How to Avoid Leopard Spots From Hair Highlights

Highlights are known as an off-the-scalp procedure. Spots appear when the color from the highlights seeps through your highlighting cap or out of your foils and onto the scalp. The color then expands and lightens while your highlights are processing. When you shampoo the highlights out, you have unwanted spots on the roots. Although this looks unpleasant, it's easy to fix.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Gloves
• Tint bowl
• Tint brush
• Hair color

1. Purchase a deposit-only color similar to your natural color or the color of your base. Pick a color with a natural or a natural-gold underlying pigment.

2. Put on gloves to prevent the color from staining.

3. Mix color and developer together following the manufacturer's directions.

4. Using the skinny end of the tint brush, locate the spots you're going to cover.

5. Apply the color to the base of your hair where the spots appear, starting with less color on the brush so you can control where it goes. Add more as needed to cover the spots well.

6. Feather some color lightly over pieces of the midshaft and ends to blend, giving the hair dimension and making the color look better in case it doesn't match perfectly.

Tips & Warnings

• Be careful and clean when you apply the color so that you don't cover up the desired highlights.
• Shampoo quickly and rinse. The color can tone your highlights darker than desired if color mixed with shampoo is left in your hair (and on the highlights) too long.
• Don't mush the hair together when it's processing, or you'll cover up your highlights or create unwanted dark spots on them.