Anyone here do their own freestyle kind of highlights and lowlights?

[DoveGreys]

I’ve had too many bad or cookie cutter experiences with hairdressers (with my grey/silver hair). I want some subtlety, not just “blonde” all over basically.

I have trust issues. Whereas if I do it myself I have more control eg even a bit at a time.

I have done this before at home myself - but OMG the effort, drama and mess !

Thoughts 🙂?

ps. I also posted this in general “chat” but no biters 🎣 !

I do my own.

I'm natural mouse, but maintain a very pale blonde with dark blended roots.

It's a pain and a faff but i do it.

I use a combination of box lightener (apx 4 times a year) to bring it all 'up'.
Wella toner T18 mixed with developer all over to tone the yellow right out and between bleachings lighten and blend the roots a bit (apx 6 times a year)
and
Any old basic dark brown hair dye for root blend (apx monthly cos it washed out).

Thanks. I have done something similar in the past. Down to the T18 toner. I keep changing my mind re. faff of doing it myself and faff of going to a colourist who might not do what I want.

Do you do your own freestyle highlights, or do you dye your hair all one colour?

My natural hair is mostly grey/silver. I add some random strands of ash blonde to lighten it. Then toner. Then some random light brown lowlights.

Your hair sounds great - can I ask what toner you use?

Hi @DelphiniumBlue are you asking me? Like Laiste, I also have used T18 toner in the past. I think I got it off Amazon at the time. The toner is fairly easy to do, it’s the other stuff that’s the faff though!

I’m still undecided. Oh well 🤷‍♀️!

I do basic light brown at the rooots only using half a box dye. Then mix the remaining dye with hair bleach and random paint on highlights to top layer of hair. The dye/bleach mix means the tone is a similar colour but gives nice hightlights. Takes a bit of practice but i like the effect and a a recent teim the hairdresser said the colour was good.

Re: painting highlights .... sometimes 😆

If i'm feeling patient enough and can be arsed i'll do freehand high lights from about a cm from my parting. I do about half head. I never bleach the lowest layers of hair. I leave that my natural dark mouse and it gives a depth and shadow to my hair (it's quite fine).

My hair is bra strap length. It takes quite a lot of convolutions with my arms to do all this.