Balayage
BALAYAGE
Balayage is a French word meaning “to sweep” or “to paint”. This technique of painting lightener onto the hair emulates a natural sun-kissed effect. Sunlight only penetrates our hair cuticle, the outermost layer of the hair shaft, which has three layers in total ( the other two being the medulla- the inner layer, and the cortex- the middle layer)
3D BALAYAGE
This hair painting technique is an affect that gives the hair more added dimension by mode of lowlights, midlights and hilights. Our immediate thought is- isn’t hair already 3 dimensional, but more often then not our hair color can look very flat, mousy and drab in most cases if not enhanced in some form. 3D color gives the hair this exact multi-dimensional and even in some cases multi-tonal shine and depth.
BALAYAGE VS HILIGHTS
People ask all the time what the difference is between these two services. To put it simply Balayage is a hilighting technique that can either be hand painted or put in a foil. Think of your standard foil work as Kelly Clarkson circa 2000 versus hand painting being more Jennifer Anniston-esque. To get those beautiful natural Californian hilights, hair painting would be more of the route one should go depending on how dark their natural hair color is. This is something every incoming client should discuss with a hair professional firstly, because darker haired clients will need a service such as babylights or foilayage to achieve a very light end goal.
BALAYAGE AND OMBRE
Balayage is a French word that means to sweep or paint; it’s a highlighting technique. Ombré means to shadow, and it’s a seamless gradiation from darker to lighter. People do get confused by the two but you can also combine them in a merged technique which can be very pretty.
Sombré is a much softer version of ombré and is still popular, especially with the charcoal grey trend.
BALAYAGE PRICING - WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT?
FOILYAGE VS BALAYAGE
Balayage is a hair lightening technique that’s specifically designed to impart a more natural, sun-kissed look to hair. The word itself comes from French and means “to sweep” or “to paint” which is why balayage is also known as hair painting.
Bleach/Lightener and or color is applied to hair using a freehand technique, and is then allowed to process in the open air or while covered or wrapped in Plastic Film.
Foiling is similar to balayage in that it is a hair lightening technique, but it’s different in important ways. While balayage is typically applied in a freehand manner to achieve a more natural look, foiling typically involves sectioning the hair and applying product in a manner that fully saturates the section it is being applied to. (These sections can be thicker or thinner, depending on the exact look you’re trying to achieve.) After the product is applied, the hair is wrapped in foil for processing.
Why foil? It conducts heat better than open air or plastic film, allowing the product to infiltrate deeper into the hair, and helps keep the treated hair separate from untreated hair. All told, this leads to a more intense look.
Though foiling can sometimes result in harder lines of demarcation, there are ways around this. Using the correct root melt with your foils, for example, will eliminate foil lines but keep the effect of brightness near the root area. Similarly, by smudging the root it’s possible to soften the line of demarcation.
Bear in mind that foiling tends to use more product and takes a longer time to complete compared to balayage, which tends to raise the price of the service.
Foilayage
And then there’s foilyage, which is essentially the offspring of the two techniques. During a foilyage treatment, product is painted onto hair as in balayage, and the treated sections are then covered with foil for processing. This can result in the more natural, painted look of balayage paired with the more intense coloring of foils.
