DIY highlighting Techniques (How to)

There are multiple ways to highlight your own hair and it all depends on your ultimately end goal of how you want your highlights to look.  Below I will illustrate the different approaches that you can benefit to doing your own highlights.









1) The cap and pull hair through - you can buy this cap at Sally's beauty or at a drugstore where it comes with the developer/bleach/color.


2) The foiling highlights - there are 2 ways to foil your own hair:


Note: These technique can be used for multi-highlighting shades, meaning, if you plan to highlight to create various tones either using different level of peroxide or timing to get low vs. high lights, you can simply use a different color foil to show which one has which formula

1. The packet - flip/fold technique  - this technique is using one long foil, and folding it in half  and making into a little packet once you have applied the solution on your hair
2. The foil on foil placement - instead of using one single foil that you have to fold in half and making it into a packet, you cut all the foil that you typically would use for flip/fold in half and use them as placement - the first one goes down like you would for the flip/fold, with the only exception that instead of folding, you don't, you place the other half directly on top to enclosed the highlights, no folding, no bending, (I prefer this approach as it is less time consuming and easier for me to do it myself)

Also it is so much easier to start by dividing your head into 4 quadrant (took me a while to get to this point, I used to start from the top and work my way down but I learned recently that it was better to start from the side and work up toward the crown or from the back up towards the crown) and doing the front last (specifically around the frame of my face). 

3) The wax paper highlights - same technique as foiling with wax paper instead, this does not change how it would turn out, just a use of a different material if you don't have foil readily available




4) The painting highlights - which is also a technique use for ombre, you simply just paint the bleach to sections of your hair that you want to lighten (this technique works best for creating accentuating your face as there are no coverage from the wax paper or foil to increase heat to speed up the lightning process

Products that I used for a DIY brunette to blonde

 Products that I have been using for my

"DIY Brunette to Blonde"

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Where did I buy these?

Sally beauty, I would highly recommend getting a Sally beauty member card for $5 (which you will get back after your registered online) They will send you an email with the $5 coupon, deals, discounts for future purchases. It's a great deal.

What to buy?

Before you buy: read my blog about understanding peroxide/developer and understanding hair color, if you haven't.

1. Peroxide developers -  volume 20 and 30 to start (I like the ion sensitive scalp, it's smells good, it's a little more gentle than other developers)

2. Vaseline or petroleum jelly - this is use to protect the skin around your face from the bleach or color that you are planning to use..color will dye your skin temporarily (e.g., you have seen those women that come out of a salon and there are brown or red dye near their root lines around their faces - that's is because their stylist didn't put anything around their face to protect their skin)

3. Gloves - to protect your hands (also at Sally...I bought a big box as I am planning to do my hair going forward- it's about $20 for a box that will last you years....you can use for cleaning as well and it fits better than those bulky kitchen gloves)

4. Cap - to protect your clothes from the coloring/bleaching process (make sure to get a plastic cap not a cloth as that bleeds through your clothes and will damage it) - around $10 at Sally's 

I would recommend wearing a t-shirt that you don't really care about in case of any mishap, and make sure you do in the bathroom or somewhere with a hard surface (not wood or carpet) or put down an old towel or a garbage bag.

5. Coconut oil - for moisturizing your hair a couple of days or a day before you start (I bought mine form Costco - a big jug that you see in the picture, this is good for multi-purpose, baking, cooking, hair and even for DIY moisturizer or a carrier oil for essential oils) - it was $25 on sale for the big jug, normally maybe $34.99

6.  Loreal Quick blue - bleach, comes in 1lb, 2 pouches inside, will last you a year or two depending how often you work on your hair or others (you can buy this on Amazon as well to deliver directly to your house or Sally) it's $24.99 regular price, $19.99 on sale 

7. A little mix get bowl - that purple one in the picture is $1.59 from Sally, the mixing brush, ranging from really small to big - $.59-$2.99

8. Aluminum foil - already cut into highlighting size - 700 sheets for $11.99 (totally worth it as it was so time consuming trying to cut up my own sheet from the standard kitchen roll--this could be something your kids can help you do if you prefer to do that yourself) - this roll will last for years (I will show you two technique to foiling your hair that i have learned watching stylists over time in another post)

9. Toners - this is more optional depending how light you like your hair or the color you like your blonde hair to be (initially I wanted to see how I would look with an ash blonde so I used a Wella toner T18 - lightest ash blonde) it turned out pretty well but I prefer no toner on my hair (here is a picture of what the toner did to my hair..also you can see my other post to see the phases of my hair transformation.

Brunette (level 2) to Blonde (level 8) DIY - page 1 of 2

It took me a month to transition from being a level 2 (Dark Brown) to a level 8 (Light blonde).
As mentioned in my other posts, it is important to gradually get to your end result rather than doing it in a big bang.  The rationale behind this is, you want to see how your hair react in order to mitigate any potential hair loss or damage.

My hair is Asian hair, very thick and coarse, can handle a lot and even then, I still take precaution mainly because, my hair did break off when I went to a hair stylist that used a 30 volume developer (I learned this after the fact) on my hair and areas with baby hair (the hair closets to your neck behind your head or hair around your face), those hair actually broke off, I lost about half of my baby or thinner hair in the back of head (and I have very long hair, way pass my bra line) and it broke off and left only about 4 inches from my neck.   At the time, I wasn't very educated about developers or processing time or type / brand of developers so I left it in the hands of a professional and even then, there were still mishap. Again, we are humans, not all stylist are great, just like not all restaurants are good.

With that said, these are the products that I used: (you can see these details in my Products I used post)

1. Ion Sensitive Scalp, which smells really nice and is gentler on your hair / scalp. 
2. Quick Blue by L'Oreal
3. Wella Toner - T18 - lightest ash blonde
4. Ion 12N - High lift ash blonde (for maintenance)

                                                Phase 0: color treated dark reddish-brown

Final Phase: Before and after

To see all phases and details of products, see this blog -> Brunette to Blonde DIY - all phases!