Color & Highlight Hair

Q: I wanted to know how I can highlight hair and color it at the same time, if it's possible.

A: It is possible to both highlight and color the hair at the same time, but only if you use a foiling technique which allows you to apply the highlight color to certain strands and the base color to the rest of the hair.

However, this process is usually very tricky and should be done by someone who is trained for best results. At the very least you would need a friend who can assist you as you would have a difficult time putting foils in the hair on your own.

You can see more about how to do foiling techniques in our article on the subject. In the demonstration, we show the application of two colors to already colored hair. The difference in your situation would be that you will be applying hair color to the hair that is not confined inside a foil either after all the foils are in place, or as you go.

I do not recommend using a bleaching agent to lighten the hair color and create highlights using this method, because, unless you are very practiced, it will take you longer to place your foils and base color than it will take for the bleach to overprocess your hair in the first foils placed. This means you can end up with slices of the hair that are badly damaged and could have others that are not lightened enough.

If you want to lighten the hair at all, use a hair color with a high-lift peroxide developer (around 40-volume peroxide should be sufficient). It also helps to create the proper effect if your base color application is a shade or two darker than your starting color.

©Hairfinder.com

See also:

How to color hair

The foil highlighting procedure

Can I color my hair and add highlights at the same time?

Is it possible to do coloring and highlighting in one single process?