How and where can you get highlighted hair that looks natural???

[LaCerbiatta]

I now have too many grey hairs and can't not dye my hair. it is naturally quite dark brown at the roots but with natural light rown highlights. I'm finding impossible to achieve a colour that is remotely decent... If I have just one block colour it will look too dark if it's my natural 'root' colour or ridiculously light if it's a light brown. Have tried highlights at the hairdresser but only get those horrible streaks on the top of my head whereas the tips remain dark. Should be the other way around surely???
Anyway where can I get higlights that look natural like these and what exactly do i ask for?

P.S. -I'm not a Liz Hurley fan and don't want that hair colour. It's just an example for the highlights

You would need to get a full or half head of foils and have the rest of the hair coloured with a permenant or semi permanent colour.
Every decent hairdresser will be able to do that for you.

But that's what i had done! And it sure didn't look natural like that, it looked streaky. And the hair was lighter on the top than at the tips

I would say a half head of foils.

Ask for a colour no more than a couple of shades lighter than your natural colour and request a very fine weave (lots of thin highlights rather than a few noticeable streaks).

If your hair is lighter at the ends your hairdresser should only apply a minimum/no dye to the top of the hair to balance it (although hair is naturally lighter at the ends so should be some difference).

I do know somewhere very good in Southampton but probably no use for you !

perhaps you need to have several different shades in the foils, that's what I have and it looks pretty natural I think (and I'm notoriously critical of my appearance !)

sorry, didn't read OP properly - if lighter at the roots your hairdresser can't have applied the dye evenly.

Agree re a couple of shades- think I have 3 different shades of my natural colour put in.

incy - that's what I have - lasts about 8 weeks before dreaded grey bits sneak in...

Sounds like your hairdresser is a bit pants to be honest. Foils should be very fine and very evenly coloured from root to tip. I generally have 2 or 3 different tones done. Are you in London?

I think the dye is put on evenly but my hair always absorbs more near the root. No one else has this problem? Also, because my hair is layered if I have a half head done the underneath not dyed, darker, hairs can be seen. These 2 things together give the unnatural lighter at the top effect....
I must be doing something wrong

I'm in Cambridge btw

How much would you expect to pay for cut and colour? I pay around £65.... Is that what I'm doing wrong???

I have this trauma of never being able to get through to hairdressers.... I have a layered haircut now that I absolutely hate. It's very choppy at the ends, kind of feathery iyswim and I think it's completely unsuitable for my hair because it is very fine but not straight so it just turns outwards and just looks damaged, like it hasn't been cut for a year. I went abck to the same place and explained this and in the end got exactly the same cut.... . It's like they know one cut, the cut of the season, and can't do anything else.... If you don't like / want your hair 'hair straightened' you're stuffed!

I think your hairdresser is a bit rubbish tbh.

I pay £50 for cut and blow dry and about £70 for half a head of highlights.

If your hairdresser only uses two/three shades out of your natural colour you shouldn't have a problem with the hair underneath being much darker. It should just looked sun lightened as naturally the hair on the top would be lighter than underneath due to sun exposure.

Spunds as if the colour is not closeenough to your natural shade

can you change to a different salon ? it sounds as though they don't understand your hair or even listen to what you want. I am lucky enough to have a really good hairdresser and she's done my hair for 2 yrs, so it's relatively stressless - if something that I want isn't right she'll say. I pay about £62 for colour (half head foils`) and cut - am out of London now, used to be lots more.

Natural hair never looks lighter on the top! The hair at the top is new, it hasn't had time to be sun hihglighted. It's the tips that should be lighter....

Yes, I will definitely change to adifferent salon.
There's a tiny one oppsite ny house where all the old ladies go to have their hair dyed purple. maybe I'll try that one!

I mean the hair underneath will be darker.

I think you really need to change salons - I pay heaps more, but am in London, so goes with the territory.
Explain you want to grow out the layers or at least reduce the layering and get a full head of foils with an infill colour. Do you know anyone locally who's hair always looks good? Ask them where they go. Ask strangers if nec!

sorry incy, misunderstood.

tugamommy - no advice but I completely identify with hairdresser stress - I would rather go to the dentists! 'Lost in translation' - I try and explain what I want in my language and my hairdresser just looks at me blankly but nodding and then does what he wants anyway. So frustrating. It's different every time but never what I've asked for. Aaaaarrghhhh!

Thanks Skyatnight!!! I always feel like an alien among haidresser lovers who love having their hai done and come out looking great. For me it so bad that if I'm going to a wedding I'll style it myself because I know it will look horrible! I usually wash my hair the day after going, if not the same day, because I always hate how it looks. I don't look good with flat, straightened hair, with a brush or with hair straighteners. It is that simple. Does any hairdresser understand that? NO! No matter what I say it's what they do!....

I have to say that there is one hairdresser I like and really understands hair, regardless of fashio, but it's back home and I can't aford it anyway.... Only once a year as a treat...

I always ask hairdresser to leave my hair unstyled/undried - as it always looks all bouffant and I can't bear it fluffed up !

Yes, my hairdresser cuts quite well but he blow-dries my hair bouffant-stylee away from my face, leaving me looking like an extra from The Poseidon Adventure or an Anglia TV news reader. I often just ask him to blast-dry it quickly and then wash it again when I get home.

And the stress of changing hairdressers - what if the new one is no better or worse? Sitting in the chair, tensed up, watching the bits of hair fall on the floor, trying to assess the damage in the mirror. It doesn't look bad while it's wet and then they blow-dry it and you realise it's a whole new version of wrong. Then you can't really go back to the old hairdresser as they will know that you temporarily defected and might take it out on your hair!? [paranoid emoticon]

I guess I'm just a control freak but I would really like, one day, to have a haircut that I'm really pleased with.