Hair Paint or Foiled Again

Which techniques will you choose to lighten and brighten dull locks this summer?

With a variety of highlighting tools in your box, it's easy to see why colorists have foil vs. balayage wars and why they challenge themselves. Freehand or foil. That be they question.

This week I explored traditional foil placement in hopes to add and refine brightness, especially in the part area even though I’m usually drawn to the beauty of balayage for its custom placement, it's ability to freely paint around the head and it’s it’s more natural looking grow out.

Color Go Big in the Apple

Spending the nights in a dimly lit, swanky Soho hotel room, chowing down pigs ears at a foodie hot spot and shopping for cozy, waterproof winter boots necessary to survive the foot of snow, slush and ice in zero degree nights while days were filled testing color skills with color renowned Matrix educators Chrystopher Benson and Leah Sterk, pushed my color limits on chemistry experiments, visual exercises, and included a full head foil highlight done with precision by yours truly, color expert certified.

Out of The Paint Box

Icicles formed on my hair as I boarded the Metro North, Brooklyn bound, for an intense day of hairpainting wizardry at The Paint Box with my two coworkers the first Monday of the New Year.

After six months of following Jenny Regec with her Modern Salon approved Instagram posts, I was ready for my full day hair adventure. 

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Warmly greeting my coworkers and I at the door the moment we finally arrived, two wrong subways later, Jenny was prepared to share her craft. 

She dove into her first head of hair, a blonde model relaxing in the narrow four chair salon, as light swarmed around our intimate group through the front window.

Sections were neatly divided, lightener was tapped on with soft, fluid strokes and I was instructed on every brush, tap and smooth.

Jenny shared the history of this modern hair lightening technique, which started fifteen years ago in France, and her background, including a hairstylist mom and Bumble and Bumble training.

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Hairpainting is a hair lightening technique placed without limitations close to the root or mid-shaft, all for a natural grow out with a modern, sophisticated look.

After a pause for lunch I went hands on under Jenny’s watchful eye. Anxious with one on one attention while she shared the art of mixing a clay based bleach, where to place the product and how to use my hands to help smooth consistency, I gave it a go.

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Platinum highlights proved the ultimate challenge. I was ready to give in and grab a foil when Jenny came to my rescue, found my flaw and elevated my skill. Challenge met!

Paint That Hair

Being careful not to fly bleach from the balayage paddle, I paint long locks and cautiously watch over designer handbags as well dressed women converse with their stylists in the next station over.

Speckles of bleach rest dryly on the shimmering black cape while most of it is laying thickly on top of each hair section I select for a custom highlight application.  

I layer strands with clay based hair lightener, a modern form of bleach that creates a hard shell on the outside yet stays moist on the inside to allow hair to be freely painted. Unlike traditional powder bleach that swells and is more likely to cause bleeding, the clay stays right where I put it. I then saturate freely where light is desired. 

A freehand application is always custom, seemless and beautiful

Balayage Ultimate

Colorists have been pushing boundaries by creating seemless hair color for an au naturale effect with a variety of hand painting techniques. 

Like the hair you were born with, we tap, slap and smudge our bleach, blurring lines and kissing locks in tones of butter and bronze, or copper and honey, and so on!  Sans foil, our vision is setting us free in the ultimate color creation.

This season, at Hair in Fairfield, CT,  we had the honor of skill shared via Frederick Fekkai"s Soho Creative Director Davíd Michaud. 

In his thick french accent and experienced hand, he pushed, blended and skimmed lightener into manes of blonde, brunette, and red, creating sophisticated beauty with no stripes or harsh lines from start to finish. 

He smothered the hair in plastic wrap to keep lightener from drying out, just like your mama’s oven casserole, then rinsed and glazed. Et Voilà. Highlights du jour.