BALAYAGE
Hair Colour
Balayage: Timeless Hair Colour
Healthy and lively looking hair has and will always remain in style. Balayage, being able to give that characteristic colour has remained popular among celebrities and normal people for so many years. But what is Balayage? It is a highlighting technique in which the dye is hand-painted in such a way as to create a steady and unbleached effect. It blends two different shades together seamlessly, melting one colour into the other, and gives a glorious natural look, which is why it has become such a popular technique.
Bellisimos Balayage
Why Balayage
Balayage, in French, literally means to sweep or sweeping, and this colouring technique was developed in the 1970s. This endless technique is creeping its way back into being one of the most popular hair colouring processes in salons today. It is particularly popular with celebrities and is a classic look for the red carpet. After spotting it on celebrities, there has been a rise in interest for the technique as people are wanting the look. It’s ability to completely tailor the colour effect that makes it such a popular colour choice.
In Balayage, swatches of hair are separated and hand painted against a backing board with a lightening agent. After painting, each swatch is covered in cellophane. It ensures a smooth, blended stroke of colour. It’s a great method if we want to refresh our colour but don’t want to go for a bold colour overhaul. There’s no stripy look like we can get with foil highlights; Balayage is a sure way to avoid that harsh contrast between colours.
Application
The colour application must begin from the ends of the hair where the saturation is the heaviest and it gradually becomes lighter as it travels towards the roots. Since the hair lightener is concentrated on the surface, the underside remains darker, which gives the hair a very unrefined and dimensional effect. Balayage may also be combined with traditional highlights and placed closer to the face and hairline for a radiant glow. As these highlights are less orderly placed, we end up with fatter, irregular, and random highlights, resulting in a more casual, beachy finish. The final look can be subtle or quite bold, depending on what we are looking for.
This technique resembles purely sun-kissed highlights throughout the hair with softer, less-noticeable regrowth. The primary idea being ‘less is more’ when creating a naturally blended, multi-coloured finish. Balayage imitates parts of our hair that would naturally lighten in the sun.
Hair Colour
Balayage hair colour is applied by hand rather than using the traditional foiling or cap highlighting techniques. Because it’s hand-painted, the colourist can choose the placements to best complement our haircut, skin and features so it looks really pure rather than actually coloured. It also allows for many variations and beautiful colour compositions. Several colours and shades may be combined by the stylists for a sparkling effect. The colour created can even be placed in a way to compliment or distract attention away from certain features on the face.
The depth of Balayage can range from a few small highlights that will only take a matter of minutes to complete, which is the perfect technique for a modern, busy woman. Or a triple application process that can take up to 3 hours. Though it can take quite a long time to do a multi-colour, layered Balayage compared to regular colour, the benefit of the application means we will be able to leave longer between our next colour appointments. Since the hair at the top is kept darker, the endurance of the colour and time period of which it will last is about 10 weeks before the hair needs to be re-dyed. No touch ups will needed between this. Balayage works on all textures. Balayage highlights are cost-effective, and it grows out gracefully meaning there is less maintenance.
What’s the Difference
Unlike other highlighting techniques, can be used in even the shortest pixie crop. Whether we have a short pixie cut or waist-length hair, whether it’s straight, curly or wavy, the colour will still work well and look admirable. It works excellently on both light and dark hair depending on how much lighter we want to go. Except it won’t cover our grey hair, it will only help blend it in to disguise it.
Once the Re-Bonding system has repaired our hair, we can maintain our hair colour investment with hair-colour-friendly, sulfate-free, natural-origin hair care products that gently bathe the hair, leaving our hair colour gleaming; extending colour vibrancy, and resulting in hair that’s elegant, conditioned, and soft to touch. It’s also a good idea to protect the hair from too much exposure to UV light; from chlorine or saltwater and from frequent, direct contact with hot tools—all of which can change our hue or cause premature fading.
Balayage History
Following are a few Balayage updates which reflects our modern lifestyles and the need to get things done quickly. The application time ranges from just 15-45 minutes.
The New Yorker
Done in just 15 minutes at the backwash. These are super speedy highlights that fit easily into our lunch hour. They touch the root and look offhand for the perfect pick-me-up.
The Rio
Think contouring for the hair, around the side and touching the root, it takes just 30 minutes.
The Londoner
Colour doesn’t touch the root – it’s a creative Balayage for a quiet, more lived-in look and takes 30 minutes.
The LA
For blondes who want to intensify the blond colour, super blonde pieces are added up in a combination of root touch around the face, and more lived in everywhere else. A ‘base break’ is used where the natural base is lifted to soften the natural colour and make it appear much blonder. This takes 45 minutes.
The California
It’s the perfect summer blonde – a much heavier incarnation of classic Balayage with a slightly lived-in root and much more of the hair is coloured.
It can also be made to suit any skin tone – anywhere from pale icier blondes, to golden shades can be used. It’s a gorgeous low-maintenance colour to take us through the entire summer as it’ll start out heavy and then grow out into a lived-in finish so the upkeep is completely dependent on the wearer.
Balayage or not to Balayage
Along with Balayage there are few more types of hair colouring techniques there are just as popular as Balayage. For example: Ombre, Babylights, Foilyage, Sombre, etc.
Here is a short description of each:
-Ombre: Comes from the French word “shadow”. It is the shift in colour of a lighter shade from a darker shade. Ombre is the striking, two-toned hair colour effect that is typically darker at the top and lighter on the bottom. Often the dark, top section is our natural hair colour shade and the bottom section is lightened with hair lightener. An Ombre hairstyle can also consist of any colour combination. For example, natural blonde, brown or red, or something usual like pink, blue, green or purple. It’s versatile, customisable and applicable for most long and medium hair lengths.
-Babylights: Are gentle highlights created using a very fine hair colour technique to mimic the exquisite, dimensional hair colour seen on children’s hair. The result is delicate yet beautiful. For Babylights, just a little bit of hair is used to create small separations between foils so the highlights blend with the base colour. It are low-maintenance. Since the highlights are so delicate, as the hair grows out the overall style looks softer, exquisite, and there is no heavy line of demarcation. It can be applied to any hair colour or hair type.
Foilyage: It is a hair-colour method that combines the subtle hair painting of Balayage with the colour-intensifying power of foils. Foilyage is a technique where the colour is painted on the hair. Each painted section is wrapped in foils, which amplifies the effect. However it creates highlights that seamlessly become more and more dynamic as they transition from the roots down the strands. The resulting effect is soft, lived-in-looking hair colour that’s beachy, but still polished. It is often used on clients with dark, wiry hair. Foilyage grows out beautifully, so it’s pretty low-maintenance.
Sombre: It’s the softer version of Ombre. The key to achieving ‘The Sombre’ is to use many colours. Taking the darker shade found at the roots and subtly weaving it through the lengths of the hair to eventually create less of an abrupt contrast from roots to ends. The appearance of dark roots is less harsh therefore colour is more seamlessly melted together. The Sombre style can work for anyone, and roots are kept natural for a low-maintenance appeal.
If you love looking sexy, with natural-looking hair colour. Balayage is the perfect choice! Balayage hair colour will bring nearly any hairstyle to life! Contact Bellisimos Hair to book your appointment.
BELLISIMOS + BALAYAGE
Be “Colourful” at your Bellisimos Hair Salon!