Achieve Salon-Worthy Balayage at Home: A Comprehensive Guide

Balayage highlights offer a sun-kissed, low-maintenance, and multidimensional look. This makes them a popular choice for those seeking a DIY hair color option. While achieving the DIY balayage look at home may seem more complex than using a single-color box dye, with the right tools and techniques, you can achieve gorgeous, natural-looking highlights without the salon price tag.

Understanding Balayage

In French, the word "balayage" means "to sweep." Balayage is a freehand highlighting technique where color is strategically hand-painted onto the hair for a more natural and blended look. Unlike traditional highlighting methods that use foils or caps, balayage allows for a completely custom color application. The highlights softly flow with your hair, seamlessly blending from the mid-lengths to the ends, adding subtle depth and dimension. Since the nature of Balayage is achieving naturally blended highlights, the process results in a more natural-looking grow out.

Is Balayage Right for You?

The hand-painted technique means that balayage highlights will look different on everyone. Those with dark brown or black hair may require multiple rounds of bleaching to achieve icy blonde balayage. For darker hair, caramel or auburn balayage can be a good starting point. Balayage hair works best on all lengths, but you can achieve more dimension on medium and long hair. A partial balayage frames the face with a lighter shade painted on pieces flanking the head or just the top layer.

Choosing the Right Products

For those looking to DIY, an at-home balayage kit can provide perfectly blended highlights. The L’Oréal Paris Superior Preference Balayage At-Home Highlighting Kit includes an Expert Touch Applicator with a comfortable grip for seamless application, allowing precise, blended color that mimics a professional colorist’s hand-painted highlights. The Preference Balayage Light Blonde to Dark Blonde and Dark Blonde to Light Brown options both include a 30-volume developer.

When selecting a balayage shade, consider your base color and choose a shade that's 2 to 3 levels lighter. For hair outside the dark blonde to dark brown scope, consider Olia Highlights for Blondes on lighter shades or Olia Highlights for Brunettes on darker shades. For very dark brown or black hair, explore the three Caramelo Blondes.

Read also: Balayage Technique

For those who want to use professional products, here is what is recommended:

• Wella Blondor Multi Blonde Powder Lightener
• Olaplex (Olaplex Traveling Stylist Kit for All Hair Types Kit)
• 30 Volume Creme Developer
• Redken Redken Shades EQ 09V Platinum Ice
• Redken Shades EQ Gloss Processing Solution 33.8 Oz (1000 ml)

Step-by-Step Guide to DIY Balayage

Before you begin, ensure your hair is a bit dirty - second or third-day hair is ideal. If your current hair color is uneven, faded, or needs gray coverage, apply an all-over base color one or two weeks before applying balayage hair color.

Here's a step-by-step guide to achieving balayage at home:

1. Prepare Your Hair: Part your hair evenly down the middle with a wide-tooth comb, creating two even sections like pigtails. Pull your hair to the front, leaving one section on each side of your face.
2. Mix the Color: Put on gloves to protect your hands. Add the entire packet of bleaching powder to the developer cream. Shake the bottle to evenly mix the powder. Then, add the entire tube of the lightening cream to the developer cream. Shake the bottle again until all three products have absorbed together, creating one thick cream.
3. Apply the Color: With gloves on, slide the Expert Touch Applicator onto your middle and ring fingers. Section off a quarter-inch piece of hair at the back of your head. Use the applicator to apply the color to the quarter-inch section of hair from a few inches past the roots to the ends. Use your fingers to lightly massage the color into the hair so it’s evenly distributed.
4. Process the Color: Once you’ve applied the color all over your hair, let it process for 25-45 minutes, depending on your desired balayage results.
5. Rinse and Condition: After the processing time, rinse and shampoo your hair with lukewarm water until the water runs clear. Massage the included mask onto your scalp for 30 seconds to lather the product, then evenly distribute it through the rest of your hair.
6. Style Your Hair: Once you rinse your hair, style your new DIY balayage highlights as usual.

Alternative Method Using Professional Products

1. Pull your first layer of hair forward in front of your shoulders and select your 1st section. Vary your section width but remember to keep the height of your layers thin, if they are too thick the lightener will not penetrate and leave a splotchy look.
2. Start by backcombing that section quite a bit. Next, decide how high you want your balayage and start applying. You don’t want to have very much bleach on your brush, start with a small amount and add more if you feel you need it.
3. Use different shapes when doing your own hair, you can use one or all of them.
4. Once you have saturated your section, wrap it in a piece of plastic wrap. Make sure not to squeeze it, just pat it on to the section. You can also use a sandwich method and use two pieces of wrap to sandwich the hair. I like to keep the saturated ends more tight under the wrap so no air penetrates it while I leave the top more exposed. I do this to again help with the fade and blending.
5. As you continue working, check on your oldest sections as to how they are processing. If you see a spot you need to fix, open it and add more bleach. Or if is as light as you want, pull off your wrap and let it dry out. You can also spray it with water to stop the processing. Remember that you may not get as light as you want the first time, so if it looks like it isn’t processing anymore, pull it out to prevent damage to your hair.
6. Wring out your hair so it is just damp then mix your toner. Mix the whole 2oz of Redken 9V with 2oz Processing Solution. Mix this in a color bowl or application bottle and apply to all the lightened areas. Remember to really saturate! If you want to use the same toner, your hair needs to be very very light! Don’t get freaked out when your hair turns a bit silvery, mine was straight lavender.
7. Keep your toner on for 20 min and then rinse and thoroughly towel dry. Next, add a generous amount of Olaplex No. 2 from roots to ends and comb through. Leave this on for a minimum of 10-20min you can let that baby soak in longer if you have previously damaged hair.

Tips for Maintaining Your Balayage

DIY balayage is lower maintenance than traditional highlights because it doesn’t go to the root. Still, proper hair care is essential to keep your highlights shiny and healthy.

• Limit Washing: When you have color-treated hair, limit washing to 2-3 times a week and avoid harsh products.
• Use Sulfate-Free Products: Stylists recommend using a sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner like the L’Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate Free Bond Repair Shampoo with Citric Acid and the L’Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate Free Bond Repair Conditioner with Citric Acid.
• Protect from Heat: Frequent heat styling can damage your strands and make your color fade more rapidly. If you need to blow-dry, curl, or flat iron your hair, use a high-quality heat protectant like the L’Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate-Free Blow Dry Primer.
• Use Toner: Toner is used to add or neutralize pigment so if your not liking the color now (gold, warm, brassy), hold your breath! This toner will take away any brassy yellow pigments by adding violet pigments.
• Use Purple Shampoo: If you want to keep that ashy blonde, get yourself some purple shampoo! The rich purple color will cancel out any brassy tones.This works similarly to a toner just not as powerful! Perfect to keep up that color without the whole toning process!
• Use Leave-In Conditioner: Use a leave in conditioner every single time you wash your hair! That’s where you can continue to use Olaplex No. 3 or also Revlon Uniqone Coconut.
• Hair Oil: Use hair oil. My favorite oil to use is Aloxxi Style Essential 7 Restorative Hair Serum. A cheaper alternative would also be a Moroccan oil or Argan oil!

Expected Longevity

DIY balayage hair typically lasts 3 to 4 months, longer than foil highlights because regrowth is less noticeable.

Read also: Clip-In Balayage Styles

Read also: Sun-Kissed Curly Hair

tags: #balayage #technique #at #home #kit

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