Highlights and Blonding in Castro Valley

As hair colorists, we work within two main categories when it comes to hair color: depositing and lifting. This page is dedicated to lifting, which is all about highlighting your hair or going blonde...or blonder. Understanding the look you want will help us determine which technique to use.

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Foil Highlights

Foil highlights are great for adding lighter pieces to brighten up your overall look. Foil highlights are typically brighter because of the foils, which extend the developing time of the bleaching agent. Foil highlights may not be as trendy as the balayage technique, but if you want brightness, don't overlook the effectiveness of foils.

Dimensional Lived-in Blonde

Adding lowlights and keeping some base color at the roots create dimension in lighter hair. Dimension gives your color depth and richness instead of wearing a single, solid color. Dimensional blonde hair can also be created by adding a single process color to the roots after a highlight service, adding color just the the root area. This is referred to as a Root Melt. This look has a very easy grow in because the added color blurs the highlights at the top of head, which helps your roots blend in as new hair grows.

Summer Blonde Hair

summer sunkissed blonde

 

The summer sun brings a little blonde to everyone. Summer blonde is a blend of golden and warm tones, thanks to a kiss of brightness. 

Warm Blonde Hair

warm blonde smudge root balayage castro valley

Blonde hair is trending warmer as women are embracing more dimension in their hair color. Rather than icy, cool blondes, we have a lot of requests for golden, honey blondes. The classic California blonde, beachy and warm. So set aside the purple shampoo for a while, it's okay to let those golden hues show. Read more about blonde hair trends here. 

Babylights

Babylights are a foil highlight technique which adds a natural glow to blonde hair or a few hidden glimpses of color to darker shades. Babylights are achieved with a foil highlighting technique using a lot of foils around your head. In order to create a very natural look, we take finer slices of hair. The result is more delicate than a standard foil highlighting, designed to recreate the blonde hair of youth.

Teasylights

This foil highlighting technique mimics the look of balayage using foils as sections of hair are teased before lightener is applied. This concentrates lightener on the lengths of the hair, making a nice blend between base color and highlighted ends. Highlighting the hair from the mid length down allows your stylist to emulate the look of balayage using a traditional foil highlight process.

Balayage

Balayage is a French technique for hand painting of highlights. Foil highlights use a brush too, but this technique results in bolder yet subtle sweeping highlights for greater dimension. The results are more lived-in than foil highlights. Balayage is a casual technique that works well on hair that is worn with a waves or a tousled look. If you tend to wear your hair  straight, you may prefer a technique like teasylights or babylights where the highlighted pieces are finer. Learn more about our Balayage Services here.

Foilayage

Foilayage can mean a few different things, which is pretty impressive for a made up word. Just like it sounds, foilayage is a combination of balayage and foils. A foilayage highlight service can be a balayage with extra lifting time, thanks to the use of foils in between layers. Extra lifting time means lighter and brighter pieces and an overall blonder result vs no foils. But foilayage has another meaning - that of a faux balayage - so the term balayage dupe is becoming a thing.

Balayage Dupe

balayage dupe castro valley

Balayage Dupe is a foil highlight service which duplicates the subtle look of balayage.

Some women like the casual look of balayage but prefer finer highlights because they like to wear their hair straight, which can make highlights more noticeable. It's possible to create a balayage effect using traditional foils and combining techniques like teasylights, babylights and smudging. Don't get caught up in the lingo. Talk to the stylist about the end result you want, how noticeable you want your highlights to be, and they'll use the right technique or combination of techniques to create your look.

Root Tap, Root Melt

Sometimes you just don't feel blonde enough. When you want to feel as blonde as possible without going all-over blonde, the answer could be a root tap. We can apply a little bit of color that mimics your natural shade to the root area. This creates dimension right at the base and believe it or not, it will make your blonde pieces pop! When you don't feel blonde enough, it could be because you don't have enough contrast.  In a root melt, for those that want to emphasize the dimension and contrast, we'll use the same technique and apply a bit more of that base color to your roots.

Root Drop Hair Color

A root drop is about taking a very highlighted look and dialing it down a few notches. If you've been getting highlights placed up to the root, or tend to get a heavy highlight all over, consider changing things up with a drop root. Imagine taking your root color and dropping it down to create a dimensional base. A root drop creates a balayage or ombre look.

Ombre Hair

Ombre hair features colors that seem to fade into one another usually from darker roots to lighter ends, but the reverse is also possible.

Money Piece Highlights

The Money Piece Highlights add a bright chunky frame of blonde  - or even a vivid color - around the face. It's an easy way to freshen up your look without a lot of fuss. A great way to lift your complexion with a soft grow out phase.

Hair Color Correction

We specialize in complex color changes, extreme lifting, and hair color fixes. Removing unwanted hair color or fixing a bad color job almost always involve lightening and/or toning the hair in some fashion.

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Book an appointment at Studio W Salon in Castro Valley

Use our online booking system or call us 510-862-5525. Or you can send us an appointment request with a few suggested dates and times and we'll contact you with some options.

Balayage vs Foil Highlights

What's the difference between balayage and highlights?

Both are wildly popular, both use a brush. So what's the real difference between these two highlighting techniques? The main difference is the way the lightener is applied. The type of lightener itself is also slightly different. In a balayage, we may work in larger sections and selectively paint the hair as we examine how the light naturally hits it. In a foil highlight, we work in micro sections and apply lightener from root to tip. If you've tried both, you'll notice the shade of your highlights get a subtle, richer result with balayage. Highlights yield a brighter, more obvious result.

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