Hair Smudging Is the Breakthrough Way to Highlight Hair ! :

Remember when highlighting your hair involved mounds of foil and a heat lamp? Fortunately, the days of this gruesome process no longer exist as the only option. There are many new innovative techniques like hair painting and balayage. While these methods are tried and true, another trend called gloss smudging is paving the way in the realm of hair color ideas.

What is Gloss Smudging?

The name may sound a little messy but this technique is anything but disorganized. In fact, hair smudging highlights hair in a way that blends colors seamlessly throughout your gorgeous mane.

Kari Hill, blonde highlights expert of Meche salon in L.A. has been innovating the technique for some time now, taking the secret of celeb hair stylists into the mainstream. Trust us, you’re about to see gloss smudging everywhere. She tells Refinery 29 that gloss smudging “takes away the line of demarcation we all had when we got highlights when we were younger.” Creating the look involves more freehand than balayage highlights, but it’s absolutely based on the same idea. By adding highlights in a more organic manner as they would appear on natural hair, instead of in strips, the smudging effect is achieved.

Instagram / @KARIHILLHAIR

The Process

Gloss smudging, as you can imagine by the name, involves the process of applying the highlights as well as the final step of the hair coloring process. While staying in the same color family, a stylist will employ hair painting techniques at the root to seamlessly blend different tones to create a truly flawless effect. As hair grows out, that dreaded line of where your natural hair comes in and salon color meet is gone for good.

The final crucial step of smudging involves the ever-important glossing step that stylists cannot function without. After you finally make it to the wash basin after hours in the salon chair, any excess color is washed out. Where your stylist normally applies a gloss or toner to the entirety of your new hair colors, stylists like Kari Hill take the opportunity to gloss smudge.

The gloss is applied with a brush just to the roots of the hair, effectively hiding the potential root stripe that never fails to show up a few weeks after your dye job. By applying the gloss or toner just to the root, it fades better into the surrounding hair, naturally blending right back into your roots, giving that gorgeous dye job the longevity that it deserves.

Who Can Rock It?

The beauty of gloss smudging is it’s ability to look fantastic on any hair color, length or style, as long as you’re planning to go lighter. It’s especially great on short or pixie cuts because the tones create beautiful texture and interest. If you want to ask your stylist to give gloss smudging a try the next time you’re at your salon appointment, keep in mind that your highlights have to stay within the same color range to keep the effect looking seamless and natural.

When you finally decide to rock the gloss smudge look-because let’s face it-this trend is about to explode, add deep tones for impact and lighter highlights for vibrancy. If you’re looking for brown hair with blonde highlights, keep your brown a warm and light color like milk chocolate and add caramel highlights for a richer tone. That way when your natural, darker color comes in, the gloss with blend the caramel seamlessly. If you have darker brown hair, deepen the rich tone with a mahogany color.

Instagram / @LAURA_STANGIER

If you’re a red head (natural or not) and you’re looking to add some depth to your color, then smudging is ideal for you. Brighten copper hair with light rust or strawberry tones or add golden hues to strawberry blonde locks for added shine. The gloss smudging will help the highlights blend seamlessly into your already existing color as the weeks go by.

Instagram / @LAURA_STANGIER

Smudging is even possible for more unique colors like lavender and electric blue. Any hair color you choose can benefit from different tones. Last but not least, the blondes know better than ever how awful growing in roots can look. The beautiful smudging process can incorporate a range of highlights to add depth that will grow out elegantly. Try platinum highlights painted all over to keep a yellow blonde cool-for longer!

And Finally…

Not only does smudging create a better look for your hair-it also saves you time and money. Because your roots won’t grow in as noticeably, you won’t have to head back to the salon quite as often, stretching your appointments from 6 weeks to 8 weeks or longer.

When it comes to smudging, your stylist may already know about the technique. It is a good idea, however, to make sure they are at least versed in painting and/or balayage. So getting this done at your go-to salon shouldn’t be a problem, but Hill reminds us that the gloss smudging technique does take a little more time and patience as it involves viewing each hair job uniquely. However, smudging will switch up the monotony of constantly highlighting hair all day, giving your colorist time to express their creativity!

If you’re not fully sold on the breakthrough hair coloring technique, there is no doubt you will be once all of your friends start rocking the most natural and long-lasting color you’ve ever seen. Smudging color and gloss is quickly becoming the ideal process for hair highlights with no downside in sight. Will you try out smudging at your next trip to the salon?

Are You Looking For a New or Updated Hair Style?

There are 3 factors that you should consider before changing your hair style. First you should look at your face shape and body structure. A short woman may not look all that great with very long hair and a tall woman may not look good with a very short hair style.

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You can determine your face shape by pulling all of your hair back into a ponytail, away from your face. Take a piece of chalk, or something that is washable, and trace the outline of your face using a mirror. Stand back and look at the shape that you drew. Your face shape could be a combination of the basic face shape, or it is exactly like one of the basic face shapes.

Some of the basic face shapes include:

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Square Face Shape: Layered bobs, wisps around the face, and long layers are generally recommended for this face shape. Avoid very short or cropped hair or slicked-back styles.

Round Face Shape: Usually a layered cut and/or feathered cut will accentuate your facial features. Avoid any width in the hair at the sides of your face as this will make your face seem rounder.

Oval Face Shape: The envy of us all--this shape can wear almost any type of hair. Layered, curly, short, long....anything.lowlights

Long Face Shape: Any hair cut that is below the chin is best for this face shape. Long Face Shapes should avoid short hair.

Heart Face Shape: Another envy of us all--this shape falls into the same category as the oval face where virtually any shape will look good.lowlights

The second factor that has a great effect on your hair style is your current lifestyle. How much time do you devote every day to styling your hair, washing your hair, etc. This can be very important when selecting a new hair style. If you select a high maintenance hair style and don't spend the time required to keep it looking good, you may not be very happy with the results.

The third factor for your hair style is color. Sometimes just a simple change of color or addition of highlights and lowlights can spruce up your style without having to do anything drastic. Color can do different things to your look. For example, adding a lighter or warmer color in the bang or crown area will lengthen your face. Whereas adding a darker or cooler color on the sides can decrease the width of the face.

Adding a lighter color to the sides will widen the face. Color can be used to create texture and accents to a hair style. Consult with your stylist for the best color combinations to use for your hair.

New Hair Color Trends

Highlighting : If you want to look like all your friends who have natural blonde streaks through their hair, you might try getting Foil Highlights. A Stylist or Colorist can give you glowing highlights by putting different shades of color or bleaching agents on pieces of your hair that has been sliced through with a fine tooth comb. Then the pieces are folded up in foil to keep the color or bleach off the rest of your hair. When the hair in the foil is done processing the foils are removed and your hair is rinsed and shampooed. After the process, a good quality color-friendly conditioner is used to protect and strengthen the hair. The conditioning is a very important part of this coloring application, since the hair has just been stressed to the max. Be sure to use salon Color-treated hair products to ensure that your highlights won't fade.

Low lighting : Is an application using a darker color on pieces of hair that has been sliced through with a fine tooth comb and folded in foil. Lowlights are especially good for hair that has been highlighted with blonde too many times. Adding some dark blonde, light brown or even dark brown can really revive worn looking highlights. Sometimes it is done under silver hair to enhance the beauty of silver-gray hair. As with any color service, after getting low-lights one should always use salon products formulated for color-treated hair.

Dark Underscore : This is the name given to the process of coloring just the back, lower part of your hair with a darker color. Usually done on the area just below the occipital bone, it can really make highlights more dramatic as long as you stay within the color hue that you already have. Dark brown is always better than black unless of course have black hair to begin with.

Chunking : This is highlighting hair with thick chunks of hair that radiate down from the part of the hair. Sometimes low-lights of dark color are put underneath the lighter chunks to enhance them even more. This type of highlighting is even more susceptible to damage than regular highlights so be sure to use salon color-treated products on it.

Single Streak of Color : Some people who enjoy being more flamboyant in life, like to adorn their hairstyle with a single streak of color. Whether you have short or long hair, a single piece of hair is chosen (usually near the part) then it is bleached to a light blond. Then a permanent color or semi-permanent color is applied. There are many different semi-permanent colors to choose from. Many football fans like to put their team colors on their streaks. Semi-permanent colors do wash out eventually and have to be freshen up. The best thing about a single streak is, the color can be corrected and changed back to the natural way it was before without too much damage to the hair.

How to Add Low Lights to Hair

If you like your color but are feeling a little too one-dimensional or if you are feeling too light overall, we’ve created this easy-peasy tutorial to adding low lights to your hair. Pro Tip: For first timers, it will take a little practice getting the hang of “painting” the color onto your hair on a foil. Use conditioner in the place of hair color and follow the steps below until you get the hang of it! So here we go…

What you’ll need:

1. 1 box Natural Instincts
2. Hair color foils (they are easier to use than regular aluminum foil since they are a thinner weight)
3. Hair color brush and bowl
4. 4 plastic clips
5. Rat-tail comb
6. Dark towels
7. Timer

Step 1: Determine what level (degree of lightness to darkness) you hair is.

Step 2: Pick your low light shade. Keeping in mind your current color, choose a shade that is 2 shades DARKER with golden tone. The golden tone will safeguard your hair from turning an off-tone just in case your hair is porous and/or damaged. 

Step 3: Using a rat-tail comb, create a center part down the middle of your head. You’ll use this as a guide for placing low lights.  

Step 4: Mix the liquid from the color bottle and developer bottle into the bowl, stirring with the brush.

Step 5: Take a thin section of hair no more than 1/8 of an inch wide along your center part and put a foil under it. Until you are an old pro at this, stick to placing the low lights on to the top surface of your hair, along both sides of your part. If you feel like you have the hang of it, then you can try doing a section underneath the top layer for even more dimension.

Step: 6: With that free hand, dip your brush into the color and paint it down the strand starting near the scalp, running it down to the end. Be careful not to put too much color on the brush! 

Step 7: Fold the foil. Repeat this process moving along your part line to the back of the head leaving ¾ to 1-inch space between each foil. You should end up with about 4 foils per side for a total of 8. 

Step 8: Set the timer for 10 minutes…Pour yourself a glass of milk!

Step 9: When time’s up, remove all foils and immediately rinse out the color.

Step 10: Apply conditioner all over to seal in color and shine.

Here, we’re using Natural Instincts because it is a demi-permanent color that doesn’t lighten hair. It can only deposit color and that’s what you want to achieve a low light effect – darker pieces that don’t lighten. Keep in mind that demi-permanent color will gradually fade away since it is not a permanent color. If you like your results, you’ll need to do this again after 20-28 shampoos.

Tips For Choosing the Right Hair Color

Have you always wanted to color your hair but did not know the first thing about getting the correct color? Well don't worry we have some hair color tips for you.

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Start by identifying your hair type. Imagine what your image might be for your hair after coloring. The answers to these questions will help you decide a correct color suited to you. Before visiting the salon, think over these points you will be able to get the kind of image you want.lowlights

Do you want to have one single color throughout or maybe you might like your hair to have many tones? A single color process is known as a monochromatic color. On the other hand, a multicolor treatment includes highlights, lowlights or a mix of both.lowlights

Highlights improve on and brighten your basic base color. They are usually used more along the top of your head and around your face. They make the face look brighter. Lowlights usually have darker color than your base color. They add depth and volume to the hair. These are applied to the lower layers of hair. Multi tones look more natural than single toned hair.lowlights

Single hair colors also cause the hair roots to show up more prominently. You have the option to go in for blues, pinks or purple hair color although people generally stick to more usual colors. For a more natural look, you should pick a color type which complements your type of skin and eye color. Reds and coppers are popular but they fade quicker than other colors.lowlights

This is why they need to be touched up often. If your skin tone is dark, browns and reds with darker toned lowlights look great. Those with a golden skin tone look best in dark reds and auburns. Pink or very fair skinned people look better with colors like ash, honey and neutral colors. If you have gray hair, use a lighter hair color so that the grays blend in with the hair color more naturally.lowlights

If you are looking at changing your hair color often opt for color rinses or hair colors which are semi permanent. These do not stay in your hair long. You can apply them at home. They are much simpler to use than the old hair coloring kits. You can see what you look like in different shades and then select the best one for yourself.lowlights

A professional hair stylist can advise you on new styles to go along with your new hair color. On the other hand, at home you can choose a time that fits with your schedule.

Easy Hair Color Highlights

Life as a hair stylist can be a challenging job at the finest of times. They are accountable for one of the most outstanding and effortlessly changeable function we people possess. We put our believe in someone, the hair stylist, to give us a look that we like and for some that means perfection in not simply the fashion notwithstanding additionally the color. So do hair stylists have it easy? The reply is yes, notwithstanding solely after years of practice and knowledge in utilizing items necessary in the hairdressing world.

One of these items is the hair foil. Used as a technique for coloring or bleaching hair, it is regarded the finest technique to use, notwithstanding can be costly and time consuming. The choice is by utilizing a perforated cap to cowl the hair and then pulling strands via utilizing a hook. So why are hair foils so a lot greater than a cap? This is down to genuinely a few factors that will be mentioned here. The cap technique can be genuinely uncomfortable and pulling hair via can be occasionally painful. Solely one color can be utilized by utilizing the cap method, in contrast to foils the place many colors can be utilized at the identical time. The cap technique is faster notwithstanding however fast is not constantly finest notwithstanding it does imply that the cap technique is cheaper due to the lesser quantity of work required by the stylist. Partial highlights or tints are solely genuinely attainable with foils as they precisely apply the color or bleach to the identical spot to be treated.

Removing Highlights: It largely takes 21 days for the hair color to fade, notwithstanding if you do not desire to wait that lengthy then go again to your salon and inform the stylist that you did not like what is done. Like highlights there are lowlights so you can inform them to give you that with out the use of peroxide or ammonia and this will solely cripple your hair further.

But if you can wait then you can string in diverse matters in your hair to disguise the colour. For example scarves, stoles or hair bands are very in. You can don a girlie cap when you step out or use a clip that brings your hair collectively making your highlights much less apparent.

Life as a hair stylist can be a challenging job at the finest of times. They are accountable for one of the most outstanding and effortlessly changeable function we people possess. We put our believe in someone, the hair stylist, to give us a look that we like and for some that means perfection in not simply the fashion notwithstanding additionally the color. So do hair stylists have it easy? The reply is yes, notwithstanding solely after years of practice and knowledge in utilizing items necessary in the hairdressing world.

One of these items is the hair foil. Used as a technique for coloring or bleaching hair, it is regarded the finest technique to use, notwithstanding can be costly and time consuming. The choice is by utilizing a perforated cap to cowl the hair and then pulling strands via utilizing a hook. So why are hair foils so a lot greater than a cap? This is down to genuinely a few factors that will be mentioned here. The cap technique can be genuinely uncomfortable and pulling hair via can be occasionally painful. Solely one color can be utilized by utilizing the cap method, in contrast to foils the place many colors can be utilized at the identical time. The cap technique is faster notwithstanding however fast is not constantly finest notwithstanding it does imply that the cap technique is cheaper due to the lesser quantity of work required by the stylist. Partial highlights or tints are solely genuinely attainable with foils as they precisely apply the color or bleach to the identical spot to be treated.

Removing Highlights: It largely takes 21 days for the hair color to fade, notwithstanding if you do not desire to wait that lengthy then go again to your salon and inform the stylist that you did not like what is done. Like highlights there are lowlights so you can inform them to give you that with out the use of peroxide or ammonia and this will solely cripple your hair further.

But if you can wait then you can string in diverse matters in your hair to disguise the colour. For example scarves, stoles or hair bands are very in. You can don a girlie cap when you step out or use a clip that brings your hair collectively making your highlights much less apparent.

If you are carry your self correct and put on colors that go with your hair highlights then it will look suave not scary. Notwithstanding if you carry an unhappy face and hate the hair on your head then it will be even extra obvious. So take it as a studying lesson and let it go this time.

If you are carry your self correct and put on colors that go with your hair highlights then it will look suave not scary. Notwithstanding if you carry an unhappy face and hate the hair on your head then it will be even extra obvious. So take it as a studying lesson and let it go this time.

Professional Style Tips For Thinning Hair

We all have areas that require some extra TLC to look good. When our challenging area is thinning hair, there are many ways to instantly give a boost to our hair as well as our self confidence. An integral part of achieving thicker looking hair is using colour to create depth and dimension through highlights and lowlights. Multidimensional colour not only looks great, but it also brings the focus away from the crown of your head to your face, where the attention should be!

There are two options to get highlights- at home or at the salon. If you are on a budget or prefer the comforts of home, an easy to use kit such as L'Oreal Couleur Experte will give you a base colour and highlights in an hour. A personalized colour consultation is available online to help you choose the most flattering shade along with application tips for fabulous results.

If you opt for professional highlights, seek out a colourist that will do a consultation for you before your appointment. The more they know about the look you are trying to achieve, the better. Ask for foil highlights using 2-5 shades of a similar tone for a natural look that will add dimension to your hair.

Whichever method you use, here are some helpful hints that will give you gorgeous looking hair through the use of highlighting:

1. The Two Shade Rule : Never go two shades lighter or darker than your natural colour- the results will look more avant garde than natural and will only showcase thinning hair further. If you already have hair that breaks this rule, see a professional colorist to get it back within your natural range.

2. Thin is In : Thin highlights and lowlights give a natural sun kissed look that will add visual thickness to your hair.

3. Beauty is Skin Deep : The more you work with your skin tone, the better colour results you will have. If you have warm (yellow based) skin, stay away from golden tones and go for deeper red based tones. If you have cool (pink based) skin, highlight with ash and wheat based shades rather than warm tones.