Converting Harsh Lines into a Blended Balayage

As I went through her hair during the consultation, I noticed that there were lots of uneven foil lines, spotty patches and unblended spots. She wanted something that would be bright and light but still would allow her hair to grow out nicely.

I started off by applying a base color to blend out the lines. I applied it about 3 inches down to create the best blend. I used 7n, 6n, 7na, and a little tiny bit of 5c to fill in the spots that were blonde. Then throughout the rest of her hair I balayaged each section carefully to allow for the most even blend throughout her hair. It was kind of tricky seeing as some peices had definite straight lines and stripes and others were a perfect canvas. Around her face I took very thin and fine section to provide her with a powerful yet natural looking money piece. Whenever I am doing babylights around the face during a balayage I always use a very low volume developer because the hairs around the face or the hairline are more fragile and lighten quicker because each foil only has a small amount of hair in it. Typically I use 6-10 volume just depending on how dark their natural hair is.

Then after letting her hair process for about 20-30 minutes I rinsed and glossed her hair with a mixture of warm and cool tones because we wanted a slightly warmer result but nothing brassy of orange which is how her hair lightened. I used Redken Shades Eq 8gi, 9v, 9p and 8n. The gloss then processed for about 15 minutes.

With Redken Shades eq when using it as a gloss, always let it process for 10-20 minutes to achieve maximum evenness and softness. For the amount of minutes that the gloss sits on is how many washes it will last in the hair before it is gone. The gloss may look a little scary at first and you may want to hurry and wash it out but leave it on. It needs time to even out and soak in and if you rinse out before then then it may turn out different then you expected.

After the gloss I deep conditioned her hair to make everything feel happy and healthy. For this I like to use Pureology hydrate superfood, Redken all soft oil and Redken all soft conditioner. Let this sit on for about 5 minutes (you wouldn't really want it to sit on longer than that because you don't want it to mess up what the gloss did). Rinse and then dry and style.