What is Balayage?

What is Balayage?

I wanted to take a moment and talk about  Balayage and what it looks like. The term “Balayage” gets brought up a lot by clients and I want to give you a little more information about it! So balayage is a technique not a look. Remember Chunky Foils or Ombré? Those were looks. Ombré for example, was a blending of one color to another and usually didn’t have much of a blended transition from one color to another. Usually the look was natural colored roots with blondish ends and no transition in between. Then the reemergence of balayage came back around to save the day! Good bye tired looking grown out hair with no transitions!!! UGH! The French meaning of balayage is ‘to sweep’. So by feathering the lightener in a freehand painting kind of way one is able to get a blended transition from just off the root to the ends. You get multiple tones of color instead of just 2. Picture Ombré as seeing a picture in 2D and Balayage in 3D. There’s more depth because its multidimensional . Now, here’s the down fall. You can’t always get as light as most people want their first visit. So multiple services are usually required.  Below are a few pictures of the balayage process. Rachel here only wanted a subtle change. So I did a free hand painted Balayage technique.

As you can see its a very subtle change. But, she can go about 8 months to a year without even getting it touched up. These pictures were taken March 2nd 2019 if that gives you an idea of the longevity of this technique. Now, if you want to be lighter, that’s when Foilage comes into play!  Foilage is a similar technique but the only difference is you put the hair in foils. It allows the hair to lighten up a lot more but still give you depth.. So the picture below of Sharon, who was referred to me by Rachel. Referrals are the best!!!! She wanted to be  lighter than Rachel so the foilage technique was a must. She will have to come back to the salon in about 2 months for a gloss. After that she can go about 4 months before getting her hair re lightened. Maybe longer.

So next time your on yelp searching, salon near me or balayage salons near me think less about the verbage and more about the look. Ask yourself a couple questions. Do I want maximum lift? How often do I want to come back into the salon? If you dont want to come back in often, frre hand balayage may be best. If you want to be bright, foilage might be your best bet. Another thing you need to think about is price. Remember you will only be getting this service done 2-4 times a year. It may seem like a lot up front but annually its cheaper than your Chunky Highlights  you did in the 90’s! Thank you for taking the time hang out! See you in the next article!

If you would like to learn a little more about the evolution of balayage check out this article Ive attached from Modern Salon https://www.modernsalon.com/376915/the-evolution-of-balayage