how to do CHUNKY HIGHLIGHTS
like it or not...the 90s are making a comeback! though it’s hard to imagine anything beyond the beloved OMBRE, that style is nearing its 10 year point from its initial fashion forward appearance. within the next couple of years, we’re going to see a lot of CHUNKY HIGHLIGHTS coming back.
in this week’s video, we’re showing you the tips and techniques behind modern day chunky highlights, 2018 style!
it’s important to note that when you’re doing CHUNKY HIGHLIGHTS, you need to pay close attention to your foil pattern. the style has matured from it’s debut in the 90s. we don’t want the highlights to look stripey. instead, we’re looking for a dynamic combination of color.
step 1: LIGHTENING and COLORING the hair
before we dive in with lightener, we’re going to SECTION the hair.
the first section will be a circle on top of the head. the remaining hair, we’ll divide it into 4 even quadrants.
we’re going to start in the back right quadrant. for this FOIL PATTERN, we need to move diagonally through the hair as we lighten. we’re going to do 3 slices of BLONDE, followed by 2 slices worth of the dark. we will not be doing the dark in foils. we will just be coloring the brown in between the blonde foils. by around the perimeter of the head, we’re going to do a thin veil of the darker color to create a natural flow of color that will camouflage the dark roots as they grow in.
we’ll start at the PERIMETER with the veil.
from here, we’ll put in 3 sections of BLONDE HIGHLIGHTS followed by 2 sections of DARK LOWLIGHTS.
we’ll use this same foil pattern for every quadrant excluding the top section of the head. make sure to section the hair and insert the foils on a diagonal angle to create an even diffused look.
we will be painting the brown color in between the foils to the new growth so that we do not have to disturb or move the foils around later. we don’t need to foil but we do need to make these sections a bit smaller. this will make sure we have an even ratio of dark to light. 3 blonde slices to 2 dark slices. at the ends, it will be a simple job to pull the color on to the ends of the brown sections that are left out.
once we’re finished the right back quadrant, you will mirror the foil pattern on the opposite quadrant still placing the foils diagonally back.
on the top of the head, we want to avoid having any hard stripes of color so we’re going to use a pinwheel pattern to ensure the highlights are distributed in a dispersed pattern.
this pattern alternates a shorter foil, a medium foil, and a long foil to avoid a congestion of foils and color right in the center of the pinwheel.
the long foil will need to reach the CENTER of the head. this means you’ll need to find the center of the head to know where your longest foils need to be. start by parting the top section in half from ear to ear.
we’ll start with the FRONT section.
we’re going to continue the trend of moving diagonally, starting from the back of the section with the longest foil. this foil will go from the outer edge of the section to the center of the pinwheel. as we move onto the medium section, we’re going to foil this section smaller than the previous section and further away from the center of the head. again, we are preventing congestion of foils in the very center of the pinwheel. next will be the smallest foil, where the section is smaller than the previous medium section.
we will continue to apply the DARKER color (equivalent to two slices) after the 3 blonde slices.
then we’ll return to a long, medium, and small blonde back to back highlight pattern followed by another section of dark until we’ve completed the entire TOP SECTION.
with the pinwheel complete, we can COLOR the ends of the darker sections. to do so, we’ll gently paint the darker sections ends with the foils still intact.
after allowing the COLOR and LIGHTENER to process, we’re ready to wash out.
with the initial lightening completed, it’s easy to see that we still have a few canary yellow pigments to lighten out of the hair. to do so, we’re going to repeat the same lightening process before we tone. we don’t need to touch any of the darker areas this time around.
step 2: LIGHTENING and TONING the hair
we’ve have mimicked the pattern we used yesterday. we are going to use a combination of two different lighteners, as her hair was lightened from a previous style. to break up a bit of the striped patterns in the front, we’re going to create a veil of DARK at the front of the hair to blend and diffuse the color line.
once we’ve repeated our foiling process for the second time, we’re ready to wash out.
to TONE the hair, we’re going to use a 9p from the matrix line to give an icy finish. if a client of yours has strong brassy tones, you’d want to go with a violet or blue based toner to counteract those pigments.
we’re going to apply the toner to everywhere we’ve lightened, from the roots to the end.
once the toner is all applied, we’ll allow it to process fully before washing out.
the finished product is BEAUTIFUL CHUNKY HIGHLIGHTS:
if you have any questions, ask us in the comments or message us directly @nvennhairbeauty :)
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Janessa
March 23, 2021
Absolutely amazing ! Where are you located? Thank you for detailed advice ! ♡