Highlights vs Lowlights vs Babylights
If you want to have multiple tones running through your hair, then highlights, lowlights and babylights are for you! Your Houston hair stylist can introduce beautiful shades to your color, adding gorgeous lighter and darker tones to create a stunning finished look.
All too often, clients sit down in the chair, pull up a picture on Instagram, and ask you to transform their head into the image on the screen. They don’t really care how you do it, as long as they walk away looking and feeling beautiful.
But that can sometimes leave hairstylists at a bit of a loss. Exactly which technique should you use to achieve the best results? As a hairstylist, you need to be able to create a plan of attack even in those tricky situations. We are a professional hair salon in Houston, Texas and are masters of hair color. Looking for a balayage in Houston?
Highlights, Lowlights, Babylights in Houston
Three techniques that are often discussed together a lot, and which some customers (and newer stylists) sometimes get confused about, are: Highlights, babylights, and lowlights. Here, we discuss each of these techniques, explain how they’re different, and offer some guidance on when you can and should use each technique. Balayage vs Highlights
What Are Highlights in Hair?
Highlights is really an umbrella term that encompasses many different techniques, but it basically boils down to sectioning out pieces of hair and applying some type of lightener from root to tip to create dimension in the hair. Traditional highlights are usually created using foils, but other techniques like balayage use a freehand painting method to apply lightener instead.
Using a traditional foiling method, a hairstylist will section off the hair, apply the product, and then wrap the hair in foil for processing. Using foil allows the lightener to penetrate deeper into your tresses by conducting heat better than plastic film or open-air processing. Keep in mind that foils can sometimes lead to a harsh line of demarcation, so you may also need to perform a color melt or root smudge to soften the look.
Unlike traditional highlights, balayage does not involve foils. The technique involves painting the lightener directly onto sections of hair, leaving the client with gorgeous, blended highlights. Due to its simplicity and stunning results, balayage is one of the most popular highlighting methods being used right now. Similarly, foilyage blurs the lines between balayage and traditional highlights by merging the two techniques.
If your client wants to add high-impact dimension to their hair, highlights are the way to go. The technique you choose to pull off their look will depend on exactly what they are looking for, so be sure to ask the right questions to guide your decision on which technique to use.
When Should I Ask For Highlights?
When you want to brighten your color or add dimension and movement to your base color. So come on down to our Houston hair salon for professional highlights.
Highlights Tailored To You in Houston
At our Houston hair salon we offer professional color services that are customized to suit your personal style. There’s no “one color suits all” approach at Lush Hair Folk! We like to celebrate the differences in every hair type, texture, and hue. Plus, our hairstylists love seeing what inspires our clients. Whether you have a specific image in mind for your highlights or you’d like some guidance finding the perfect look, we’re here to help from foil to finish.
Chunky highlights are always in fashion, with tight spacing between sections to achieve a vintage 90s revival aesthetic that’s a great complement to a pair of acid wash jeans. If a softer tone is more your hair color vision, then babylights are a favorite option. We can create wispy strands throughout your hair that flow naturally with depth and movement. There are many different placement and spacing choices for edgy chic or a more blended highlight, depending on your hair preferences.
The brightness level can also be tailored to bold, shocking platinum or a sultry evening hue with lowlights. No matter your highlight hue, you’re sure to leave feeling a little lighter and a little more like the sunny goddess you were born to be.
Are highlights Low Maintenance?
Guests love to change their hair color, but sometimes don’t realize what the maintenance of doing so is. Highlights can be low maintenance or high maintenance depending on where the guest is starting with their hair and what they are trying to achieve. The further away you go from your natural hair color, the more often you will need to be in to get your highlights touched up. Hair grows at an average rate of 1 inch per month which is why we recommend our Houston girls come back in 6-8 weeks after their appointment to get their highlights redone. For those that color their hair a lot lighter than their natural color, when the natural grows out, it will be more noticeable against their bright highlights. For this reason, our Houston clients would require more maintenance and we would recommend they come in to our Houston salon more of the 6 week range. Many people worry about the health of their hair when getting it lightened. The term bleach scares guests with visions of hair breaking off. By using proper products on your hair like color safe shampoo, deep conditioner and a heat protectant, you can maintain a light look without worrying about damaging the integrity of your hair.
What Is The Difference Between Lowlights and Highlights?
While highlights lighten up the hair, lowlights essentially darken the hair. Creating a lowlight is picking up pieces of hair and darkening them. A lowlight can be as dark or darker than the base color. Depending on the desired look, lowlights can be applied in foils just like highlights or can be applied outside of foils open air in between foils with highlights. If someone wants to add a little bit of dimension to their already highlighted hair, lowlights will do this. Visually, a bright highlight will pop more when next to a lowlight. Our Houston hstylists are highly trained in professional foiling techniques. We are able to create the most natural and blended looking highlights and lowlights with beautifully placed foils.
Can You Get Highlights With Hair Extensions?
Yes! On your root hair growth, you can easily get highlights and color touch-ups. This isn’t a problem and won’t affect your hair extensions. It’s also possible to do an all-over color process that includes your extensions as long as you stay within the same shade range or go darker.
What Are Babylights?
Babylights are another subset of the highlighting technique. Just like traditional foil highlights, babylights are used to create dimension in the hair by lightening small sections of hair. The difference, though, lies in the amount of hair in each section, and the separation between sections. By coloring only micro-strands of hair, the babylights technique results in subtle, naturally sunkissed looking hair.
Babylights are versatile and can work on many clients with various hair types. For example, these superfine highlights are great for clients with thin hair, since they add dimension without overpowering the hair with larger traditional highlights.
Although there are some cases in which they are great on their own, there are also instances when stylists will choose to use babylights in combination with other coloring techniques to round off the look. For example, Babylights can be a great addition to a normal balayage service when used to create more subtle highlights to the part and hairline.
When Should I Ask For Babylights?
When you want a low-maintenance, natural looking color. Come on down to our Houston hair salon for professional babylights.
What Are Lowlights?
Lowlights use a similar technique to highlights, but with the opposite results: Instead of using a lightening product, a dye that is darker than the base color of the hair is applied to sections throughout the head, resulting in deeper tones that provide depth to the overall look. It is important to remember that there is no lightener or lift process when creating lowlights.
There are many scenarios when you might want to use this technique. Lowlights work wonders when it comes to giving the illusion that hair is thicker and more voluminous, so it can look particularly good on clients with fine hair.
In addition, they can work well on clients who are looking to add depth and dimension to naturally light hair without adding more highlights and risking subsequent damage from bleach.
If your client is looking to go a few shades darker with her hair color but doesn’t want to sacrifice any dimension, applying lowlights is an option that allows you to deepen the look without doing an all over color that can appear flat or boring.
When Should I Ask For Lowlights?
When you want to add a perception of depth, contrast and texture to your color, or if your hair is feeling too light. Add lowlights at our Houston hair salon, Lush Hair Folk.
Houston Hair Color Salon
Highlights work well with a variety of hair colors from light blonde to brunette. Our friendly Houston hairstylists will help identify the degree of lightener needed to bring out the best highlight effect.
Super light blondes can rock almost any highlight option, including lowlights. Ash blonde, medium beige, and warm caramel tones are among the most popular choices for naturally light hair, too. If you’re looking for a unique option, then auburn and strawberry blonde highlights blend well with lighter blonde tones to create the illusion of a natural red tint.
For light to medium brown hair, highlights are a fabulous way to bring out fullness and volume. Weaving in smaller strands of blonde throughout, with most of the highlights gracing the lower section of your hair, creates a healthy, shimmering result that’s rich with dimension and shine. Think soft curls and sundresses!
Even deep, chocolate brown hair can embrace the highlight trend by going just a few shades lighter. Think mocha, mahogany, walnut, caramel, deep auburn, and more! There’s a myriad of amazing color options for brunette hair when it comes to stunning highlights. Our Houston hairstylists love identifying each client’s best shade and taking you through every step of the highlight journey.
Looking to give your hair a little extra TLC before lightening it up? A frizz-fighting Olaplex treatment can be added to any color surface to enhance smoothness and shine. A Brazilian blowout to cut down “get ready time.” So book your highlight appointment today with our amazing team of glamorous hair hairstylists!