Balayage is the newest highlighting trend that has taken over the hair industry. Made famous first by Victoria’s Secret model Giselle Bundchen, the natural style highlight quickly made roots in the beauty busines! This specific highlighting technique gives you a more “naturally  occurring” look. Balayage, in French, means “to sweep,” making this name perfectly suited for this technique. Designed to mimic those gorgeous natural highlights that young children have, balayage gives either a subtle or drastic sun-kissed look. Ombre, the more drastic style of balayage, is a “grown-out” look. Ombre  focuses more on lightened ends and darker appearing roots, recently seen on Miley Cyrus while she was rocking her shoulder length in-between style, where as a simple balayage starts thin at the roots and continues to open up towards the end of the strands. Similarly to highlights, balayage is a technique mostly used with lightner as opposed to hair color. However, balayage uses a much different technique than the usual foil & lightener technique of generic highlights. Balayage often uses plastic wrap in place of foils, as it is lighter and easy to form towards the head. Plastic wrap is placed lightly over the hair lightener to keep it moist throughout processing. Another key component in balayage is cotton. A piece of cotton is placed underneath the section of hair you are balayaging, right up at the root. The purpose of this cotton is the keep the stranded lifted off of any lightener that may be in a section below. The underside of the sections should remain dry, as you are just “brushing” or “sweeping” the color downward over the section. Want to see this technique done in more detail? Check out this awesome how-to video we found!