can’t see right through it. You want each section to be thick enough that you can paint it on top of it
- You want the paint to be nice and dense, close to the consistency of cake icing and less like a thin layer of lotion.
6. Add moisture back.
Leave the dye in for the amount indicated on your strand test (the pieces you make first will also finish first), then wash each section thoroughly. Give your hair a good shampoo, then use a deep conditioner. Leave on for at least five minutes. “Using ammonia-based dyes like most lighters will open your hair follicles and avoid moisture,” says O’Connor.
Try this simple homemade hair mask to try your dry strands:
4 Ways To Highlight Your Hair At Home
We all know the fight. Do you know the fight? You are struggling to change the look of your old, annoying hair, but there is no money to save on this rather high cost. Personally, I would not wish this to my worst enemy. So the question remains: How can you achieve a stunning hair transformation without splaying holes in your pocket? And the answer squeezed me like a speeding bus. Highlights at home, of course! Home highlighting kits are reasonably priced at drug stores and you don’t have to dye all of your hair and damage it in the process. This is a win-win situation! So, you’re excited now, aren’t you? You went out and bought yourself a highlighting kit that you can use to transform your hair. But wait a minute … now the perception hits you like a speeding bus. How do you highlight your hair at home? Okay, you don’t have to worry because I’m here with a comprehensive guide on how to highlight your hair at home.
1. Foil highlights
Foil highlights are the most common way to highlight at home, and this method has been used by hairdressers and home improvement professionals for several years. Basically, the highlighted areas are covered with aluminum foil strips when painting. This traps the heat and speeds up the dyeing process. It also ensures that there is no colored blood in the surrounding hair, which gives you a very precise highlight.
What do you want
- Emphasis sentence
- hairbrush
- rubber gloves
- Category clip
- Hair color brush
- Aluminum foil
- Rat tail comb
- Colorful safe shampoos and conditioners
How are you
- Mix your hair dye according to the instructions in the kit.
- Tie all the knots and tangles in your hair.
- Put on your rubber gloves and part the hair in the middle.
- Cut strips of foil 4 inches wide and at least 2 inches longer than the length of your hair.
- Divide all of your hair into 3 “x 3” squares and use adjustment clips to divide them.
- Remove the clip from the front hairpiece.
- Now, holding the end of your rat’s tail parallel to the division of your center, cut it into pieces with the top layer of this section so that you can pick up the strands on all surfaces of this section.
- Place a strip of foil under the cut part of the hair, making sure that the end is exactly to the right of the roots.
- Apply this part of the hair from roots to ends.
- Fold this foil in half by bringing the bottom end to its top end over the root. Fold it in half again.
- Fold the outer edge of the film inwards and secure it with clipping clips.
- Repeat this process on all sections of your hair.
- Let the dye sit on your hair for the time indicated on the box.
- Remove all transparencies and wash off the dye with colored shampoo and conditioner.
2. Hair painting
Hand-painted highlights (also known as “blazes”) are currently trending and the reasons for this are obvious. This beautiful coloring technique adds highlights to your hair so seamlessly that it looks like they’ve grown naturally out of your head this way. Now, baldness requires a fairly high level of skill that only professional hair color artists can. But I have a nice, nifty hack that you can do yourself very easily.
What do you want
- Emphasis sentence
- rubber gloves
- Flat paddle brush
- Hair color brush
- Category clip
- shampoo
- hair conditioner
How are you
- Mix the dye according to the instructions in the highlighting kit.
- Put on your rubber gloves.
- Keep the top of your hair up and pinch.
- Use a hair color brush to coat the bristles of your paddle brush with colored hair.
- Run this brush from the middle part of your hair to the end of your hair
- Flip the brush over and run it through the back of the same section of hair.
- Fill in the edges with more dye as you will need more products than the top of your hair.
- Apply the dye with your brush and run it through your hair until you have covered all sections. Make sure that the points where you run the brush from one part to the other are applied to the bottom so that your flame blends seamlessly with your natural hair color.
- Loosen the top part of your hair and repeat the same dyeing process.
- Leave the pigment on for the time indicated in the box.
- Wash off all dyes with colored shampoo and conditioner.
3. Freezing the highlights
Now before you think about whether we can go back to the early 2000s and men try out these awesome ice blonde highlights for the sport, let me stop right here. The frosted highlights I’m talking about are made with the help of a special cap that fills the hole, which makes it easier to use. The result is great, finely textured highlights that somehow blend in with your natural hair color.
What do you want
- Highlighting Set (includes a highlighting cap and hook)
- rubber gloves
- Hair color brush
- Colorful safe shampoos and conditioners
How are you
- Mix the dye according to the instructions in the highlighting kit.
- Put on your marker cap and rubber gloves.
- With the help of hooks, pull thin sections of hair through the holes in your cap.
- When you’re happy with the placement of your highlights, apply dyes. Make sure you complete the sections from the stem to the end.
- Leave the paint in the kit for the specified time.
- Carefully remove your cap and quickly wash off the paint using safe paint products.
4. Haircut
Haircuts for all of your women who want a more vibrant and dramatic look with their hair are done the same way as regular highlights, the only difference being in the thicker part of the hair. This creates a complete contrast between the natural color and the highlights which creates a fun look.
What do you want
- Emphasis sentence
- hairbrush
- rubber gloves
- Category clip
- Hair color brush
- Aluminum foil
- Rat tail comb
- Colorful safe shampoos and conditioners
How are you
- Mix your hair dye according to the instructions in the box.
- Now, except for dividing your hair into larger sections and cutting out more hair on the top layer of each section, follow the exact same procedure given under the slide highlight.
- When the processing time is up, wash off the dye with a colored, safe shampoo. Apply conditioner.
Here are four different ways you can add a few oomps to your hair. What will you go for Comment below and let me know!
Toning button
“By straightening your hair, you can avoid highlights,” says O’Connor. If your highlight is a little red after all of the above steps, look for a green toner to make it more neutral brown. Or if your blonde highlights are too icy, gold toner will add more warmth. A home glossing kit like the one at Christine SS can mimic what professionals use to soften and adjust highlights. It adds mega-shine.
