Hair Highlights: Everything You Need to Know
- Jul 17, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 29
Are you considering adding some dimension and depth to your hair? Highlights are one of the most effective ways to do just that. Done well, they enhance your natural color, create that sun-kissed glow, and make hair look fuller and more dynamic. Done poorly, they can look stripy, damage your strands, and turn brassy within weeks.
At Belt Salon, our Aveda-certified colorists place highlights every day — and we’ve learned exactly what makes the difference between highlights that look incredible and highlights that don’t. In this guide, we’ll walk you through every major type of highlight, current trends, how to maintain them at home, and the questions we hear most often from clients.
What Are Hair Highlights, Exactly?
Highlights are strands of hair lifted lighter than your base color to add brightness, depth, and movement. The magic isn’t just in the lightness — it’s in the contrast between light and base, which is what creates the illusion of thicker, more dimensional hair.
The technique, placement, and lift level all matter. A skilled colorist will tailor each element to your face shape, skin tone, lifestyle, and how much maintenance you realistically want to do.
Types of Hair Highlights
Balayage
Balayage is a French hand-painted technique that creates soft, natural-looking dimension with a gradual transition from darker roots to lighter ends. Because there’s no harsh regrowth line, balayage is one of the lowest-maintenance highlight services — clients typically stretch appointments to every 3–4 months.
Best for: anyone who wants a sun-kissed, effortless look and doesn’t want to sit in the chair every 6 weeks.
Foil Highlights (Traditional Highlights)
The classic technique — sections of hair are separated, painted with lightener, and wrapped in foil to maximize lift. Foils produce the brightest, most saturated highlights and give colorists the most precision. If you want bold contrast or are going significantly lighter than your natural color, foils are usually the way there.
Best for: clients who want strong, defined brightness or need serious lift from a darker base.
Babylights are ultra-fine, delicate highlights designed to mimic the sun-kissed strands children naturally have. Because the pieces are so small, babylights blend seamlessly into your base color and grow out softly. They’re often combined with other techniques for a multidimensional finish.
Best for: clients who want subtle, expensive-looking brightness without a bold commitment.
Partial vs. Full Highlights
A partial highlight covers the top of the head and the hair that frames your face — the pieces most visible when you style. A full highlight covers the entire head, including underneath. Partials are a great way to refresh your look for less; fulls give you head-to-toe brightness.
Lowlights
Lowlights go darker, not lighter. They add depth and contrast to hair that’s been over-lightened or is naturally lacking dimension. We often combine them with highlights for a richer, more multidimensional result, especially for clients transitioning out of heavy blonde.
Foilayage combines balayage’s painted placement with foils’ processing power. The hand-painted effect gives you that soft, lived-in look, while the foils trap heat to create a brighter finish than traditional balayage alone. It’s the go-to for clients who want both natural placement and serious lift.
Money Piece
The money piece is a bold, face-framing highlight designed to brighten the complexion and draw the eye to the face. It can be added to almost any other highlight service and has stayed strong through multiple trend cycles because it genuinely flatters.
Teasylights combine backcombing and foils to create the softest possible transition between highlighted and natural hair. The backcombing stops the lightener short of the root for a seamless, diffused effect. Popular with clients who want bright dimension without a visible regrowth line.
Highlight Trends in 2026
Color trends this year are leaning soft, expensive, and low-maintenance. The throwline in everything we’re seeing: dimension that looks inherited, not applied.
Expensive Brunette
Rich, multidimensional brown with subtle warm highlights woven through. Not blonde, not plain brunette — more like brunette with the lights on. Works on almost every skin tone and grows out beautifully.
Lived-In Blonde
Shadowed roots, soft mid-lengths, and bright ends — an evolution of balayage that emphasizes the transition and accepts regrowth as part of the look. Low-maintenance, high-impact.
Strawberry Blonde & Copper Highlights
Warm tones have made a major comeback. Copper highlights and strawberry blonde dimension add dimension and flatter warm skin tones especially well.
Cowboy Copper
A rich, saturated copper with just enough dimension to keep it from looking flat. Often delivered with a mix of foils and balayage to layer the color authentically.
Bronde
The perfect middle ground between blonde and brunette — still going strong because it’s universally flattering and grows out without a harsh line.
Contrast Highlights & Chunky Pieces
A deliberate nod to the early 2000s — thicker, more visible highlight pieces, often in bold contrast to the base. Used sparingly and placed strategically, they feel fresh and modern.
How to Maintain Your Highlights at Home
Great color only stays great if you take care of it at home. The single biggest reason highlights go brassy, dull, or damaged is the shampoo clients use between appointments.
Use a Color-Safe, Sulfate-Free Shampoo
Sulfates strip color. Drugstore shampoos with sulfates can undo your highlights in as few as 4–6 washes. Aveda’s Color Control line is specifically formulated to protect color for up to 8 weeks — the shampoo is sulfate-free, silicone-free, and contains neutralizing molecules that help shield your color from fade.
Shop Color Control Light Shampoo (fine to medium hair)
Shop Color Control Rich Shampoo(medium to thick hair)
Tone Blonde Highlights with Purple Shampoo
If your highlights are in the blonde family, brassiness is your enemy. A purple toning shampoo counteracts yellow and orange tones to keep blonde cool and fresh between salon visits. Aveda’s Blonde Revival Purple Toning Shampoo has 8x the toning pigments of standard purple shampoos and can be left on for up to 3 minutes depending on how much neutralizing your hair needs.
Repair and Protect with a Weekly Treatment
Lightening is chemically stressful on hair. A weekly strengthening treatment keeps highlighted strands from getting brittle. Aveda’s Botanical Repair™ Strengthening Masque uses plant-derived bond-building technology to repair damage and is one of the most-reached-for products in our back bar.
Protect from Heat and UV
Sun exposure and heat styling both accelerate color fade. Always use a heat protectant before blow-drying or using hot tools, and be mindful during Florida summers — UV rays are brutal on highlighted hair. A leave-in with UV protection goes a long way.
Stretch Your Appointments Strategically
Balayage and babylights are designed to grow out softly — you can often go 3–4 months between services. Traditional foils typically need a refresh every 6–8 weeks. Glaze and toner services in between can extend the life of your color for half the cost of a full highlight.
Choosing the Right Highlight for Your Hair
The right highlight depends on several factors: your natural hair color, your skin tone, the condition of your hair, how much maintenance you want to commit to, and what kind of statement you want the color to make.
Rather than guessing, we always recommend a consultation. Our Aveda-certified colorists will look at your hair in natural light, talk through your lifestyle, and build a custom plan that works for you — not a cookie-cutter color.
• Balayage in Bradenton — for soft, low-maintenance, sun-kissed dimension.
•Highlights in Bradenton— for classic foil highlights, partials, babylights, and more.
•Blonding services in Bradenton— for major transformations and platinum work.
•Hair color in Bradenton— for all-over color, lowlights, and color corrections.
•Aveda salon services in the Lakewood Ranch area— full Aveda color menu close to home.
FAQ
How long do highlights last?
It depends on the technique. Balayage and babylights typically last 3–4 months before needing a refresh, while traditional foil highlights usually need a touch-up every 6–8 weeks. A gloss or toner service in between can extend the life of any highlight by 4–6 weeks.
Are highlights damaging to hair?
Any lightening process involves some chemical change to the hair, but a skilled colorist minimizes damage by choosing the right lift level, using bond-protecting additives in the lightener, and recommending the right home care. Well-cared-for highlighted hair can look and feel healthy for years.
How much do highlights cost at Belt Salon?
Pricing depends on the technique, the length and density of your hair, and whether you’re doing a partial or full service. We recommend a free consultation so we can give you an accurate quote tailored to your hair.
What’s the difference between balayage and traditional highlights?
Balayage is hand-painted with no foils, creating a soft, natural-looking gradient with a grown-out finish. Traditional highlights use foils to process sections to a brighter, more saturated lift. Balayage is lower maintenance; traditional foils give more dramatic contrast.
Can I go from dark brown to blonde in one session?
Usually not in a single appointment — big transformations require multiple sessions to protect the integrity of your hair. We’ll always prioritize hair health over a dramatic before-and-after in a single day. Consultation first is key for major changes.
How do I keep my blonde highlights from turning brassy?
Three things: use a sulfate-free, color-safe shampoo; add a purple toning shampoo to your routine once or twice a week; and book a gloss or toner service between highlight appointments to refresh the tone.
Will highlights work with my hair extensions?
Yes, but placement matters. If you wear hair extensions, your colorist needs to match both your natural hair and the extensions so the dimension reads consistently. Our team handles this regularly.
Ready for Your Best Highlights Yet?
Whether you’re after soft balayage, bright blonde foils, or a full color transformation, Belt Salon’s Aveda-certified colorists are here to build a custom look for you. Schedule a consultation and let’s talk about what your hair could do.
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