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Lighten Up Your Look With Highlights

February 15, 2019

5 Min read

Spring cleaning isn’t just for your house, it can apply to your hair, too. This tradition of freshening up and lightening your load is a way to jostle up and out any blockage, mental or physical, that may be holding you back. So when it comes to your appearance, adding a touch of highlight to your hair may be just what you need. Comb through a few different lightening techniques below and decide which one may be your match.

Foil

Where it all began. Foiling is the most traditional form of highlighting and it involves painting color onto the hair in a uniform fashion and then covering the dye with foil and allowing the color to process. You can choose how thick you want your highlights to be depending on what look you’re trying to achieve. Either way, your hair will have an overall brighter appearance.

Balayage

Balayage is a softer form of highlighting that does not involve any foil. The look is intended to be natural and lived in with less noticeable regrowth. Balayage highlights are hand painted, which give the look an effortless feel.

Pintura

Pintura is a curly girl’s dream technique. Individual curls are hand selected and painted, making the process truly an artform. Pintura will give your hair light reflective properties that will really make your curls pop.

Ribbon

Ribbon highlights add dimension throughout the hair by breaking up a solid base color with lighter pieces throughout the entire head of hair; not just focusing on the top or bottom of the strands. This technique gives a bigger contrast than balayage and is spread pretty evenly throughout your tresses.

Babylights

Do you remember being a child and having the most perfect highlights in your hair after running around outside all summer? Well, that’s what babylights aim to mimic. They are super fine and subtle highlights that are brighter at the top of the head and bottom of your strands.

Pro Tip: If you have fine hair, babylights might be especially great for you because they add dimension without being too dramatic or streaky.

Lowlights

Technically, lowlights aren’t highlights, they’re actually the opposite. Instead of making strands one or two shades lighter than your base color, they make them one or two shades darker. However, they still add dimension to your hair as highlights do.

 

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Another one of Taylor ?! @taylorleekaulius /// Toned with @redken SEQ 9p/9nb/9g and clear ?!

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Hygge

If you’re nostalgic for the cozy feelings that the holidays brought a couple months ago, then hygge highlighting might be able to bring back that vibe for you. Hygge is a Scandinavian word that refers to a feeling of coziness and well-being. This technique blends together coppers, browns, blondes, and auburns into combinations that are swoon-worthy.

Ombre

Ombre had a huge upsurge in popularity a couple of years ago and has remained a fan favorite over time. Ombre gives a unique dimension to your hair as it focuses the highlights on the bottom of your strands, and leaves your crown a darker hue.

 

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Should start holding model calls at this point because my clients really DO THATTTT. ???

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Sombre

Sad ombre? Not quite. The S actually stands for subtle, alluding to the fact that the graduation of color in a sombre dye job is much lighter than the traditional ombre. If you’re afraid of the dramatic line of demarcation that ombre can bring about, sombre is an amazing alternative.

 

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Fall vibes?? #behindthechair @behindthechair_com ??

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Decided on a technique and now need to maintain your new color? Take your customized Prose consultation, here.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily is Editorial and Content Assistant at Prose. She handles all things blog and magazine (hey we have a print magazine by the way, casual). She’s a NYC transplant as so many are and is just as obsessed with the city as she thought she’d be. Follow along with all her adventures (Prose ventures included!) on Instagram.

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