What is the Difference Between a Balayage and Highlights?

Highlights hair and balayage are among the newest trends in hair color treatments nowadays. These hair color techniques are highlighting (for highlights hair) and sweeping (since balayage in French means “to sweep”) has joined the club of the latest hair beautification trends. But more difficult than knowing hair color linguistics is the ability to distinguish these two hottest techniques in hair coloring from one another. Behind their sun-kissed strands, balayage and highlights hair are true, a lot to process.

But fret not — your next salon appointment will surely make you ready to ask for these services like a celebrity. Today, we’ll become experts and tap on these lightening hair color techniques. We’ll attempt to answer all burning questions about these two summer hair color processes, their differences from one another, most especially how to determine which hair coloring treatment is proper for you. 

What are Highlights Hair?

Traditional highlights hair is a hair coloring process wherein sections of hair are woven, they are lightened, starting from the roots up until the ends, with some natural hair left in between these weaves. The use of particular techniques in sectioning ensures one’s hair is highlighted evenly, avoiding a streaky result by the end of the hair coloring process. These woven hair sections are usually folded, then are made into foils, keeping them divided from one another and isolated from the other hair.

Highlights hair traditionally involves the selection of hair strands that are woven out from a thin subsection of one’s hair. They are typically laid over foils, with some forms of lightener are applied in lightening the hair. That specific hair weave being lightened is called the highlight. This term means it will become lighter than the strands not woven into the foiled ones or are not included in the wrapped hair weaves.

Types

Although a general hair coloring term, highlights hair can still be divided into sub-categories that you can distinguish from each other. Here are the most common ones:

• Full Highlights

  – are not only strands of highlights hair that goes through the hair entirely, but a hair treatment process quite extensive. Full highlights are done for the whole head and consist of highlights in every section of the one’s head. This hair coloring process starts at the back of the neck, working the way up, all over, and each side until literally every inch of one’s hair is highlighted and covered. This application process allows brunettes to achieve blonde looks using lightening techniques to the hair and achieve that desirable, brighter look.

• Partial Highlights

  – involve applications only done in particular sections, generally applied around one’s facial area, which allows for a much brighter and more framing effect towards the face. This hair coloring process focuses on many hair locations, depending on the hair length and impact overall you are trying to achieve. Hairstylists assist you in making a plan personalized for your highlight goals, eventually allowing facial appearance improvements and only the best hair care goals possible.

• Lowlights

  – uses the same technique as highlights hair but paints through darker colors in creating dimensional and multi-tonal results. This highlights hair are usually added through numerous highlights for quite some time because over time, more hair portions are highlighted (lightened). The dimension created becomes lost by leaving woven prices of your natural color, but low lights re-create that lost dimension. Lowlights are essentially like highlights; however, it involves base color going darker or darker than the base in some cases when depth below the base color gets created. 

• Babylights

  – are mini highlights woven super finely, ensuring the right blend and melt into the base. Not created for many dramatic dimensions, Babylights is more a sparkled outcome. Best done combined with more contrasted and scenic highlights, running down the mid-shaft onto the ends. In essence, they are superfine highlights. The same weaving technique, then painting from root to tip with less hair taken into each foil, is employed. Smaller gaps are left between hair foils, ensuring a more subtle integration with one’s natural base color.

What is Balayage?

Balayage, quite different from highlights hair, is a popular coloring technique nowadays. It creates highlights using a sweeping motion. Also, it is a free-hand technique that provides a more natural look, ideal for anyone looking for a softer hair coloring style. Balayage is the perfect technique for those who want to create sun-kissed looks that appear effortless. One of the benefits of Balayage gives clients a better grow-out since the pieces did blend perfectly with one’s natural hair. If you’re looking for that softer look that seamlessly integrates with your natural tones, then a Balayage might indeed be the best for you.

Highlights VS Balayage: The Difference

Balayage is a hair coloring process that utilizes a much more visual technique than highlights hair that follows sectioning patterns. On the other hand, balayage lets the colorist personalize the placement of color on your hair – think hair contouring. With highlights, lighter pieces are strategically placed, complementing the best of your hair cut, your natural facial features, and skin tones. This process gives you a way more natural look and a much quicker treatment than traditional foiling. The main difference between balayage and foiled highlights is that they use foil itself – balayage involves the lack of foil or the wrap that packets the hair being lightened away; otherwise, it is foiled highlights.

Which of the two is better?

Picking the best hair coloring treatment for you depends, well, on you. It is a matter of taste and starting point. If you’re new to hair coloring and are looking for subtle highlights towards a break out from your usual silhouette, then balayage is the way to go. This hair treatment will create much more blended results. However, those with deeper natural hair colors BEWARE—red undertones resulting as the sun would produce the same. Meanwhile, foiled highlights hair can pass these red and orange zones more gracefully than balayage. Your colorist will have way more control over the tonal outcome of your hair using the traditional highlights.

Final Thoughts

May it is highlights hair or balayage, one thing needs to be done first – research. Know as much as you can about these two fantastic hair coloring techniques, and you’ll surely be amazed at the options you can have with either. Proper hair care and management is the key to achieving your most desired hair glow-up, may it be with balayage or highlights hair.

Excited to try either highlights hair or balayage yourself? Our great friends from Tabu Salon will care for all your hair coloring needs! Visit now. https://salontabuaz.com/