How To Do Salon-Quality Highlights at Home

The best highlights can add dimension, color, and shine to your mane. While you may consider highlights something best left in the hands of a professional, there’s no need to balk at the idea of giving yourself highlights at home. With the right home highlight kit, you can achieve salon-quality results from the comfort of your own bathroom.

Now, we’re not going to lie—nailing flawless, hair highlights at home requires a bit of patience and know-how. But it’s achievable, even for beginners—and we’re here to prove it. Ahead, we’ve put together a host of tips and tricks for you to easily transform your strands all on your own. Keep reading to learn how to highlight hair at home, plus get tips for taking care of your newly highlighted mane.

How To Highlight Your Hair at Home

It’s time to put your hair coloring abilities and skills to the test. Before breaking into the box dye and home highlight kit, though, brush up on your at-home hair color basics. Here are three important steps to achieving your best DIY highlights.

1. Decide on your highlight style

No matter what route you take to your highlighted hair destination—solo or salon—the first step is settling on a style for your highlights at home. Depending on your preference, there’s a plethora of different types of highlights to consider. You need to decide between partial or full highlights, and whether you want them to be thicker or thinner. Keep in mind that certain highlighting techniques, like balayage and ribbon highlights, require a more advanced skill level—so if you choose to go that route, you may want to book an appointment with a professional colorist.

2. Pick your highlight hue

When you think of highlights, the first thing that probably comes to mind is a version of brilliant blonde. However, highlights don’t have to be blonde—they can be any shade, so long as they’re lighter than your hair (darker streaks are known as lowlights). Try enhancing your ’do with highlighted tints of brown, red, or even gray. You can even get more creative with your at home highlights by picking a bright peach or pretty rose gold shade.

3. Choose the right home highlight kit

When it comes to DIY highlights, there are plenty of options for home highlight kits. When asking yourself, “How do I do highlights at home?” the most important thing to keep in mind is picking the kit that best suits your hair color needs—and, of course, carefully following the included instructions.

For an at-home highlighting bleach that’s inspired by the pros, lighten your strands with the L’Oréal Paris Féria Hyper Platinum Advanced Lightening System Bleach in Hyper Platinum. Then, tint your lightened strands with a sun-kissed shade like chestnut brown, honey blonde, or beige blonde. 

If you’d rather have a one-step approach, snag the L’Oréal Paris Frost & Design kit. This home highlight kit includes a pull-through cap that lets you easily choose which strands to lighten without accidentally coloring any unwanted pieces. It also includes two different styling hooks, so you can create thin or thick highlights—whichever you prefer.

For those willing to give DIY balayage a try, we recommend using the L’Oréal Paris Superior Preference Balayage At-Home Highlighting Kit. It comes with an expert applicator for precise highlight placement and delivers gorgeous, multi-dimensional results.

4. Gather your supplies

Knowing how to do highlights at home isn’t just about snagging a bleach kit—you also need to gather the necessary supplies for the job. While most at-home highlight kits include everything you need, there are some additional tools you should pick up before getting started, including a color brush, mixing bowl, bleach, peroxide, foil, a rat-tail comb, latex gloves, and a color cape or towel to drape over your shoulders as you work. 

5. Do a strand test

There’s (almost) nothing worse than dyeing your entire head only to discover you hate the color you selected. The best way to avoid this when highlighting hair at home is by conducting a strand test. This involves applying your chosen color to a small, hideable chunk of hair (usually, at the nape of your neck) to see how it turns out. Make sure your hair is clean and product-free so the color can fully penetrate the strands. 

This part of the at-home highlights process can be a little time-consuming, especially if you’re bleaching, using foils, or doing a full bleach and tone. No matter which process you go with, make sure you’re timing it correctly. Also, keep in mind that light hair will lift faster than dark hair, so keep a close eye on your color as it processes.

6. Section your tresses

You’ve chosen your home highlight kit, you’ve gathered your DIY highlights supplies, and you’ve successfully completed your strand test—it’s almost time to begin coloring. Before you do, clip your hair into a few equally-sized sections. The amount of sections you’ll need depends on the length and thickness of your hair: the more hair you have, the more sections you’ll want to create. Even if you don’t plan to highlight your entire head, clipping your strands into manageable sections helps keep everything organized throughout the process.

7. Paint your hair

Once you’ve gathered your tools and prepped your strands, you can begin highlighting your hair. Typically, you’ll want to brush the color onto individual strands with a hair dye brush, but the exact process may depend on the highlighting kit you’re using. Refer to the instructions on your chosen highlight kit and follow them to a T to ensure the best possible end result. 

8. Set a timer

We can’t stress this enough—make sure you set a timer while your at-home highlights develop. Every home highlight kit will have in-depth instructions that include timing, so make sure you read and follow them carefully. When the suggested amount of time has passed, hop in the shower and rinse or shampoo your hair as directed on your highlight kit. 

9. Add toner

After dyeing and bleaching your strands, you may notice that they’ve turned a brassy, yellowish hue, especially if you highlighted darker brunette hair. If so, apply a toner like the L’Oréal Paris Féria Power Toner, Long Lasting Anti Brass Toner, which helps neutralize brassiness and reduces unwanted warmth in as little as five minutes. (Note that many highlighting kits come with a post-processing toner—if yours does, you can use that to tone your strands instead). 

10. Dry your hair 

After toning your strands, gently squeeze any excess moisture from your strands and blow-dry or air-dry your hair. Once your strands are fully dry, you’ll be able to get a good look at how your DIY highlights turned out. Hopefully, you’ll be more than happy with the results—but if you feel like you need a color correction, you can book an appointment with your stylist.

How To Take Care of Highlighted Hair

Keeping your DIY highlights looking vibrant and beautiful may require tweaking your haircare routine. Read on to learn how to enhance and protect your newly highlighted strands.

1. Use a system of products formulated for color-treated hair

After coloring, bleaching, or doing highlights at home, hair can become weak, fragile, and damaged, so your tresses may need some TLC. We suggest using the L’Oréal Paris EverPure Bond Repair system to help repair your strands and give your newly-colored mane a healthier appearance. The color-safe system includes a pre-shampoo treatment, shampoo, and conditioner, which work together to help strengthen color-treated hair from the inside out. When used as a system, it also helps reduce breakage and visibly smooths damaged strands. 

Purple shampoo is also a haircare routine must-have after doing at home highlights. It helps cleanse, condition, and balance blonde hair while keeping it from looking too brassy. Reach for the L’Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate Free Purple Shampoo for Toning Blonde Bleached Hair whenever your highlights start to appear warmer than you’d like.

2. Deep condition your strands

Whether you’re dyeing your entire mane or just adding a few highlights, lowlights, or babylights, it’s always a good idea to give your newly colored strands some extra moisture. To help nourish your strands, swap out your conditioner for color-treated hair with a deep conditioning treatment once or twice a week. The L’Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate Free Simply Clean Elastic Fiber Masque envelops hair in nourishment in just five minutes. 

For cool blonde highlights, consider using a purple hair mask or conditioner—like purple shampoos, these can help keep brassiness to a minimum. We’re partial to the L’Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate-Free Anti-Brass Purple Mask Treatment, which deeply nourishes hair and neutralizes brassy yellow tones in as little as five minutes. We suggest using it no more than once per week for the best results. 

3. Brighten dull locks with a hair gloss

After doing hair highlights at home, you may notice that your color starts to fade or look dull. That’s where a hair gloss—a toning and shining treatment for colored strands—comes in handy. Keep your DIY highlights looking fresh with the L’Oréal Paris Le Gloss Color One Step In-Shower Toning Gloss. The in-shower treatment deeply conditions, adds shine, and helps enhance your hair color. Use one of the tinted glosses to give your strands a subtle boost of color, or reach for the clear one to boost shine without any added tint.

4. Skip the hot tools

While we’re suckers for ’90s-inspired blowouts and super sleek strands, sometimes it’s well-advised to give your at-home highlights a break from the heat and put down the hot tools. If you have curly or wavy hair, add a heat-free styling product to your routine, like the L’Oréal Paris Elvive Dream Lengths Curls Leave-In Conditioner. You can also rock your curls sans heat or opt for beachy waves.

If you absolutely must use a curling iron or flat iron on your highlighted hair, be sure you apply a heat protectant before styling, like the L’Oréal Paris Elvive Dream Lengths Heat Slayer Leave In, to protect your strands.

Next Up: How to Bleach Your Hair at Home and Keep Your Blonde Bright

Photo Courtesy of L'Oréal Paris