About Hair Highlights

Hair highlighting is a technique that, usually through the use of chemicals, can be applied at home or in a salon. Highlighting lightens the hair in streaks, sections or chunks so that there is more than one color in the hair.

History

As far back as Ancient Greece, cultures have tried to use basic techniques to enhance the color of their hair. In Greece, they would often powder their hair with gold, and Native American tribes would often single out one or several locks of hair to be bound or decorated. For a long time in Europe, aristocratic men would powder their hair white to appear more distinguished. Currently, the trend is to lighten the hair to appear as if you have a sun-washed glow.

Function

Highlighting often serves to give a summery or edgy appearance to hair, depending on the style used. Chunky highlights (wide, obvious bands of color) is often considered a very edgy choice, while natural, subtle highlights make the wearer appear as if she has been in the sun too long.

Features

Highlights typically use bleaching ingredients to achieve a lightening effect, sometimes also mixed with color so the effect isn't quite so harsh. "Full foil" highlights go throughout the entire head of hair for a very natural effect, with a stylist hand-selecting the strands of hair to be highlighted for even texture and appearance. With chunkier highlights, whole sections of hair are bleached together.

Considerations

While this is a very pretty and popular look, bleach and most lightening agents can be very damaging to hair and can be harmful to dry or damaged hair.

Benefits

As with any cosmetic change, highlights can offer an update to your whole appearance. They tend to make the rest of the face brighter and it is a very youthful, summery, fun look. It's also a subtle change if you don't want to drastically alter your hair.