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Everything you need to know about Balayage

| Hannah Meader

The balayage service has been used for half a century, and has progressed and evolved over the years. Here’s everything you need to know about the history of balayage, right up to the extraordinary and adaptable hair colour service balayage has become today!

The Origins

Way back in the 1970’s, in the Parisian hair salon, Carita, the freehand sweeping technique for colour application was born. In fact, the word balayage literally translates as “to sweep”.

Balayage remained relatively unknown to the hairdressing community until the 90’s when some up-and-coming folk tried to bring it back into the world of hairdressing fashion, but it wasn’t until relatively recently (the past 10 years or so) that balayage became really popular.

These days you’ll find it on the service menu of just about any hair salon, with stylists specialising in the technique and even some hardcore fanatics who only serve balayage clients.

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The Balayage Service

Balayage technique involves applying lightener to sections of your hair ‘freehand’. Usually only covering the top side of the section, as opposed to saturating the hair as we do with highlighting and other blonding services.

The sweeping motion we use whilst applying the product, particularly toward the root of your hair, gives a subtle blend with your natural hair colour.

The result is a beautiful, sun-kissed and flawlessly dimensional finish.

These days there are plenty of additional hybrid techniques we use to get various types of result, depending on your hair-type, the finish you’re after and whether your hair has been previously coloured.

Reverse Balayage: We use this trick when taking your hair from solid blonde to the classic balayaged look. We apply a deeper colour to your root area and strategically apply that darker, natural tone through sections of your mid-lengths and ends.

Foilayage: If you want those ends a bolder, brighter blonde or if you’ve got stubborn or previously dyed hair, we might need to use some foils and saturate the strands to help boost the lifting power of your service.

Ombré: For a far more contrasting finish and a more obvious blend between light ends and dark roots.

These days most clients and hairdressers use the term balayage to talk about all the above services. That’s fine by us, we love them all! But this does mean that booking in for a thorough consultation to get to the nitty gritty of the precise look you’re going for (inspo pics are super helpful) is super important.

This truly is a bespoke and personalised service that you are guaranteed to achieve a unique result from!

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Who Is Balayage For?

Balayage is suitable for almost any hair type and suits just about any lifestyle. If your hair is past shoulder length and is suitable for lightening, balayage is for you.

It’s Great for Blending Greys – Due to the soft sweeping blend of lightened strands, balayage is a fantastic colour service for incorporating and hiding those silver strands which have started to appear, without the hassle of covering them or worrying about fading or harsh regrowth banding.

It’s Low Maintenance – If you’re a twice a year kind of client, this service is for you. Many clients can go four to six months between balayage services. This is due to the soft, natural blend and the almost unnoticeable regrowth.

You can see your colourist more often than that, of course, especially if you want to keep your face framing money piece popping, and to top-up your toner to keep any unwanted brassiness at bay!

It’s Customisable – Many balayaged beauties want to change the tone of their hair throughout the year, and with balayage this is a really simple task for us! If you want that bright platinum blonde glowing through the summer, and a warmer, richer tone through winter, we can simply tweak the toner formulation.

Balayage also offers a lot of scope for the vivid colour lovers. It looks incredible when we add some pinks, blues, purples or greens through some of your sections for a fun and creative head-turning result.

If you’re ready to have the dreamiest balayage hair colour in Witney, you can call us on 01993 835650, book online here,  or contact us via email here.

T:01993 835650
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Meaders Hair & Beauty
9 Corn Street, Witney, Oxfordshire,
OX28 6DB

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