How To Highlight Hair At Home?

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Highlights give hair depth, giving it a fuller, more colorful appearance, and it will be good to know some techniques of how to highlight hair at home. Highlighting your hair has additional benefits. It can highlight your features, giving you a more vibrant and young appearance. Fortunately, performing this procedure at home is much simpler and less expensive than having it done at a salon, which can be rather pricey.

Everybody has done it: used a boxed color from the drugstore to get thorough root coverage or to last until your next in-salon appointment. The risks are substantially larger when lightening your hair, though. Professional colorists would never suggest doing your highlighting at home. A cautious, watchful eye (and hand) and a lot of precise attention are needed at every stage of this multi-step process.

If you have already decided to highlight hair at home, even if there are many potential problems, we want you to do it as safely as you can. We’ll focus on how hair color or bleached hair with existing highlights looks on people (or hair color in the blonde family). Since specialists believe that it is not safe for individuals who want to lighten all of their hair more than two shades at home, you can touch up their color by highlighting only where the hair parts and the sections that frame the face.

1. How to Highlight Hair at Home: 10 Steps to Know

1.1. Speak to Your Colorist

If you cannot wait for a pro to handle it, you should at the very least consult one for the best tips. In addition to giving, you some insight into what you are about to do, consulting your colorist gives you the chance to jointly develop a strategic plan.

Because highlights or highlighting kit box photographs are never the same, as people are warning that highlighting your hair at home could result in a completely different color, weird placement, a blonde that is way too warm and does not go with the rest of your hair, or color that is way too dark. Therefore, stay in touch with the people and will address their particular problems. “Some tip is to talk to your colorist and get their opinion. You and your hair are known to them.”

To assist you in making the best decision possible regarding highlighting at-home certain companies, like L’Oreal’s Color & Co., will provide a complimentary consultation with a professional colorist. The brand and packaging are the only components that differ from the elements inside these.

If there is someone you enjoy following on Instagram or a color brand you are considering utilizing, ask them for guidance even if you do not already have a go-to colorist. As long as they have a decent photo of your existing color, preferably in natural lighting, asking by email or online is identical to asking in person.

Most in-person consultations are free of charge anyway. Every expert wants to help clients feel their best and have great hair, at the end of the day.

1.2. Discover Your Desired Color Kit

Your current base color hue or tone or level, as well as perhaps even a specific product recommendation, should have become clear to you after speaking with a professional.

1.2.1. There are Two Methods for Highlighting Correction:

The first method how highlighting hair at home is using a single-color processing step. You only need to apply one color, rinse, and you are done with your highlights. A single process is typically the best option for an overall transformation or deep conditioning treatment or for root touch-ups to hide grey hair or brown hair and change into natural hair color.

You might be able to pull this off if your hair is light enough (with your colorist’s approval, of course). If you choose to color your hair in one step, make sure to select a semi- or demi-permanent dye to let the color fade over time rather than leaving a stain that will take more time to remove afterward. Just so you know, you may only use them to darken or tone down your hair.

It is only truly possible to change the color of your hair by one to two levels with a single procedure, which will be simpler for lighter base colors that are already members of the dark blonde family. This won’t be your path to lighter strands if your original base color is dark. Keep in mind that this is not a test to see how you would appear as a DIY blonde; rather, it is a lesson to get you through until your colorist can see you.

You “would have to work very hard to burn your hair off” if you choose this option because it doesn’t involve bleach. So at least one of the numerous risks is eliminated while highlights take place on your hair. Bleach is commonly used for all salon highlighting procedures. If you don’t take precautions when bleaching, you run the risk of suffering catastrophic consequences, such as burning off your hair, as mentioned in the example above.

As in the second method, because bleaching and toning are two separate processes that must be completed to achieve the desired results i.e., gorgeous highlights, using a foil highlights technique for bleaching is referred to as a double process job which will also work out all the tangles that occurred a thorough process of bleaching. Your hair’s current shade will be removed by the bleach, which will lift the color a few shades lighter. The toner will then deposit the desired tone or highlighted hair back into your hair.

For beginners, let alone if you’re doing hair dye or highlighting your hair at home with highlighting kits having a highlighting cap and without the help of others, the process is significantly more time-consuming. Let that be telling of why this procedure is normally not recommended for DIY; it’s quite uncommon to find a professional employing this method without a second pair of hands assisting them, even in the salon.

1.3. Amass Your Resources

For the process of how to highlight hair at home Gather your products at a beauty supply store like Sally’s (or order them online from one) or ask your colorist to order them on your behalf so you can pay them back via Venmo (if you do this, we recommend including a tip).

In a box or kit, you’ll often find everything you need for single-process touch-ups, including your gloves, instructions, mixing liquids, and application bottle. I’ll stress once more not to jump right in with one process color just because it appears simple and obvious. Because later on your colorist can find it 10 times more difficult and at least twice as expensive to alter box dyes. Make sure your colorist gives you this advice directly.

1.3.1. Supplies for a Bleach-and-Tone Double Process

A paintbrush
A tiny bowl for mixing
Bleach\ S Peroxide
A few foils. creating 4″ x 6″ pieces out of kitchen foil.
An animal-tail comb
rubber gloves
A towel or colored cape, and a clip

Choosing a peroxide with a low volume can assist you to avoid burning off all of your hair and give your colorist more opportunity to correct any potential mistakes. If your hair has been broken off, we can’t put it back together. If your hair is naturally light (blonde to light brown), she advises using no more than 10 volumes. Levels 10 and 20 of peroxide safely lift two levels lighter and one level heavier, respectively. “If your hair is naturally darker (medium brown to black), use 20 volumes.”

Make a thick paste out of your bleach and peroxide by blending the two. It shouldn’t be very soupy or runny. Make careful to wear gloves even when you are making a bleach mixture. Bleach burns skin when it comes in contact with it so uses it in a well-ventilated area. You should immediately put on your cape for safety because bleach will stain your clothes as well.

1.4. Conduct a Strands Test First

When performing a strands test for how to highlight hair at home, while in processing time especially one with bleach, pay close attention to keeping your aluminum foil positioning consistent. Take a close look at the strands to see if it is as bright as you had anticipated but remember to keep your aluminum foil in place until it is time to take it off and rinse.

If people try to reattach the hair after removing the foil during [strand test], blood marks may result also hold a piece of tin foil under each hair strand. You would simply gaze at it after slightly opening the foil. It is prepared when it appears yellow or pale yellow. The speed or slowness of the chemical reaction will entirely depend on the person. Dark hair typically lifts more slowly than light hair. On this strand, you can test your entire procedure if you’re performing a full bleach and tone. It does appear to be a lot of additional work! However, it is preferable to spend the time and take a chance on a single strand that may be easily buried as opposed to digging up the most obvious roots only to find that it was not at all what you had anticipated. Minimal touching is crucial while examining your strand test.

1.5. Select Your Approach

There are many techniques for physically emphasizing hair. When you go to the salon, your stylist might apply foils, perform balayage (with a brush), backcomb your ends before using foils, and then put you in a dryer for an hour. A home application won’t result in any of that. Backcombing and balayage are two methods used to lighten the ends and highlight the entire head of hair. Furthermore, you hardly ever need to have your ends touched up while using those techniques. To provide a seamless and smooth grow-out, I paint balayage highlights. while bleaching with a foil method. Your colorist’s suggestion will determine how long you should leave it on. However, you can examine the foils every five to ten minutes to see how the lifting is going (of course, with little touching).

If you opt to utilize a one-step tool or single-process color kit, such as DP Hue’s Blonding Brush ($28), simply adhere to the instructions included in the product’s packaging.

1.6. Part Your Hair

To begin, divide your hair from the top half into three sections: the front hair section, the rear, and the two sides thin section (forward from the back of the ear). Despite the fact that you are sectioning all of your hair, I suggest doing the bare minimum. “Then, only highlight the ‘T-zone,'” which is the area around the face and where you separate your hair. Practically, that back section can be safely snipped away.
Keeping all of your hair divided from starting to the tail end keeps you organized and helps you avoid any needless problems or undesired mess-ups, even though you’ll only be doing a small bit of maintenance. If the results of your strand test look promising, you can place one or two layers of foil in the “T-zone,” or immediately at the surface of the parting. At all costs, avoid touching your head’s back while performing or making highlights. Give the color the time it needs to sit in your hair according to the instructions on the box.

1.7. Paint Your Strands

We’ll use this space to discuss how to perform a highlight touch-up or highlight hair or hair color while utilizing the foil approach because each process application will have specific instructions of its own and probably a user-friendly applicator to provide natural color to your hair. Regardless of where your natural part is—on the side or in the middle—start here.” Start by cutting very thin (almost see-through!) portions. you can weave some hair out with your tail comb. Then, stretch them tautly down against your head. The hair should be placed onto your foil in thin sections.

As if you were using a paintbrush to apply thick strokes of acrylic paint to your strands, take a scoop of your bleach mixture and apply it to your brush, pressing it down hard. Rich and thick is what you want, but you still want it to spread out into an even coating. Since the areas you’re working with are so good, you shouldn’t require too much. Apply the bleach to your roots, being careful not to overlap with the blonde from the previous color job also don’t use too much pressure otherwise the color will transfer to the hair underneath while highlighting your hair.

While highlighting, when it’s time to apply around the hairline, use your tail comb to remove a thin section of hair and weave in the parting in the same manner. After that, lay the precisely cut hair on top of a foil that has been placed on your forehead or cheek or top edge. Saturate, but don’t oversaturate, is key. In order to prevent the foil from slipping, fold the bottom of the foil to meet the top and gently corner the tops of the sides. Don’t hold back when it comes to saturation. Your bleach job will look patchy and uneven if your application is not fully saturated.

Even while it’s easier to do the hairline or dye yourself, it still takes some tremendous hand-eye coordination. Home highlights are not for you if you have never mastered curling your hair. Making sure the bleach does not come in contact with the scalp is the most crucial step in applying it. Because bleach can extend, try to stay around 1/4 inch away from the root. If it occurs, and the product is visible seeping out when the foil is closed, you will have what is referred to as a bleed mark (also known as a cheetah spot). If bleach gets on your skin or scalp, immediately rinse it off.

1.8. Put Some Toner

The most important process to hair color at home highlighting kits is putting toner to get rid of your brassy tones. The purpose of a toner is to reduce the strong yellow hue that results from bleaching and make it appear more natural. This is the trick to getting the results you want because it gets rid of brassiness and other undesirable tones.

Take the foils out of your toner at a location where you are not using a toner. It’s considerably simpler to do this if you have blonde hair. You remove the foils after waiting until the highlights are a lovely color. You should pay more attention if you’re a brunette.

For deeper brunettes who wish to highlight their hair, two to three shades lighter than their natural color is the “sweet spot.” You will only get one to two shades lighter using the less dangerous, low-volume peroxide we’re using for these at-home touch-ups. If you’ve been highlighting your hair for a long and are working with your colorist to transition from a dark natural base color to something lighter, you would thus be better off using a baseball cap or highlighting cap to conceal your roots. Just be careful not to overlap the bleach onto your previous colorwork if you’re a dark brunette who only needs a small touch-up at the roots. The overlap could result in a strange color spot or perhaps breaking.

A difficulty with your toning strategy could arise if you leave the bleach on for an extended period. You want to see yellow before removing the foils to rinse. You’re too early if you uncover the foil and the hair appears somewhat red or orange. You should apply your toner after fully rinsing away the bleach.

1.9. Deep Conditioning Treatment

Make sure you use more conditioner or deep condition process and replenish additional moisture in the hair after highlighting your hair with any color or chemical treatment that increases the porosity levels. A good conditioning treatment is essential since your hair will feel straw-like, brittle, and excessively dried out, especially after applying bleach.

For hair color After shampooing your hair and thoroughly rinsing out your toner, use your extra moisture or conditioner. For deep conditioning, masks use a product like the Davines Alchemic Conditioners ($33) in Silver, Golden, or Tobacco as your light toner. By doing this, you can avoid running the danger of removing the foils too late. Blue conditioners might assist in reducing the heat if your hair tends to pull more orange or yellow. If not, any deep conditioning therapy will be effective. Another fantastic alternative that can help your hair be restored from the inside out is Virtue’s Restorative Treatment Mask ($32).

You don’t want to neglect this step since it will give your hair a burst of shine and smoothness, repair damage, and make you feel like you just left the salon. Continue this therapy until shampooing no longer makes you feel like a straw.

1.10. Dry the Hair and Double-Check

It’s time to witness the results of all your hard work and also time to check the result of how to highlight hair at home Even if you didn’t use a bleach-and-tone, start by blow drying the area around the hairline and part. Grab a round brush or flat brush or any brush to assist you to smooth the hair once you’re between 80 and 90 percent dry.

By using a smoothing nozzle or concentrator, you can also move the hair out of the way so you can see. Before frantically calling your colorist, let your hair completely dry and be smoothed out if you spot any problem areas. The second photo in good natural sunlight would be ideal, and a blowout would make the details more visible. Once you did all the processes don’t forget to switch up your hair care routine. While highlighting your hair at last you will get the desired highlight color only while applying highlights according to your hair length. This is how the problem of ‘how to highlight hair at home’ will be solved.

2. Top Highlighting Kits

Well, the knowledge of how to highlight hair at home is good but the use of hair highlighting kits is even better. Hair highlighting kits are an excellent alternative. These kits were created specifically to assist you in trying out highlighting on your own. The highlighting kit is reasonably priced and come in standard colors of blonde, brown, honey, copper, and burgundy.

Streak Ultralights Highlighting Kit
Garnier Nutrisse Nourishing Multi-Lights Highlighting Kit
L’Oreal Paris Excellence Fashion Highlights Hair Color

Conclusion

Now you know how to highlight hair at home. Once you highlight your hair at home, the final word you should keep in mind is patience while following the instructions carefully. While highlights take place without creating zebra stripes, you can do anything you want. The hair highlights take place only to make color corrections to your hair. Highlights are the process to change your natural hair color into your desired one for example, dark brown hair color, blue hair color, etc. The highlights help you to frame your face also enhance your facial features.

Last Updated on August 5, 2024 by Sathi