Balayage or highlights?

[Shufflebumnessie]

My natural hair colour is darkish brunette which I feel is just too dark against my very pale skin colouring (I think mother nature got her colour palettes mixed up for me!!). I used to have my hair very subtly highlighted and it looked good, however after DC1 I just couldn't afford the time or money to keep up with the maintenance and grew them out. I've not dyed my hair in 8 years.
My new hairdresser (who does a great job cutting my fine wavy hair) suggested a subtle lighter Balayage. I'm 44 (today!) and have the odd grey strands beginning to come through on the underlayers by the top of my ears.
Does anyone have any experience of Balayage? Is it easy to maintain?
Would you choose Balayage or highlights?
Thanks in advance.

I prefer balayage, but I think you spend more time in salon than when do highlights. My appointment takes around 4 hours on long hair. I love the result though, highlights wouldn't be enough for me and would be too dark near face (mother nature mixed up colour palette for me too!). It's not hard to maintain it, in my opinion. I use purple shampoo once a week to prevent them go brassy. Roots look very natural, much much better than plain colour, so you don't even need to visit hairdresser every 3 months. Sometimes 5 or 6 months break isn't bad.

Definitely recommend the balayage! With highlights you have to go in every 8 weeks - with a balayage you can go in every 4-6 months! Easier to maintain as a mum :)

Happy birthday! I love balayage and have always chosen it over highlights for about the past 10 years. The regrowth is far more forgiving and even when I’ve grown it out completely I’ve had compliments on my “ombré”. Definitely show a photo of what you’re after to make sure your hairdresser paints exactly where you want.

Thanks for the replies and sharing your experiences. It sounds like Balayage is the way forward for me.

if you have balayage be very specific about the colour. I had balayage , I expected a good high ashy blonde , and wanted that to blend with my (pure white) greys, instead I got a horrible brassy colour that looks really unflattering and unnatural. An orangey green. Even though the idea is is low maintenance, the regrowth contrast is so stark it’ll need doing again soon just like highlights.
i hate mine 🙈was totally talked in to it by my upselling hairdresser who seemed perplexed I was happy with my natural grey. I’d avoided colour for ten years, now I’ll either have to wait for it all to grow out or spend ££££ keeping up with it. It cost £300 at a really high end salon (award winning colourist) and the condition is also like straw now. And I was there for 5 hours , which is an epic time commitment with a family.