Filling and Covering Highlights or Balayage

There’s a time and a place for all things.

We are huge fans of babylights and foilyage. BUT we have all had times in our life when commitments leave us a little bit less available to give our highlights the care and attention they need.

Maintaining the tone you like over pre-lightened sections involve regular applications of a toner or semi-permanent colour. Toners or semi-permanent colour are used to deposit tone or colour over highlights.

If your schedule or budget doesn’t allow you to keep up with highlights or balayage, the time has come to fill and cover them.

Pre-lightened sections have had colour pigments stripped from them. Often they have been toned or coloured with a cool based colour. This means that they are specifically missing warm pigments.

If you apply an all-over significantly darker colour, or a cool toned colour over highlights/balayage, you risk seeing a patchy or green toned colour result, as layering cool tones on top of cool tones can lead to visible green tones. Green tones can be seen when there is an excess of cool tones.

The best approach to filling highlights/balayage:

Colouring with a neutral colour which is darker than your current lighter colour (closer to your natural colour) will add depth and fill missing pigments. Neutral colours will restore the right balance of pigments to your base.

If you prefer to see some cool or warm tones in your hair, or you have unwanted warmth and need cool tones to reduce that, then it is best to colour with a Duo blend of one cool or warm tone and a neutral colour. A Duo blend will still introduce neutral tones to fill pigments which are missing from your highlights. Blending a neutral with a cool colour will add half-strength neutral and cool tones, which will leave a tonally balanced finish without the risk of visible green toens.

Talk to our colourists for personalised recommendations on how you can add depth and achieve a gorgeous colour result when you cover your highlights or balayage.

Thanks for the helpful information! Very happy with your colours.

S. Patel