DIY highlights

Go to Sally's Beauty store and pick a color for your back and in between the blond highlights. I chose a nice dark brown, and bought a bleach powder. The staff at Sally's will help you pick out everything you need. You will need color, bleach, hair foil, hair clips, a color brush and bowl AND gloves. The initial cost of the equipment will cost around $40, since I had foil, two bowl and brush it only cost me $15 for color and hair clips.

Step  1

Not shown is my dark brown hair color called my base color as it will be the primary color in my hair.

You will want to section your hair first, this can be difficult if you don't have a friend help, I used my husband and had him hold up a mirror so I could see the back of my head.

You will want to section it so you have a nice straight line from front to back, with the top of your hair pined up with clips.

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Step 2

Mix your color in the color bowl, ask the staff at Sally's how to mix it. Most colors are equal parts meaning, if you mix half the bottle of color then you will mix the same amount of developer. In the bowl with your color brush mix color until fully blended.

Now you will want to start applying the color, start at the top of your head and work your way to the ends, making sure that you coat the hair well.

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Step 3

Next I suggest you take some hair foil and clip it to the bottom half of your hair that you just colored. This helps so the top layers won't get colored.

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Step 4

Put the rest of the color aside for now and mix your bleach. I prefer the brands shown as I have dark hair and I want my highlights to be a lighter blonde. You will need to tear some foils in half for use. Again the Sally's staff will tell you how to mix this. The below video will help you understand the next step.

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In the above video, she uses a slice section, whereas I wanted more thin streaks, so I did a zig zag foil, see below video for technique.

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Step 5

After you wrap up doing your foils which you will do a little on the sides I did four foils on each side and however many it took to do the top, middle section.

You then will re-visit the darker hair color you put aside. Brush the color in between each foil, being careful to get the color close to the root of your head without touching any exposed blond pieces.

Don't I look pretty? Processing time for the blond will depend on you original hair color, by heating the foils up with a hair dryer will speed up the process. You can check the color of your bleach by peeking at your foils. Now if you have a very blond piece you may want to wipe the product off with a a damp rag. My foils take about 45-60 minutes to process. Once all the blond foils are the color you desire then pull ALL the foil out of your hair and wash your hair with shampoo and rinse until water is mostly clear.

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Don't be alarmed if your highlights don't show up well when your hair is wet. You need to blow dry your hair to see the actual color.

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This the end result of my experience. I know my DIY hair color isn't perfect, but I did all this for $15 verses $135 at a salon. Now I have to tell you this is a little lengthy process and slightly challenging. I wanted to try it, to see if I could do it and guess what? I did, and so can you.

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Thank You for visiting my first DIY posting, please feel free to leave questions or comments.

Jenniffer

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