How to Choose the Best Blonde Highlights

Highlighting your hair can be a fun way to change your style, get a new look, or liven up your hair. However, as with any permanent hair color and style process, it can be scary and nerve-racking. That is why it is absolutely crucial to figure out what kind of highlights are best for you--your skin tone, your natural color, your personal style, and even your job--play roles in determining this. Use these steps to ensure that you know what you want before heading off to the stylist for some great blonde highlights.

Instructions

1. Find examples of your desired look. The best way to do this is to scour the latest and most up-to-date women's magazines, including Glamour, Elle, W, and Cosmopolitan. In these periodicals, look for pictures of celebrities or other models that have the hair that you want. Cut them out and create a portfolio that you and your stylist can use as a base when it comes to highlighting.

2. Research highlights! Yes, there are different kinds of highlighting, including patterns, shades, and proportions. Know whether you want thin or thick, chunky, full, ash, partial, golden, or totally Gwen. Knowing salon terminology and techniques will help your stylist achieve the look you truly want.

3. Talk to your friends. Ask them their honest opinions about the color choices you are looking into. Do they think it will look good? Will the shock of change be too overwhelming? Questions like these from the people that know you will help you take the right steps toward achieving your look, such as possibly making a more gradual change.

4. Asses your work situation. Though at some jobs, chunky and funky blonde highlights are completely the norm, at others they are not. In fact, many corporate and office jobs prohibit any hair coloring that is not "natural" looking. Make sure you consult your dress code before hitting the bleach.

5. Find the right salon and stylist. You may have a stylist, but is he or she a color expert? If not, you may want to venture out to a different salon. This is because applying color is a very skilled job and those stylists with special and up-to-date training are more apt to give you the professional treatment and look you want and deserve.

6. Schedule a consult. Whether this is immediately before you begin coloring or weeks in advance, it is crucial that you set up a consultation appointment with the stylist that will be doing your highlights. Show them pictures, talk about the latest trends, and ask their advice and opinion on what you are going for and what is realistically going to be achieved.

7. Make your appointment and get those highlights. If you follow these steps, you are sure to leave the salon with a happy and healthy head of hair. You will love your new blonde highlights because you took the time and caution that such a process demands.