How to Highlight Already Colored Hair

One of the difficulties of having dyed hair is that it can be difficult to highlight. Simply put, the dye is already designed to be resilient and stay in your hair, which can prevent the highlighting product from working. Salons are able to do this, but they will charge a fee. If you want to highlight your hair yourself, and you already have dyed hair, you will first need to treat the areas you want to highlight to get the dye out.

Things You'll Need

• Color remover
• Bleach
• Color developer
• Hair lightener (optional)
• Highlighting dye

Instructions

1. Cut off a test strand. Find a section of your hair where you can cut off a strand without it being too visible or mussing your hairstyle.

2. Put the strand in bleach. To highlight already colored hair, you will need to bleach it first. However, you will want to find out how long your hair needs to be bleached for to get the dye out. Use a mixture of equal parts bleach and color developer and soak your test strand in this mixture. Check it every 5 minutes to get an idea of how resilient your hair color is.

3. Use color remover. Once you have done your test strand, take the areas you want to highlight and apply color remover. Wrap these areas in foil to avoid them coming into contact with the rest of your hair. Keep the color remover on as long as the product's directions recommend (usually at least a half hour).

4. Bleach the strands. After applying the color remover, bleach the strands (again, using your mixture of bleach and color developer) according to the time scale you determined using your test strand.

5. Apply hair lightener. This step should only be done if your hair still appears to be healthy, but adding an extra dose of hair lightener to the strands you want to highlight (again, in the tin foil) will also help.

6. Add the highlights to your hair. At this point, your hair should be well primed to be highlighted, so add the highlights according to the directions on the package.