50 Balayage Hair Color Ideas To Swoon Over

Traditional highlighting techniques, which we all were crazy about a few months ago, have suffered their defeat from a new hot method that will make your hair look naturally sun kissed. Balayage hair highlights represent a far more artistic way of getting that sun-kissed Victoria’s Secret Angel look.

In comparison with the regular cap trick, balayage does really border art and, unfortunately, not every salon expert is an artist. It includes literally painting highlights into the hair, an entirely freehanded technique that allows more flexibility and customization. Interested? Here are 50 beautiful balayage hair color ideas you will want to share with your hair stylist.

What Is Balayage?

Balayage is a special hair dyeing technique that leads to the perfectly natural, sun-kissed look, one most of us are born with as children. Balayage stands for sweeping/ painting in French and it implies using the hair dye across the hair surface without totally saturating the section until the hair tips.

1. Balayage from Roots

One of the best things about balayage highlights is that this technique allows you to create your own look. You don’t have to go blonde from mid-section, if highlighting from the roots feels more like you, go for it! We bet you wouldn’t need another color correction session in the next 3 months.

2. Smoked & Gray

Yes, you can see that balayage works pretty well with all hair lengths. So, if you have short hair and want a smoky look with grayish undertones, here’s the result you need! The only catch is that balayage will work best if you already have a light hair color for the gray tones to come out perfectly, without any unpleasant orange trapped in between. Otherwise, we hope your stylist is a beauty god!

@thekliniksalon

3. The Ultimate BB ” Blonde Balayage

If you ever wanted to make your blonde hair look naturally highlighted, the foil or cap would still leave hard lines. Instead, you can opt for balayage blonde hair with blonde highlights! In fact, the highlights don’t have to be systematic and patterned, ask your hairstylist to add a lighter color around your face area, because that’s where the sun would naturally hit first. Wink wink!

@beauty_hair_2013

4. The Balayage Curly Bob

The best way of assessing subtle balayage highlights is by trying out a curly hairstyle. If they still look natural, it means your stylist did a good job. But if your curls start at the exact point where your highlights start, it’s a big no-no. With balayage, color blends softer as it falls down towards the ends, where it turns into the lightest shade on the composition.

@merytresjolies

5. Optical Illusions or More Highlights?

As we mentioned before, with balayage, you have more possibilities of adding unique features to your hair color. If you decided to get the purple highlights, go ahead and add some magenta or pink in between. It will play fantastically with lights and shadows, giving more depth and texture to your hair.