A personality trait or a sudden YOLO epiphany, hair colour and hair highlights are always great ways to bring about a fun change and keep things interesting. But if you do not choose the right products, colours, or professionals, this could also become a tough mistake to walk away from (hey, we are just looking out for you!). So, if you are going to get your hair done for the first time and have decided on the direction of the colour but are not sure about how highlights work and how you should go about them, here is our complete guide on hair highlights and some trends that dominated for us.
A Guide On Hair Highlights With Our Favourite Trends To Try This Year!
What Are Hair Highlights?
Hair Highlights basically means strategically lifting the colour or lightening a few sections of your hair to create a contrast. Hair stylist Brad Mondo describes highlights as the letter pieces that are put into your hair to add more dimension. They make the hair look more vibrant and healthy and attract more shine to it, making it appear more glossy and healthy. Your hair colour will look more professional and well done if you have highlights in it.
Different Kinds Of Hair Highlights
Balayage Or Full Saturation Hair Painting
This process involves taking both sides of the hair and saturating not only the surface but also the entire underneath of your hair. This type is loved for its graduated and natural-looking highlight effect. It'll last you long and won't look weird as your hair grows because of how it's done, creating a beautiful and fuller look that serves the most for your money.
Partial Hair Saturation Hair Painting
Imagine you have dark hair and you want to bring a little lightness to it, which would be best achieved with partial hair saturation highlights. This too, includes painting both sides but just the top, although this can be brought in more as per your preference. This is a very subtle highlight and perfect for adding beautiful dimension.
Babylights
Babylights are perfect if your goal is to add a lot of dimension to your hair. It's typically done with foils and makes use of extremely fine weaves (a method used to section out hair for colouring) in comparison to other highlighting techniques, giving you a super fine and blended look. The fine weaving results in a more subtle look that leaves no demarcation or line of where your hair has been highlighted. You can easily combine it with Balayage too, with baby highlights on top and full saturation at the bottom.
Sliced Highlights
Sliced highlights are just how it sounds; they involve highlighting slices of your hair, typically 1/8 inch thick. This method is the quickest and best if you want to add chunky highlights for high contrast and dimension. If you want a blowout effect, then ask for thinly sliced highlights.
Root Smudge Or Root Shadow
Root Smudge is a low-maintenance technique wherein a darker shade is applied to the roots of your hair, this shadow can typically be dropped down to anywhere from 1-2″. It can also easily be blended with other highlight styles like balayage.
Some Highlight Trends We Loved!
The Golden Hour Highlights
JLos Grammy's look in 2023 was much talked about, and her highlights became part of every fall mood board. Golden hour highlights look great on both blondes and brunettes; they give the hair significant dimension while keeping the look natural. If you also always gravitate towards warm tones, then golden hour highlights can give you a very sun-kissed look and is a perfect dark-to-light gradient. We love this one for Indian skin tones.
The Bitter Chocolate Glaze
Hailey Bieber's glazed doughnut journey continued through her hair colour as well. If you look closely, you can see that fine strands of her hair are lighter than the rest. It's super subtle but still gives her hair dimension and makes it look healthier and cohesive. We're in love with the colour too; bitter chocolate-glazed hair was a huge trend in 2023, and celebrities like Emma Chamberlin and Karlie Kloss also rocked the look on many red carpets.
Ash Brown Highlights
If you want to add cool tones to your hair via highlights, opting for Ash Brown highlights is a no-brainer. You will get an ash gold reflection from the highlights, which looks beautiful in the winter sun, and stylists often recommend it coupled with an orange toner for a more lifted effect.
Money Piece Highlights For Old Money Aesthetic
The old money aesthetic is going strong, and so 'rich girl glow up' with money highlights has become a trend that everyone has jumped on. This involves softer and more subtle blends of bright strands along the lines of your temples rather than highlighted strands that stick out from the top. They look sophisticated and more lived-in, and if you're looking to add softer highlights, then this trend is perfect for you. Plus, they stunningly frame the face.
Auburn Highlights
Red has been a popular choice of hair colour and highlights year after year. Auburn highlights essentially mean that you incorporate different yet similar red hues with copper tones preferred mainly by brunettes. Sophie Turner is rocking more of a chocolate cherry auburn, but you can go for many variations like Deep Auburn and Golden Auburn, according to your preference.
Chocolate Dipped Cherry Highlights
Priyanka Chopra's hair colour game is A-level, and we love these chocolate-dipped cherry highlights. From the looks of it, it's a balayage hair colour, which is subtle yet dramatic enough for a fresh look.
