How to Choose Highlights That Complement Your Coloring

Highlighting hair offers a sun-kissed glow and gives dimension to your hairstyle. Vary the shade and intensity of the color depending on your skin color and the effect you'd like to achieve.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Hair-coloring Products
• Highlighting Kits

1. Consider your natural hair color and the contrast you desire when highlighting hair. All blondes, red heads and brunettes can highlight their hair. Results will vary depending on your original hair color and the formula you choose.

2. Complement cool skin tones with shades of ash or beige for blonds and brunettes and violet based reds for redheads. Enhance warm skin tones with golden and caramel hues for brunettes, light golden shades and straw hues for blondes, and auburn or copper shades for red heads

3. Decide which effect you are after - subtle or dramatic - and choose the technique that suits your needs. Your options include combing the solution through your hair, pulling select strands through a hair cap and painting the color on select strands, or painting selected strands free-hand with a proper kit.

4. Seek the advice of a professional colorist, your stylist or a company representative from a well-known specializing in at-home coloring if you are unsure how to best go about highlighting hair.

5. Follow directions exactly to avoid any highlighting mishaps.

Tips & Warnings

• Enhance dark brown, red and auburn hair by rinsing with a hair color kit that matches your base color and adds varying shades of caramel, copper, cinnamon or mahogany.
• Deep-condition your hair a few days prior to your color treatment. If you suspect there is build up on your hair from swimming or hair products wash your hair the day before highlighting with a clarifying shampoo. The former will strengthen your hair, while the latter will remove any buildup or deposits.
• Pregnant? Get your doctor's OK before highlighting your hair.
• If you have applied henna to your hair in the last year, remember that you cannot perm it or use a chemical color over it.
• Avoid chlorine and salt water for a few days after highlighting your hair, as contact may cause adverse reactions to your new color.
• Color will not lighten a previously applied color. If you have a darker color already applied to your hair you will need a professional stylist to strip the color before highlighting your hair with a new one.

on 8/8/2006 When going from any blonde to any brown, make sure you buy a brown hair dye with red or mahogany color in it. You will find that without the reds, blonde hair will turn greenish brown. You may require another brown color on top of the first without the reds to achieve your desired brown. Then after that you can fiddle with highlights.

on 6/30/2006 I make highlights in my dark blonde hair at home. To get a natural result and to avoid an obvious regrowth area, I use store-bought highlight kits (with plastic caps).

Then I only pull out very small amounts through the holes in the cap (we're talking perhaps 10 strands of hair or less). I use maximum every second hole in the cap, except for the fringes, where I use every hole.

The thing is, although the results aren't that stunning the first time, your hair looks really natural, even when it grows longer. Then, as you repeat the highlighting every 2 or 3 months, your hair gets a more and more blonde tone, but a very natural-looking one!

on 2/14/2006 Remember, when buying you own color, the shade on the box isn't always how it comes out. Use blue powder bleach, a peroxide bleach, if you are highlighting your hair blonde or brown as you can regularly check the color.

on 11/22/2005 DO NOT wash your hair before using a home coloring or highlighting kit. The natural oils in your hair help to protect your scalp from the effects of the colorant, and act as a stain barrier.

on 11/22/2005 Try using semi-permanent blonde or light brown hair dye. It will fade out more naturally, so you don't have such obvious roots.