Highlights are modern hair trends and they can either be partial or full. The partial highlights seem to be more popular among women because they set in very naturally and create unique looks. It is advisable that you have an experienced and talented colorist do your highlights because they are better placed to interconnect, weave and blend the patterns for a natural looking highlight finish. However, a good number of women still prefer to do their own highlights at home and with the right guidelines, the results can be just as pleasant.
Foils and caps are used during coloring and even though most colorists love using foils, caps seem to be better for medium and short hair lengths. Because highlights can be expensive, you can alternate between full and partial highlights. They can be difficult to use on naturally wavy or curly long hair strands. Different techniques are used when highlighting the hair and the yield different results.
Lowlights - They are achieved by interweaving darker contrasting colors with highlights against the base so that movement and depth is created. You can have the roots painted with a color that is slightly darker for root shading.
Color quilts - The highlighting technique uses custom lowlight and highlight designs and different colors to form triangular quilt patterns or clocks on the upper part of pre colored base. The quilt pattern brings out very unique results, but it is hard to recreate when it grows out.
Baliage - The hair highlighting types revolves around free form hair painting. The highlights are done with foils but plastic wraps are sometimes used to keep bleached sections separate so bleeding to the rest of the hair is minimized. It is artistic requiring a hair colorist and offer most natural highlight look.
Color cascading - This hair highlighting technique involves color application in varying grades and the colors are fused from the hair roots to the tips. It adds dimension to lowlights and highlights, giving a beautiful look.
Chunking - Back in the days this technique created big highlight chunks lightened with one color. It has since evolved and now you can alternate up to three colors into your chunky highlights and spread them out over the head as desired. Colorists today use this technique with the intention of avoiding over bleached hair effect and so the results remain very natural looking.
When choosing highlights, it is very important to choose color patterns that will give a natural but unique look. However, contrasting lowlights and highlights are just as interesting and pleasant. Blondes can be creative with bright color highlights like blue, pink and purple whereas brunettes can go get deep reds to achieve beautiful highlights. Highlights create instant beautiful contrasts on varying hair color bases and they can brighten skin tones when woven around your face. You can use the highlights to cover silver, gray and white strands or to add a tasty new color without necessarily going full head with the color. It is a way of complementing hair textures too.
