Let’s face it, getting your hair done isn’t the same as it used to be. There’s sooo many different services available now and so many techniques used to achieve different looks. How do you know what to ask for when you’re in the hot seat?
Let’s start with the basic highlights. I’m sure everyone is aware what these are. This technique is used to brighten the hair and gives a softer blend/grow out at the root than an all over scalp bleach application. You can have these packed in for maximum blonding or spaced out just to brighten natural hair.
As well as highlights, you can get a root melt or also known as a root shadow or root smudge, these names just vary on how far down the head the colour is pasted. This service goes on after the highlights and basically just blends the highlights at your root and blurs the demarcation line, great for people who like the ’rooty’ look but still being bright or if you want your colour to last longer between appointments. It prevents you getting an harsh line when your roots grow out. A shadow root is a tiny tiny bit of colour tapped on at the root just to blur the line whereas a melt would be dragged down a lot further. This is achieved by using a colour that matches your natural colour and that would ensure maximum blend when it grows out.
With balayage a lot of people get confused. Balayage is actually a technique and it means sweep or paint in french! True balayage should be applied with a brush freehand painted onto the hair and is originally meant to give the appearance of sun kissed hair But keeping plenty of depth. it would typically creates ribbons of colour and sometimes too many applications and build up can drift away from the original balayage ‘look’. We may need to add extra dimension by adding darker pieces to create contrast and make the lighter colours pop and stand out. A balayage technique would result in golden colours in the hair, warm blondes. But not everyone wants golden blonde locks. A lot of people want bright results but still very blended at the roots which is where foilayage comes in.
Foilayage is a the look of a balayage but done with foils. It means people can get maximum brightness and icier shades of blonde. It is essentially highlights with a root melt to blur the top into the highlights keeping dimension. Remember back in the days of ‘streaks’, well they’ve kind of come back in fashion as with foilayage you can have thicker weaves of blondes and browns to give the appearance of ribbons of colour, this makes very dimensional colours rather than the colours blending together like fine weaved highlights.
This is an example of freehand balayage. The colour was painted on to the hair, blending and disappearing into the top of the head. As you can see the colour has lifted warm so it was embraced! As you can see on the blonde version, it is a lovely gold natural blonde rather than icy, platinum.
These are examples of foilayage where foils were used to create lighter blondes but the root was blended to give the low maintenance balayage effect.
This is an example of a full head of fine highlights with a small root shadow, keeping maximum brightness but low maintenance grow out.
This are examples of a of highlights and a larger root melt dragged further down the hair to create a more rootier look.
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