Balayage is a sought-after hair coloring technique renowned for its ability to create soft, natural-looking highlights that blend effortlessly into the base hair color, mimicking the sun's natural lightening effect. It's a customizable, versatile technique that's suitable for all hair lengths, colors, and types. But what exactly goes into achieving the flawless, gradient effect of balayage? Mastering flawless highlights isn’t all in the product you choose and your painting technique. To get perfect blending, you need to know how to section your client’s hair correctly, too.
Before diving into the how-to, let’s take a quick look back at where balayage began. The method aimed to create softer, more natural-looking highlights that easily blend into the base hair color, mimicking the natural lightening effect of the sun.
Balayage is an art form, requiring a keen eye for color, understanding of hair structure, and precision in application. The technique involves painting color onto the hair in sweeping motions, starting from the mid-lengths and moving towards the ends. The key is to apply the color more heavily at the ends, creating a seamless, natural-looking gradient. Unlike traditional highlights, balayage does not use foil to saturate the strands.
How you section hair for highlights can mean the difference between bold, blocky bands and soft, seamless ribbons, with the latter - naturally - being the end goal for you and your client. However, there’s no single rule for highlights or balayage sectioning. Different techniques offer different results, enabling you to unlock a host of looks to complement your client’s hair. Do they need volume? Dimension? A radiance boost? Whatever they hope to achieve with their highlights, we’ve got all the sectioning tips you need. You’re sectioning off pieces of hair before applying the pre-lightener, with the width, depth, angle and placement of the section impacting the finished look. For example, you might ‘zig-zag’ your client’s parting to create a sectioning pattern. This switch from horizontal or vertical highlighting gives you a quick transition that’s soft and diffused. You might also opt for fine weaves that are placed around 1 cm apart. This makes their color subtler still - all thanks to the clever way you’ve sectioned their hair.
Not sure what sectioning pattern to use for your client’s highlights or balayage? You’ll see a flawless example above. This trick of the eye coaxes the gaze downwards, seemingly adding a few more centimetres. You’ll see a demo above, where vertical sectioning has been used through the front and sides.
Read also: Balayage Technique
After dividing and clipping layers up, take forward diagonal sections of hair and paint (as above). By ‘forward’, we mean the hair is slanting away from the face rather than toward it.
If your client tends to wear their hair loose and wants their highlights or balayage to appear bold, opt for backward diagonal sectioning by holding hair diagonally toward your client’s face (as above). This reveals simple-to-paint sections that require minimal foils to reach maximum effect. Once the parting has been evened back out, your client’s lengths will be lifted from layer to layer, giving their color extra depth, as seen above. This trick is a major clock-saver.
Confused about the difference between slices and weaves? First, let’s talk slices (above, left): these are full sections of hair, which are colored or lightened completely for a bolder end result. Weaves (above, right), on the other hand, see woven strands - often separated with a pintail comb - painted in a fine or wide section for a more diffused effect. Slices are commonly used for highlighting curly hair or painting balayage, while weaves are perfect for babylights and subtle highlights with a natural-looking finish.
How you space out your weaves and slices affects the overall look and feel of your client’s highlights. Less spacing keeps them tight and natural-looking, while more spacing helps to build dimension - especially with chunky highlights You can space them anywhere between ¼ of a centimetre to 1 centimetre. Talk to your client about how intense they want the finished effect to be, then place their highlights or balayage accordingly.
Pro tip: By opting for less spacing between the foils around the hairline, you can mimic the sun's way of naturally lightening the hair.
Read also: Clip-In Balayage Styles
Weaves can vary in terms of their width and sizing, too. Choose from fine, medium and large, or mix up all three with slices to veil locks in blended, bespoke highlights.
We can’t talk about highlights without talking about pre-lightener. Every product in the Blondor portfolio will work for weaves, slices and every sectioning pattern we’ve described. However, some are better suited to certain coloring techniques, whether you’re sweeping on balayage, precisely painting highlights or mixing up a money-piece.
With these lighteners, the correct sectioning pattern, and the right mix of weaves and slices, you’re on your way to creating your dreamiest highlighting looks yet.
Balayage’s beauty lies in its versatility. Techniques such as “foilyage” combine the traditional foils with balayage for brighter, more pronounced highlights. Regular trims, minimal heat styling, and the use of UV protection hair products can go a long way in maintaining your balayage’s brilliance.
Read also: Money Piece Highlights with Balayage
tags: #balayage #sectioning #techniques
