What is Balayage hair? Our guide tells you everything you need to know
One of the freshest hair trends to hit salons over recent years, balayage is in essence a hair colouring and highlighting technique. The word comes from the French for to sweep or paint and is a technique that is used to create a lighter more blended colour, often blonde. While the technique has been around for a while it has been sweeping social media feeds all over the world and is one of the most popular hair salon styles now. Ready to find out more? Let’s dive in and answer common questions about the technique.
What is balayage?
Put simply it is a hair colouring technique that is focused on creating a natural looking lightening of the hair, think days spent out in the sunshine and the change to your natural hair colour that results. Balayage is a freehand hair dyeing technique that gives a very blended look without the harsh lines associated with traditional hair colouring.
Balayage is not a look, it is a technique that stylists use to colour hair. Balayage is used to give a natural looking lightening to your hair by colouring hair in patches and sticking to shades that are just a few lighter than your hair’s base colour. This helps the colouring to blend seamlessly with your natural hair creating patches of shade and lighter sections for an easy to maintain and stylish look.
How is balayage done?
Unlike traditional hair colouring techniques that use foil to precisely control the colour and ensure that your hair is evenly coated, balayage is a freehand colouring technique. Balayage doesn’t use foils and instead the stylist uses sweeping painting motions to colour the hair while using cotton strips to layer each section. During the process the stylist will pick which sections of hair to colour to create a natural looking and multi-dimensional colour.
Balayage is painted on the surface of the hair and not saturated through the hair until the ends to create a soft and blended effect. More colouring is normally applied around the face to help frame it and sections of hair are left completely uncoloured to create areas of shade and contrast.
How long does balayage take?
This pretty much all depends on the depth of colour and what you are having done. Every balayage is completely different and is based on the length of your hair, placement of colour, texture as well as styling of your hair. Balayage can be used to help highlight or soften facial features as well as accentuate features of your haircut.
Can you get balayage if you have highlights?
Yes, it is possible to transition from highlights to a balayage hairstyle, but it is best to give your hair time to grow out at the roots. If you do not wish to wait for your hair to grow out, then you can choose a colour that matches your natural hair colour as your base colour and then use the highlights as the base for the new colouring. To find out if this is a suitable option for you it’s best to book an appointment with a professional hair stylist such as the team here at Boombae in Manchester.
How long does a balayage last?
One of the main benefits of balayage is that it doesn’t require as much maintenance or as frequent appointments as traditional colouring techniques. Thanks to the blended finish you can leave longer between appointments while still enjoying great looking hair. Depending on your hair styling and hair cut you can leave up to four months between balayage appointments. The length of time between touch-up appointments is one of the biggest advantages of the balayage technique and why it has become so popular.
