Who hasn’t once even thought about dyeing their hair?
Ginger, brown, blonde, silver, ash gray– even purple, pink, and green. Name it, you can, and you must have thought about twisting your look with an entirely new hair color.
A lot of women view changing hair colors as a way to beautify themselves. Depending on our skin tone, face shape, and many other factors, changing hair colors can magnify our best features or magnify the worst. This is why you must have given it much thought before deciding to dye your hair.
Who am I kidding? Eight out of ten people reading this must’ve probably colored their hair on impulse, broke the salon dresser’s door open, and asked for a hair color while flipping through those hair dye swatches.
History of Hair Coloring
Where exactly did the idea of hair coloring start?
We can attribute the origins of hair coloring to the Egyptians during 1500 BC, where they would cover their gray hair with henna. Yes, perhaps gray hair was and is still a dilemma for old and modern men and women. Egyptians would use black to hide those gray hair, but they would also use plant extracts to diversify colors into blue, red, green, and gold.
In ancient times, plant extracts would be the primary source of hair color like henna, indigo dye, turmeric, red ochre, leeks, and many more.
Ancient Romans were, however, the first to create a permanent hair color, the jet black, and switched to less toxic formula made with fermented leeches for two months. They switched from lead oxide and calcium hydroxide formula to fermented leeches because the former was too toxic.
The early Roman Empire was then the first to introduce lighter hair colors because they wanted prostitutes’ hairs to be colored yellow to differentiate their profession.
In an unintended discovery by William Henry Perkin in the 1800s, he created the first synthesized dye with the color mauve.
Since then, hair color has evolved year over year to what we know today, with many hair color brands and styles coming and going year after year.
What is Balayage Hair?
Hair color styles have come and gone over the years, with at least one new popping out and taking the fashion industry by storm.
One of the hair color styles that came back last year was the face-framing streaks where color was applied in either one or two tones on both front sides of the face, making it look like the face is framed by bright hair color.
A few of the ever-popular and has never left the hair fashion scene since forever are balayage and highlights, among all the countless hair color styles the world has had.
While many may argue that balayage and highlights are the same, they are pretty different.
Highlights refer to a coloring style where a section of the hair is different or “highlighted” from the base. They are usually applied using aluminum foils to separate strands of hair where the highlight is needed from the original base color, creating the highlight effect.
Balayage, on the other hand, is a method of applying highlights where foil is not used. Rather than specific sections having different colors, balayage allows for a more natural and gradient-looking brightness from top to bottom. Balayage usually appears darker and deeper from the top then becomes lighter at the bottom.
Pros and Cons of Balayage Hair
There are numerous advantages and disadvantages to hair coloring but come forth as we focus on why balayage has taken the world by storm and why it’s sometimes not a good idea.
The benefits of balayage are universal, and it feels natural rather than conventional full hair colors. The gradient hair colors are custom-blended by professionals and carefully placed to make them look natural. Good balayage contours the features of the face well.
In addition, since the roots remain dark while it goes lighter as it goes down, this hair color isn’t very high maintenance. For women who don’t like to frequently visit hair salons, forgetting to touch up your roots will not be a problem since the hair roots will grow in a darker color.
A con of balayage hair? Bad news for people looking to color their hair to cover all the gray spots in the roots, but balayage won’t help with that.
How to Take Care of your Balayage Hair
Balayage hair appropriately done can be very, very gorgeous and contour and highlight your face features a great deal, so learning how to maintain them so that they look pretty and last a long time is a must.
Hair Washing
Washing your hair after a balayage is okay, but make sure to remember a few tweaks in your washing routine.
Don’t wash and rub too much. Doing so would increase the chances of the lighter hair color quickly fading.
Remember how to take care of your ombre balayage hair boils down to how much you wash. Wash at least two to three times a week, use a conditioner but don’t leave it on for more than 30 minutes to avoid brittle hair.
Use Shampoo Directed Explicitly for Colored Hair
One of the best ways on how to take care of your balayage hair is by feeding your hair shampoo and conditioner designed for colored hair.
Seek for balayage hair products that don’t have Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Ammonium Laury Sulfate as they can strip the hair of its color. Sulfate is found in most shampoos, so make sure the next shampoo you grab from the grocery store is a sulfate-free product.
Treat your Hair
Most significantly, for hair that’s been through tons of coloring, heat styling, and damage, giving them pampering once in a while is essential to keep them healthy.
This doesn’t mean that you need to go to the salon every week. You can do simple home hair treatments using materials or hair products that are readily available and easy to apply at home, like natural oils like almond or coconut oil.
You can also do a weekly hair mask or deep conditioning to ensure your hair color stays vibrant.
Visit your Salon for a Touch-Up
Balayage hair doesn’t require so frequent visits to the salon since even when your hair grows, your balayage will still look natural. There’s no need for a root touch-up either since the top half of the hair is on the darker side.
You can opt to visit your salon ocean every three to four months to freshen up the balayage, move them higher to the part where they were before the hair grew out, or add a few baby lights to touch up the hair.
Make sure that your hair is in good condition before a touch-up and that it is healthy and moisturized before your stylist rejects to touch up your hair because you’ve let them dry and damage after your first treatment.
