Babylights and Balayage - My Personal Fave

So remember when I talked about the definition of balayage meaning "to sweep", and that creates a soft effect by letting hair lift according to the lightener saturation? (If you haven't read it, you can find it in Ombre vs Balayage.) That works beautifully on people with naturally light hair, or people who don't have a lot of red in their hair. or for like the two people on planet Earth that don't mind seeing orange... For everyone else, the challenge with balayage was such:

*the lifting process is unpredictable, often leaving warmth (red/orange/or gold) in the hair

*heat from the head can cause lightener to bleed (aka get splotchy)

*balayage tends to have a 'chunkier' look

In order to solve these issues, the sweet birth of babylights occurred.

What are babylights? Glad you asked. They're a really FINE weave of hair, placed in a foil. The foil allows the stylist to control the amount of lift the hair achieves; therefore allowing it to get past the orange stage! Also, my definition of the word babylights refers to those naturally occuring, fine, BABY highlights you see in BABIES and children. So, I'm pretty sure the word babylights is a hybrid of the words "baby" and "highlights". (You know, kind of like 'Bennifer" or "Brangelina".) They also allow the stylist to place lighter pieces where they belong - because unlike balayage - foils lift pretty predictably.

But babylights by themselves can be fairly hard to notice. They work best when combined with balyayage. The babylight kind of breaks up the darkness of the root and helps transition the lightness to the ends. Its a great technique to use on blondes who want to lift past gold, or who feel like their hair looks dirty when its "rooty". It works for brunettes who hate to see red or orange in their hair (which is most of them). It works for redheads who want to add some blonde to their hair. And the balayage still brings the punch with its painted, sweeping effect. The combination of the two also provides balance of warm and cool tones in the hair - which is what happens in nature - which is what most of us want to achieve.

So that's basically why this combo is my fave. It looks natural, it grows out softly, and it balances warm and cool tones in the hair.Give it a try at your next appointment and let me know what you think.