New hair highlighting techniques create more natural look

By Simone Andrea Mayer Nov 17, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - Few women are pleased to find their first grey hair. For them, well-maintained colour is essential to look good, and it shouldn't be obvious that they are colouring their hair.

New hair colouring techniques can help women keep their secret. Normally women choose natural tones so that it isn't obvious that they are colouring their hair. The new techniques help hairdressers match the dye to the natural colour. It can even be simulated using artificial roots - the term used to describe the regrowth - so the customer can see how well the unwanted colour is covered.

Natural hair colours are not only brown, black, blonde and red, but come in many shades. Hairdressers like to imitate this effect when colouring the hair, usually using highlights. Dying hair in a single colour is a thing of the past, said Dieter Schoellhorn, creative director of the state association of Bavarian hairdressers. Hair colour 'doesn't have to be done with just one sauce,' said Schoellhorn.

Highlights create nuances. They are done using foil to dye just a small amount of hair. The hairdresser selects the hair to be coloured using a small pick. A small piece of foil is then placed under these strands of hair right up to the roots and it is painted with the dye. The foil is then folded over to allow the dye to work. The problem with this technique is that when hairdressers are not meticulous about selecting the hair to be coloured, it is too easy to detect.

'It looks like globs of striped colour and nobody wants that,' said master hairdresser Antonio Weinitschke. 'Women don't want to look like chipmunks,' added Weinitschke, who is also creative director at the association of German hairdressers.

The new techniques leave the hair looking more natural. A number of different coloured highlights are used in various shades, said Schoellhorn. In the freestyle technique, also known as the balayage technique, the hair is divided into parts. It is then gently coloured by hand using a brush. The hairdresser creates soft transitions in colour as he or she works through the hair.

Beyond leaving the hair looking natural, this technique has an optical effect: It makes the hair look fuller. 'The hairstyle optically has more volume, while monotone hair colour treatments can leave the hair looking heavy,' said Weinitschke.

Highlights can be made throughout the hair and not just on the top of the head. When the hair is cut in a bob, the highlights show especially well as the hair moves.

The so-called sun-kissed look is a modification of the free-hand technique. The goal is California beach hair. There's a bit of regrowth and there are varying degrees of the bleached outlook in the long strands and at the tip of the hair, said Jens Dagne, a master hairdresser and member of the executive committee of Intercoiffure, a German association of hairdressers.

The classic blonde look also can be achieved on dark hair. Dagne takes warm blonde tones and weaves them underneath visible regrowth. 'The length of the regrowth can be as long as the customer wishes,' said Dagne. 'Three or four centimetres is not a problem.'

A soft transition from the darker regrowth to the highlighted part of the hair is created by lightly brushing the dye over the regrowth. When a blonde wants dark highlights, the hairdressers easily achieve the reverse using darker dyes. And customers who are neither blondes nor dark-haired can also have the look.

'Then you simply make the sun-kissed look into a red-kissed look and it becomes a new solution for the customer, a fantastic result,' said Dagne. This winter, darker tones such as ebony, various browns as well as copper-blonde will be trends, said Weinitschke.

The disadvantage is that not many hairdressers have mastered these time-consuming and laborious techniques, Dagne said. He advises women to inquire about the hairdresser's experience and if things go badly, go elsewhere. Also, he said it's not something that women can do on their own.

Hairdressers disagree about leaving regrowth and whether it is good to leave it visible. Dagne is in favour of the look and Weinitschke also recognizes something appealing about it. 'Today it is part of the 'bad-hair-day' experience to just go out with the hair looking the way it looks and not to hide it under a hat,' he said.

Schoellhorn sees it differently, saying visible regrowth is going against the trend of wanting to look well groomed. 'I find that regrowth is unkempt,' said Schoellhorn. But he has also recognized a trend seen on the street: Even if dyed regrowth is out of the question for the masses, hip young people in big cities ask for it.