BLONDE OMBRE with HIGHLIGHTS on top

April 17, 2017

one of our co-founders jessica posted this photo on instagram and got a ton of questions about how to color BLONDE OMBRE with HIGHLIGHTS on top. naturally, we found a lovely lady named clarissa who wanted the style and asked if we could film the process (and teach you a few things along the way).

watch the video, ready the blog, and let us know what you think in the comments :)

so before we dive into the coloring process, let’s take a minute to talk about clarissa’s hair. as you may remember from last week, the LAW of COLOR must be consulted for every coloring job.

clarissa’s ROOTS are at a level 1 or 2, with the rest of the hair being varying shades of BLONDE. we need to address those coloring difference BEFORE we begin lightening the hair.

coloring the ROOTS

coloring the ROOTS is the first step for creating our DYNAMIC BLONDE OMBRE. we’ve chosen a warm brunette color from the j beverly hills line.

25 grams of j beverly hills 6.11 + 25g 20 vol + 12g 30 vol

even though we’re lifting her to a level 6, we’ve found that using a 20 vol instead of 30 or 40 vol helps us avoid HOT ROOTS.

SECTIONING the HAIR

after we’ve applied the ROOT COLOR, we begin to SECTION the hair. we created a horseshoe pattern from the WIDEST POINT of the HEAD before sectioning the top of the head into 4 different triangles. for the lower portion of the head, we simply divided the hair into 3 QUADRANTS.

COLORING the HAIR

there are a lot of processes to this, so pay attention!

we’re going to start with the BRUNETTE ACCENTS in the BLONDE OMBRE

6N j beverly hills + 5 vol

before moving on to the LIGHTENER:

FOR THE ROOTS: schwarzkopf blonde premium lifts lightener + continuum + 20 vol
FOR THE BACK SECTIONS: schwarzkopf blondme premium lifts lightener + continuum + 30 vol
FOR THE ENDS: schwarzkopf blondme premium lifts lightener + continuum + 7 vol

WEAVING the TOP SECTION

in order to create an even flow throughout the hair, we’re WEAVING the hair to avoid solid stripes of color. with the remaining sections, you’ll APPLY LIGHTENER. remember to variate your weaves from section to section. this will help keep a natural flow of color.

then we’re going to revisit her roots with LIGHTENER. remember to DIFFUSE the line by BACKCOMBING the hair in order to keep your transition natural. otherwise you may end up with a hard line!

LIGHTENING the BACK SECTIONS

once you’ve got your WEAVING work of the brunette color and lightener down, you can LIGHTEN the REST of the HAIR. we MIXED 2 DIFFERENT FORMULAS to make sure that we didn’t damage the ends of clarissa’s hair. one that was strong enough to raise the center sections and another that was gentle enough to not break clarissa’s hair.

after the LIGHTENER has been on for 10 minutes, we checked the FOILS and they’re color matches the ends of the hair.

now we’re ready to WASH the hair out and APPLY TONER. instead of drying the hair entirely, try to leave it a little damp. in some of our previous blogs, we’ve talked about how your hair is like a straw. when it is slightly damp, it absorbs better.

TONING the HAIR

as you can see, there are still a few brassy tones in the hair. but that’s okay! we’re going to tone them out. a lot of people make the mistake of trying to LIGHTEN the hair past these colors, when in all reality it’s much better to tone it out rather than sacrifice the integrity of the hair.

so let’s get to that TONER. we used:

30 g 9.1 from j beverly hills + 10 g schwarzkopf steel blue mixer + 50 g 20 vol steel blue mixer + 50 g 20 vol

we’re going to start by applying the TONER to the darkest part of the hair before applying it to the top section. we want the TONER to process fully, so we checked it after 20 minutes.

for the last 5 minutes, we’re going to take her to the sink to EMULSIFY the toner before WASHING, DRYING, & STYLING the hair.

STYLING the HAIR

now that we’ve got the toner washed out, it’s time STYLE clarissa’s hair. to revitalize her hair, we used nvenn’s REPLENISH restoration oil and massaged it through the hair ROOT to ENDS.

then we used nvenn’s PROTECT to prevent heat damage from the blowdryer.

after we’ve got an even coat of heat protectant, we applied a little bit of nvenn’s FIX to the roots. clarissa LOVES big hair, so applying a bit of our flexible holding hair spray to roots will help add dimension.