Bright Ideas: Easy At-Home Highlighting Tips

It’s safe to say that everyone loves the look of hair with lots of glimmering highlights. After all, they add dimension and make hair look fuller, so what’s not to like? The only issue is, frequent trips to the salon aren’t always convenient or doable. The good news is, if you’re interested in brightening your hair color, there’s no reason you’ll have to seek out a professional. You can highlight your hair at home whenever you want! Highlighting your hair at home may seem intimidating, but trust us, it’s far from impossible. All it takes is knowing the right tips and tricks. And lucky you, whether you have blonde hair, brown hair, or red hair, we’re sharing everything you need to know about at-home highlighting.

At-Home Highlighting Tip #1: Use a Highlighting Kit

When it comes to coloring your hair at home, it’s best not to overcomplicate things. That means don’t try to piece together everything you need to highlight your hair on your own. Save yourself the trouble and pick up a highlighting kit. In addition to coming complete with all of the tools and products your highlights require, the kit will also include instructions you can follow to make sure things go smoothly. Have your pick from our best highlighting kits:

L’Oréal Paris Féria Multi-Faceted Highlights: Get a multi-faceted spectrum of pure blonde highlights in one easy step. Inspired by fashion, this highlighting kit gives shimmering strands of dimension exactly where you want them.

L’Oréal Paris Touch-On Highlights: Slip the fingertip highlighting tool on over your gloves and use it to smoothly, precisely, and evenly glide on dimensional highlights. You control where the highlights go, allowing you to create your own look—subtle or dramatic.

L’Oréal Paris Frost & Design: The easy highlighting cap lets you create perfectly placed, precise, even highlights—in as little as 20 minutes. The end look is a swirl of creamy highlights for a sun-kissed glow.

At-Home Highlighting Tip #2: Go a Shade or Two Lighter

One of the most common mistakes that’s made concerning highlights is to go too light. The truth is, you don’t want your highlights to stand out from your base color too much. That can be a totally dated look. The easy solution to make sure your highlights are an acceptable shade is to stick with a hue that’s only 1-2 shades lighter than your base.

At-Home Highlighting Tip #3: Try Temporary Hair Color

There’s no reason your foray into highlights has to be permanent. If you’re interested in highlighting your hair with a fun color but aren’t sure how long you’ll want that look, try a temporary hair color spray first. The L’Oréal Paris Colorista 1-Day Spray comes in 10 different colors, all of which wash out with one shampoo. Perfect for taking a new shade for a spin!

At-Home Highlighting Tip #4: Opt for Ombré Highlights

Highlights are a flattering way to update your hair color, but they aren’t always forgiving. Take too long before touching up your lightened strands and it might not be your best look. Thankfully, if you’d prefer a lower maintenance style, you won’t have to avoid highlights altogether. Instead of getting traditional highlights that start at your part, go for a ombré hair color. The highlights start further down, which makes it less obvious as your hair grows. And don’t worry, you can still get the look at home! Use the L’Oréal Paris Féria Wild Ombré.

At-Home Highlighting Tip #5: Take Care of Your Hair After

Even if you haven’t dyed your entire head of hair, you’ll still need to change how you care for it. If you want your highlights to keep looking their best, switch to a hair care system—complete with shampoo, conditioner, and a hair mask—that’s formulated for color-treated tresses. Cleanse and condition with the L’Oréal Paris Elvive Color Vibrancy Intensive Protecting Shampoo and L’Oréal Paris Elvive Color Vibrancy Intensive Protecting Conditioner. 1-2 times a week, use the L’Oréal Paris Elvive Color Vibrancy Repair and Protect Balm after shampooing, instead of conditioner.

Ready to change your base color, too? Check out our article, How to Dye Your Hair at Home: Our Best at-Home Hair Color Options.