Balayage Vs Highlights: What is best for your hair?

Boolayage, Foilayage, Balayombre, Bala-What? With all the new buzzwords when it comes to the hottest hair coloring trends, it is easy to get confused about what to ask your stylist for. Highlighting is an umbrella term for hair coloring techniques like traditional highlights, baby lights, and balayage. All of these methods involve partial lightening of the hair using lighteners, but which one is best for your hair goals? In this blog post, I’m going to break down the differences between balayage and traditional highlighting techniques.

So what exactly is a balayage? Fun fact: balayage is not a look, but rather a technique! Balayage is a French word that means “to sweep.” In this hair color technique, highlights are hand-painted or “swept” on the surface of sections of hair. Lightener is usually painted on, starting midshaft and becoming denser as it moves down the section of hair to the ends. Because the color is swept onto the surface of the hair, the effect is a natural sun-kissed glow with multiple tones. Balayage is a freehand application without foils so it is natural-looking, and low maintenance—thanks to the blended root with no obvious line of demarcation. But it’s not a very bold hair change, it doesn’t create uniform root-to-tip color, and it may not be powerful enough to dramatically lighten darker hair. For guests who love the balayage feel but need extra lightening, your stylist can mimic the balayage technique with what is called a “Foilayage.” Technically, it is not a true balayage since there is the use of foils. However, this is the best option for guests who want as much lightening as possible while maintaining a low-maintenance look. Typically, guests with balayage can get away with up to six months without needing to get re-lightened! However, I recommend my guests to at least get a glaze every 8 weeks to keep their hair looking fresh.

Traditional highlights involve using foils and lightening from the roots to the ends of hair. Highlights also create a more pronounced contrast between the lightened strands and your base color. This technique also helps trap heat, which allows the bleach to lighten each strand

as evenly and as much as possible. Highlights can dramatically lift, brighten, and add dimension throughout all of your hair. It is effective on every hair color and there are more options tone-wise. Babylights are a highlighting technique that requires very thin, small sections and create a very blended result. Babylights are great for creating almost a shimmer of highlights throughout the hair. Highlights require more frequent touch-ups due to the more obvious line of demarcation. Typically, highlight clients are due for maintenance every 8 weeks to touch up their roots.

So the big takeaway? If your hair is dark and needs a lot of lightening to achieve your hair goal or you prefer a high-contrast color, opt for a more traditional highlighting service. If you just need subtle dimension in your hair and like low maintenance, a balayage would be your best fit.

With summer right around the corner, now is the best time to book a consultation with a Vivid Stylist to find the best lightening technique for you!

Stay Gorgeous,

Caroline