About Hair Highlighting

Fashion-conscious folks can add a whole new dimension to their lives with hair highlights. Unlike traditional hair dye that is applied to the entire head, hair highlights add pizazz to selected hair areas. The look can be crazily bold, with bright red metallic strands peppered throughout the do, or subtly sexy, with a few blondish wisps softly framing the face. Salons are always offering different color and highlighting techniques, or folks can buy their own hair highlighting kits and products at beauty supply stores.

Function

Highlights serve to add visual texture, depth and interest to any hairstyle. They also create a focal point, emphasizing a haircut or certain features. Highlights spaced around the face can frame it softly while those placed throughout the head can add a dramatic and funky look. Although an unnatural addition to the hair, highlights can also make a hair color appear more natural. Rather than one solid block of color, hair can be painted to have different shades as it would on natural tresses. One more function of highlights is to help hide gray strands that may come peeking through. Those areas can be colored and covered.

Types

Hair highlights can range from the strikingly obvious that make a bold statement to those that look so natural no one would guess the hair has been highlighted. One of the most popular applications is to choose a shade or two lighter than the existing hair color to focus on different areas of the head. Bolder highlights are often seen in unnatural or metallic colors, such as a blazing maroon, a sparkling blue or a neon green. These work best on shorter, choppy cuts to finish off a funky look. Highlighting products can be permanent; semi-permanent, which gradually wash out; or temporary, which will be gone after the next wash.

Application

Highlights can be applied by placing a plastic cap over the entire head and punching small holes through the cap to allow various strands of hair through. Those strands are then lightened while the rest of the hair remains untouched. Highlights can also be applied with a small brush or other tool, painted directly on chosen strands of hair. Highlights can work by lightening the hair in the same way hair dye does, or it could also contain a bleaching agent that does not dye the hair but rather lightens the natural color.

Time Frame

Hair highlighting has been poplar for the past several decades but the desired effect has changed. The 1980s were big on frosted highlights, used to add a systematically applied dash of blondish silver throughout the entire head. The 1990s switched to a more random look, with strands chosen at different intervals around the head but not necessarily as systematically as the previous decade. The 21st century saw another shift, this time with softer, more natural-looking highlights framing the face, bangs or other areas of a given hairstyle. The "skunk look" with dramatic highlights painted almost stripe-like through the head also went from vogue to gauche with the turn of the century.

Considerations

Another highlighting method that was extremely popular in the 1980s and is still used today is using a product that utilizes the sun to help highlight the hair. Folks have long been spritzing, spraying or dipping strands of their hair in hydrogen peroxide or products specifically designed to bleach out the hair when it's exposed to direct sunlight. Beach bags would often be stuffed with the stuff.
Henna highlights are another option, which is a natural way to add subtle reddish hues to the head.
One more crazy highlighting method is using those glitter or color sprays available around Halloween. While it may seem like these products could make the tresses quite frightful, if used subtly enough they can actually appear quite pleasant to jazz up a do for a fancy night out.