Balayage Ombre Technique

My go to technique is hand painted balayage. I love the softness, longevity, and sunkissed look it gives to the hair. Rarely do I do an open air Balayage because I feel like I can get more lift, no bleeding, and more control using foils.

During my consultation we discussed the following points:

- How the hair naturally is and how she likes to style her hair

- What were her main concerns?

- What areas of her hair have been giving her problems ( thickness, breakage, color, etc.)

- What is her end goal?

- How long does she want to go between colors?

The consultation is such a critical part of the appointment because it can make all the difference in how their hair turns out. A lot of times I find that people find a picture of hair that they love which is very helpful but I like to ask what draws them to that photo. Is it the haircut? The way the hair is styled? The dimension? The tone or color of the hair?

I have found that some people are drawn to one aspect of that photo and not necessarily the entire thing. Figuring this out can help you as a stylist better determine how to execute things and what to primarily focus on.

On her hair I first applied her root shade to retouch her regrowth. In the consultation I discovered that she liked more caramel tones. Personally I like having a neutral based root color or an ashy based root color. I want the color to provide depth. Warm colors can be beautiful but when it comes to the roots, I don't want any chance of them looking or reflecting brassy or yellowy.

Her root shade: 5na and 7n in Redken Gels with 10 vol. I added a bit of the 7n because I wanted to balance out the ash so that way it couldn't go green.

I then divided the hair into 3 sections, 1 back and 2 sides. I do the back as one full section because I want it to be 100% consistent. Using deep diagonal v sections I hand painted the surface and blended the lightener up to about an inch before the root shade ends.

I used Redken Flashlift with Bonder and 20 vol in the back section and 40 in the front sections.

Every other row I would saturate through the last 6-7 inches of the hair and blend up the underside. Doing this every other row will help create depth, dimension and keep it looking more natural. The first subsection in every section I leave the dimension underneath because those areas don't see as much sunlight so they naturally wouldn't get light.

It is very important to consider the way light will hit the hair. Keeping that in mind will help you create the most realistic natural sun-kissed look.

For my toner I used 8gi, 7nw and 7p in shades eq to create a cool caramel color.