Someone mentioned here at one point that highlights greatly improve one hair's look.
Is it true? Is it worth getting?
And, what exactly are highlights anyway? What is the effect, what does it look like (some pictures maybe)?
(I grew up in a 100% shorthair family (even my mother has short-medium hair) and so I'm not familiar with the terminology.)
well, whether or not highlights look good on you is LARGELY determined by the stylist that gives them to you. generally, with guys and long hair, it looks best to highlight the area immediately around the face only. . .there are a wide variety of colors and shades to get. . .it is largely detemined by the natural color of your own hair and the look you want in the end. if you are considering it for the first time, then start slow. . .get something that might resemble you having been out in the sun for a week or so. . .subtle highlights. i looked through a BUNCH of magazines to find just the look i wanted. then i took that picture to my stylist. that way the stylist will know what you are looking for. . .it increases the chance that she/he will understand what you want and decrease the chance of a missunderstanding.
make sure you discuss what kinds of chemicals the stylist will put on your hair. . .many highlighting chemicals will dry your hair and give it an entirely different texture. . .which is not a good thing!
i used to get my hair highlighted a lot (back in the 80's) and just last month got what my stylist called "a halo effect" to where the hair right around my face and around the part are highlighted. and it isn't even a sharp contrast to the rest of my hair. . .it just looks like it might if i had been at the beach for a week or so.
realize that when you do get highlights, that eventually that highlighted hair will have darker roots that show when it begins to grow out. . .even more of a reason to have subtle higlights as opposed to really streaky hair.
give it a try!:
Thanks for the info!
I'm now looking to try it...
Which are good starting points for finding "the look" that I would want? What magazines? Or, even better, any websites?
hmmm, well, i looked through a lot of men's health magazines or men's fashion magazines. however, i ended up finding the highlight look i wanted in a jcpenney sale circular! so check out sale circulars and even catalogues like Spiegel.
realize that in order to find the "highlight look" you want, you don't have to find a picture of a man's head with hair the same length of yours. the picture of the guy's hair i took to my stylist was quite short, (and my hair is past my shoulders) but it was enough for her to see the color i wanted, and the amount of highlights i wanted, and the area i wanted the highlights.
good luck!
You don't even have to find a picture of a *man* with highlights - check out women's fashion magazines... VOGUE, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, etc. Lots of models have great highlights in their hair. Hair is hair, and both the chemicals & techniques used to create the highlights will be the same as those used on a woman's hair! :-)
nt
Yes it makes you hair look better; and is worth getting. You can get it highlighted as much as you want or as little as you want. It does need to be redone about every 4 to 6 weeks depending on how fast your hair grows. I did mine in Nov. and everybody really likes it. I started with medium highlights and have now gone heavier. It takes a couple of days to get used to the change in the way you look. It used to blonde when I was young and now is dark blond. I only highlighted the top. It is short on top & sides and long in back. I wished that I had did it sooner.
Don't do it. Fake highlights are lame. Go surfing, go ride a bike, or climb a rock, and your highlights will come.
Fake highlights damage your hair, and are a pain in the ass to keep up. Imagine having to go get the roots redone every couple months. My wife got highlights last year on her waist length hair, and she loved them for about 6 months. Now she completely regrets doing it. SHe is sick of the upkeep, has damaged her once silky hair, and feels trapped. If she doesn't keep getting them done it looks weird where they stop, and she doesn't want to cut off 4 years of growth.
Save yourself the trouble. Fake highlights are a waste of good hair.
kilgore
To help ease the growing-out process of the highlights, your wife could "camouflage" them by putting a semi-permanent color on her hair in a shade closest to her natural color. Clairol's Loving Care is great. Because it has no peroxide or ammonia (which are both in permanent colors and bleaching agents), it *canNOT* lighten or damage her hair any further.
Check out www.clairol.com
Thanks for the info Silvemane!
I will pass it on to my wife.
kilgore