Hair Salon Blog: Essential Hair Care Tips and Insights

You might have noticed the increased popularity of a natural-looking highlighting technique called balayage, which gives hair a sense of softness at the top with lighter ends. Maybe you have noticed the trend on celebrities such as Halle Berry, Gisele Bündchen, Jennifer Aniston, and Jessica Biel. Or, perhaps you have seen your friends adopt the style. Either way, your curiosity about this coloring technique may have you asking if it is right for you.

The great news is unless you have a particularly short hairstyle (such as a pixie cut), balayage can work for your hair type. Read on to learn more about this beautiful technique and how you can make the most of it.

What Is Balayage?

Balayage is a technique invented in Paris in the 1970s. With this technique, the stylist paints the color onto your hair freehand. The term comes from the French word meaning “to sweep,” referring to how a lightener or a color has been “swept” through your hair with a brush and a paddle board.

Balayage offers many benefits, including:

• The ability to create a custom look to enhance your face’s natural beauty
• Reduced maintenance compared to traditional highlights
• Less heat-related damage than other hair coloring techniques
• Applicability to all types of hair

Balayage for Different Hair Types

The balayage technique can create a unique look for people with all hair types. Those with light hair often find blonde hues the most flattering. Darker hair can look stunning with brown, chocolate, caramel, or cinnamon highlights. Your skin tone and eye color will help determine what looks best.

Here are some ways a balayage treatment can enhance the look of different types of hair.

Wavy Hair

For many, balayage is synonymous with the laid-back beachiness of a wavy head of hair with sun-lightened strands. Balayage with mildly contrasting colors can add considerable definition and dimension to your hair texture if you have wavy hair.

Straight Hair

While many people associate the technique with wavy hair, balayage can also look stunning on straight strands. Many hair colorists consider silky straight hair a wonderful way to show off their artistic skills. Streaks of color can add a lovely sense of visual depth.

Curly Hair

Balayage can be an excellent way to bring out the beautiful texture of your curls. A few strokes of lightener can help highlight each curve of the natural coils of hair. Choosing a hue that is about two shades brighter than your base color can give you a flattering, natural-looking glow.

Common Types of Balayage

One of the main benefits of balayage is that stylists can customize it to suit your wants and needs. Some of the common types of balayage you can consider include:

• Full balayage – This technique applies highlights throughout your hair.
• Partial balayage – A partial treatment applies highlights only to specific areas of your hair.
• Subtle balayage – This soft variation applies color just to areas of the hair that catch the light most naturally.
• American balayage – While traditional balayage is a freehand technique, the American variation includes foiling. Your stylist will apply foil highlights and brush-paint the hair that remains between the foils. This technique works particularly well for people with dark hair.
• Reverse balayage – This trendy technique is excellent for blondes and brondes, using darker colors at the end. Think of the result as something that falls between a balayage and an ombré.
• Babylights / Micro-highlights – This subtle technique employs particularly fine highlights. While this technique requires a lot of time to apply, the effect lasts longer than all other balayage varieties.

Colorists are constantly inventing new ways of working with the balayage technique. Speak to a certified balayage specialist if there is a new variety you would like to explore.

Caring for Balayage Hair

As with all hair coloring techniques, balayage can dry out your hair. Speak with your stylist to find the best products and develop a good conditioning strategy. You may also find it helpful to schedule regular appointments to restore, tone, and nourish your locks. After all, balayage looks most attractive on healthy hair.

Contact Therapy Hair Studio Today

Therapy Hair Studio has offered an excellent variety of services to Houston clients since 2008. Our fantastic team of stylists employs high-quality products and cutting-edge styling techniques. We are proud to serve many satisfied clients across the Houston area, and we look forward to helping you achieve your desired balayage look.

If you are interested in making a balayage appointment, call us at (713) 355-4247 or contact us online for an appointment with a certified stylist.

Weddings are both exciting and stressful events. After all, your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life. Brides, their partners, and their families invest a lot of time and money into planning their nuptial celebrations. Yet if one of your carefully chosen vendors cancels on you at the last minute, your big day might erupt into a crisis.

Because a hairstylist is an essential member of the wedding day team, you need to know that you can count on them to show up when you need them. Far too many brides-to-be have experienced the panic of realizing that someone from their beauty team has failed to appear on the morning of their wedding. Enacting a beauty contract with your hairstylist can help protect you from this and other potential wedding day nightmares.

Here are a few reasons you should never hire a wedding hair stylist without a beauty contract.

Keeping Everyone Honest

All parties to a business relationship have the right to expect transparency. A well-drafted agreement can prevent confusion about what you and your hairstylist should expect from each other. Your stylist’s contract should include their policies about:

• Payments
• Deposits
• Cancellation (x weeks/days before the event)
• Prices
• Additional fees

The contract should clearly spell out your obligations and those of your stylist, covering various possible contingencies and leaving no room for error.

Nobody’s memory is perfect. When you are in the frenzy of planning a wedding, you might be more likely to forget some of the details you have established with each of your vendors. A beauty contract can give you something concrete to fall back on if any confusion or disagreements come up at any point down the line. This is how contracts can keep all parties honest about the obligations they have agreed to.

Providing Recourse for Action

If your hired professional fails to appear on your wedding day, you might not have any recourse to pursue legal action without a written agreement in place. Your beauty contract should set out the terms under which you can claim a refund if something goes wrong.

Similarly, your beauty professional should want a means of holding their clients accountable if they fail to pay the invoice. As with any professional agreement, a beauty contract can protect parties on both sides of an arrangement.

Maintaining a Professional Standard

While people in the wedding industry have a reputation for being friendly, their goal is to provide a service in exchange for payment. This fact does not take anything away from the fact that they care about helping you have the best wedding day possible. It simply means that they are there to work in a professional capacity. Any self-respecting businessperson has certain standards to maintain, and implementing a professional contract is a crucial way of doing so.

If your prospective wedding hairstylist does not require a contract, you might want to look elsewhere. While it might be tempting to trust your gut and hope all will go well, risking a crisis on one of the biggest days of your life is simply not worth it.

Additional Contract Considerations

Many people wonder whether agreements set out in email or text message conversations can serve as a formal contract. The answer is no. You must ensure that the contract is a legitimate, legally enforceable document. If something about a contract your stylist provided does not seem right, ask them to explain what it means. If you need further assurance, ask a trusted legal professional to help you make sure it is legit.

Having clear, open, and professional communications about your expectations is essential when planning your big day. If you have found an artist you love with good reviews and a professional beauty contract, you have one less thing to worry about as your dream wedding approaches.

Contact Us for the Perfect Professional Wedding Hairstyle

As a bride-to-be, you want your hair to be flawless and elegant. Hire a professional hair stylist you can count on to make your bridal dreams come true.

Therapy Hair Studio is proud to offer wedding packages to suit your personality and desired aesthetic. Our professionals will be clear and upfront about what you should expect from us so you can have peace of mind. Call us at (713) 355-4247 or contact us online for an appointment to talk about your ideal wedding hairstyle. We look forward to being a part of your big day.

Many people agree that highlighting your hair is a fun way to change your look. The transformation is more subtle than a complete hair overhaul yet pronounced enough to make you stand out. However, some people worry about the potential harm the highlighting process can cause. Learning more about how highlighting works can help you make an informed hairstyling decision.

Highlights and Hair Damage

Many hair treatments can cause hair damage, and highlighting is no exception. As with most other coloring options, highlights can have some negative consequences for the health of your hair. The extent of the damage can depend on several things:

• How much of a change you make? The damage from subtle highlights may be minimal and barely noticeable. Heavy or platinum highlights will probably make the damage feel more obvious.
• How you care for your highlighted hair. It’s essential to nourish your highlighted hair to keep it healthy. See below for more tips on caring for highlighted hair.
• Where you get your hair highlighted. The salon where you get your hair highlighted makes a significant difference to the health of your hair. Our methods and products at Therapy Hair ensure that your highlights are done with the utmost care.

The reason highlighting harms your hair is that the lightening process strips your hair of pigment. A side effect of this process is that it can affect your hair’s natural oils and proteins, thus depleting the strands of what gives them a healthy texture and sheen. As a result, you might notice:

• Reduced moisture
• Reduced elasticity
• Altered curl pattern
• Dry, brittle hair
• Increased frizziness

While the above effects of highlighting your hair are possibilities, you can mitigate them in numerous ways. Let’s take a look at some things you can do to maintain your hair health.

Preventing Damage from Highlights

The fact that highlights can cause damage does not mean you should avoid them at all costs. It does, however, mean that you should be careful about how you highlight your hair and how you care for it afterward.

Going to a professional hair colorist is one of the most vital factors in protecting your hair from the potential harm of highlighting, particularly if you wish to avoid long-term damage. Our stylists are highly trained professionals who know how to treat your hair. Our salon uses thoughtful haircare products that help your hair avoid the worst of the damage.

You can also take your color treatment slowly. Many people are eager to achieve the final result they have in mind but rushing to the finish line can increase your potential for damage. If you are starting with darker hair, do not expect to arrive at the endpoint in just one session. Spreading it out over multiple sessions can prevent damage from an intense initial treatment.

Protecting Highlighted Hair at Home

Protecting your hair from damage does not end at the hair salon. You can adapt your routine to prevent your strands from coming to further harm. Tips to protect your highlighted hair include:

• Reduce the frequency of washing – Washing your hair daily can further deplete your scalp of the oils necessary to keep it healthy.
• Use a microfiber towel – Traditional towels can pull at your hair when you wrap them, causing additional breakage. A microfiber towel is gentler on your locks. It will also dry your hair more quickly.
• Cut down on heat styling – High heat can cause dry, brittle hair, exacerbating the effects of highlighting. If you choose to use heat in your styling, set the temperature to low on your blow dryer, flat iron, or curling iron. Doing so can prevent excess moisture loss.
• Buy a silk pillowcase – Compared to cotton, a silk pillowcase can help keep your hair much smoother and more manageable in the morning, with less breakage and frizz.
• Use recommended products – Our salon uses high-quality products and can recommend products for you to use at home.

Contact Therapy Hair Studio

The hairstyling professionals at Therapy Hair Studio have been committed to providing excellent services to our clients since 2008. If you are considering adding highlights to your hair, our stylists can help you achieve the look you desire while minimizing the extent of damage to your strands. Our Houston-based hair salon uses high-quality products and cutting-edge techniques to ensure that you are satisfied with the results.

Call us at (713) 355-4247 or contact us online for an appointment or to find out more about how we can help you.

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Highlights vs. Lowlights vs. Babylights Explained

Should I Dye My Hair Before or After a Haircut?