To master the art of highlighting your own hair, Cona recommends practicing with your highlighting tools the day before you highlight. "Replace the highlighting product with conditioner, and practice your application on dry hair. It is a great way to get comfortable with the tools, and placement of your highlights," she says.
Don't rush into adding highlights. You can always add more if you decide you like them. The easiest area to add highlights to (and the area that will look most natural and similar to Jessica Alba's look at left) is around your face and crown. If you've highlighted your hair several times, you can experiment with more, but start off slow, O'Connor says.
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Section Hair Before You Apply Bleach
Look at your hair and pick out the pieces you think you'd like to highlight. O'Connor recommends pulling them out and clipping them aside to isolate them. Then secure the rest of your hair into a ponytail. Release the sections you clipped out of the way one by one and paint them. If you're worried about getting the bleach on the hair you don't want to highlight, place a piece of a paper towel under each section after applying the bleach.
Image via Imaxtree
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Apply Bleach Carefully
Don't start right at your roots when you apply the bleach, O'Connor says, instead start a couple of inches below them. Pull the product evenly through to the ends of the section you're highlighting, then go back to the top (near your part but not all the way down to the root) and glide the product through that area. This ensures you don't get too much product on top, which can look splotchy, and that your highlights don't turn out too light on top since roots develop faster.
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Watch Your Highlights Develop
As soon as you're done painting on your highlights, keep a close watch on them to make sure they're not getting lighter than you want them. "The best way to check your highlights as they develop is to use a white paper towel, and wipe off your product, using a water bottle, and dry the strands to check the development. If you need more lighting action, reapply your lighteners," Cona says.
Warning: "99.9 percent of the time women with lighter eyes will have highlights that develop faster," O'Connor says. She suggests sticking to the time recommended on the box, but checking the color two minutes before the recommended removal time. If you're extra nervous about how they'll turn out, check them five minutes before. If the color looks the way you want it to look, they're ready.
Image via Imaxtree
Highlights can add dimension to hair and give it a gorgeous sun-kissed effect when done correctly, but a few missteps can make you look skunk-like or worse. Thanks to experts Rona O'Conner, celebrity colorist and co-owner of the Lukaro salon in Beverly Hills, Calif. and Marcy Cona, Clairol Global Creative Director of Color and Style we got the scoop on how to successfully highlight hair at home — read on to see their tips.
