Balayage, Ombre, Foilage… Oh My!

Knowing the difference between types of highlighting

You may have heard words for highlighted hair like, ombre, foilage and balayage highlights. These words sound fancy, but they’re just words describing techniques of highlighting hair. They all differ in appearance, maintenance, the amount of time spent in the salon, and cost. Each head varies based on what your hair goals are and the look your trying to achieve. Now for the breakdown of each type of highlights.

Traditional Highlights – Hair can either be pulled through a cap or placed in foils.

•    Pulled through a cap – A highlighting cap has perforated holes throughout the top, it fits snug on top of the head. Your stylist then uses a pick (that has a hook on one end), pierces the holes through the top of the cap and pulls hair through the cap. Just in case your wondering, no this does not hurt! Once all the desired hair is pulled through, bleach or hair color is then brushed onto the hair laying outside the cap.
•    Foiled – Sections of hair are all placed in foils, they are either weaved, sliced, super fine weaved a.k.a. baby-lights, etc. One end of the foil  up is against the scalp, a section of hair is placed on top of the foil. Then bleach in applied over the
  

  

   

  hair in the foils. A head can have a few to an entire head of foils depending on the desired look.

• Peekaboo –  Highlights or lowlights (darker color than your all over haircolor or highlighted  hair color) hidden underneath a layer of hair, unforeseen until there is hair movement. Since they are underneath the top layer of hair; as a benefit, you will not be able to see the new growth as the highlights grow out.

**Note:Your new hair growing out from the scalp is called new growth, you may see a prominent amount of new growth within 2-4 months. On average hair grows between 1/4 -1/2 inch a month. If you don’t want to see new growth, I recommend either trying peekaboo highlights or any of the style highlights listed below.

Balayage Highlights – Unlike traditional highlights, balayage highlights are feathered onto the hair. Placement is usually more shattered as it’s placed away from the scalp; opposed to streaks,  the highlights don’t appear to have any harsh lines going away from the scalp.

  Ombre – The highlight placement is on the ends of the hair.

Foilage – Foilage is a combination of foil and balayage highlights.

An important thing to know when changing your hair color is the maintenance aspect,  it can dictate what type of highlights you want, how often you go in the salon and how much you’ll spend. When hair grows out, depending on the amount of highlighting and where they are placed, you may see more new growth.  Now that you know the difference between highlighting styles, hopefully you feel more confident in which look suites your needs. Cheers to dimension!

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