Chunky highlights and color blocking techniques are two trends that have become timeless due to the ever-evolving approach of placement. Although the days of zebra-stripe, chunky highlights are long gone, more modern ways to perform these types of techniques have been developed. Today, these techniques align more with the current trend of creating lived-in, seamless color placement.
Extreme color blocking, where one section of the head is one color and the other section is another color, is also outdated. However, selecting sections of hair that will emphasize brightness, depth, or having a little fun with peek-a-boo vivid colors are all the rage. A combination of these techniques is often used to create a result that keeps this approach to hair coloring relevant.
Here are some modern approaches to using chunky highlights and color blocking to enhance the impact of any color application.
Tool Spolight:
Paint Brush/ Balayage Brush: Product Club’s paint brushes and balayage brushes make it so easy to create seamless strokes of brightness when highlighting the hair. The diffused ends of the bristles eliminate any possibility of creating a hard line of demarcation and the sturdiness of the bristles assures even saturation on each section of hair.
HIGHLIGHTING HIGHLY TEXTURED HAIR
One of the challenges colorists face when coloring highly textured hair is making sure the color isn’t swallowed up by all those gorgeous curls. To avoid this situation, create a 2” zig-zag horizontal parting, starting at the nape and working up and around the circumference of the head. Within each section, create triangle partings using the “Peace Sign Parting Technique” you just learned. Color melt two large weaves within your peace sign partings, and color melt each section with your base tone and highlighting formulations. For a varied, high impact, alternate the point where the base tone of your color melt ends, and the highlight begins. For a subtle and more radiant result, alternate the peace sign sections with a chunky weave color melt and a base tone low-light from roots to ends.
SEAMLESS COLOR BLOCKING ON HIGHLY TEXTURED HAIR
The technique mentioned above is a wonderful strategy to use for color blocking highly textured hair. Using zig-zag partings, simply section out the area of the head you want to focus your application on.
Tool Spolight:
Thermal Wraps: Product Club thermal wraps eliminate the number one challenge colorist face when trying to manage and color highly textured hair. What is that? Curls spring back! Because it is so difficult to elongate the curl pattern in textured hair, it almost impossible to ensure that each section gets fully saturated with haircolor.
Thermal wraps are a great solution to this problem. As soon as the moisture from the hair color comes in contact with the wrap, the hair will adhere to it, allowing you to successfully stretch that curl pattern and see your application. These wraps allow you to highlight all hair textures easily.
