Highlights on Dark Indian Hair at Home

Swoooooshyyyyyyyyyyy

Okay.

So.

I'm kind of having a mid-young-life crisis.



In high school and college, my hair used to be all kinds of color.  From purple, to red, to orange, to blond, to auburn.  When I got to law school, I guess I ended up over it and stopped dying it.  Slowly but surely, my hair started growing out its natural color - dark brown, or black, depending on the lighting.  And I really liked it.  My eyebrows and dark eyes stood out more, I looked mature, and I stuck with it.  Nowadays, no one believes I used to actually have multi-colored hair.

Until my crisis.  My psuedo-crisis.

I have been wanting highlights for a while (even though I kind of discouraged them in my Bollywood hair post?).  But, I never wanted to spend the time or money on them, and I did like my "Oh I am so Madhuri Dixit from 1990" look.  Until I saw the hair dye/highlight kit at my mom's house (my mom's pretty cool).  I noticed she never used it, so, last week, I decided to give it a shot.  It was that L'Oreal Colour Experte Kit - and I ended up using the highlighting portion only.  Um, I don't think I knew what I was doing exactly, so, at the end of this post, you will see the lessons I learned from this experience.  I ended up with some highlights in my bangs and a lot around the crown of my head. (Got lesson #1 from that, see below).  Turns out, the Colour Experte kit does not come with a lot of highlighting solution/powder, so I kind of ran out of it. (Lesson # 2).  The color came out well though, a sort of reddish caramel.

Since I ran out, I felt like I needed more highlights, so I looked for another highlighting kit to redo the ones I had and add more.  And, since my head was already partly highlighted, I went with the L'Oreal Petite Frost Kit in Caramel Creme.  I did not want the temptation of a full highlight kit and using too much of it. Nor did I want to spend a bunch of money on it. I got it for like $7 on sale.  Also - I do NOT think the "color" on the highlight kit makes much of a difference.  If you time the coloring okay, you will end up with the shade you want, not necessarily the shade on the box.  I was not aiming for light caramel highlights on the box - rather, I wanted reddish-brown ones.


With L'Oreal Petite Frost, I was planning on using the highlighting cap that came with it.  But once I tried pulling through hair through that sucker, I promptly took it off.  So, I went freestyle with my highlight painting.  I redid the first set of highlights (Lesson #3) and added some more.  I kind of ran out again, but I was satisfied with the amount I put in.  I put it mostly on the top layer of my hair, with about 2-3 highlights on the under layers.  I tried to space it out some (Lesson #4).

After waiting 20 minutes (Lesson #5), I ended up with multi-level highlights.  Now, that's just a fancy way of saying I ended up with different colors.  Really.  (Lesson #5 again and Lesson #6).

I can't believe this actually worked.

So, I guess my hair is more brown than black, as I mostly highlighted the only the upper/top layer of my hair (the shortest layer).  It seems to blend in with the lower layers okay.

My biggest concern about highlights was damaging my hair.  Because I think the amount of hair I ended up was relatively minimal, my hair turned out okay.  But, I survived, and I think I am pretty happy with them. :)

And now - LESSONS LEARNED/TIPS FOR HIGHLIGHTING DARK HAIR AT HOME.

1. When doing highlights yourself, make sure you highlight the ends of the strand first, and then coat up to your roots.  Do NOT start at your roots first.  Your scalp is warm and the heat makes the highlighting formula take faster.  So, in my first round of highlights, I ended up with bright hair around my crown, that darkened as it went down the strand.  It's better to look like your hair grew out highlights rather than grew in highlights.  Before I redid the highlights, I was referring to myself as reverse ombre.  Weeeeird.
2. If you are not sure how much your highlight kit will will cover, space your highlights out in the areas you really want them.  Also, plan on where you want to focus your highlights.  You do NOT want to run out with half your head covered.
3. If you are adding highlights to previously highlighted hair, redo the lighter hair LAST.  If you do highlight that hair first, then it ends up way lighter than the rest of your new highlights!  DUH!
4. Learn what spacing out highlights means.  I think I ended up with one consistent chunk on the back of my head.  Also, don't forget to highlight the back of your head.  I think I remembered the back of my head a little too much.
5. Remember - highlighting your hair at home takes a long time.  The strands you cover first will be the strands that have the highlight mixture on them the longest.  They WILL end up lighter than the strands on which you put the strands on last.  You want to take your time, but you also have to move quickly so the colors are not so vastly different.  Also - start first where you want the highlights most noticeable, usually around your face, so if they are a little lighter it looks good.  Different colors are inevitable, unless you use a highlighting cap, because all your hair will be preselected and you just slather the mixture on.  
6. Like I said in the post, the "color" in the highlight kit doesn't matter much because I think dark hair goes through the same color cycle as highlights process (unless the highlight kit comes with a toner).  I think dark hair goes through this cycle - Black to dark brown to brown to dark auburn to copper to orange to dark blonde to blonde. You just rinse out when you think the color is where you want it.  I stopped somewhere around copper, I think.

HAPPY HIGHLIGHTING!