How To Stay Blonder With At Home Highlights

Even dark-haired sun worshippers try to go blonde in the summer. At one point, I began fooling around with Sun-In, senior year in high school, spraying it through my short dark hair, and ending up with golden red highlights. Actually, the highlights weren't that bad, considering my hair is very dark brown. And freshly squeezed lemons also played a role in my short-lived blonde fantasy moment.

Sun-In has been around for a number of decades. And at-home highlighting sprays are still very popular hair treatments for the summer sun. If you're trying to become platinum blonde through a spray-in highlight product, well, it's not going to work. But if you have light hair, and you're just trying to brighten your locks, then at-home highlights can make you blonder in a very subtle and pretty way.

Many women, and you know who you are ladies, have squeezed some lemons over their head and gone out into the blazing sun to brighten their hair. However, lemons can wreck up even the healthiest hair. Angelo David of the Angelo David Salon in New York City, told http://www.shape.com/, that you need plenty of conditioner when you play in the summer sun.

"Dried-out strands are a possible side effect any time you color your hair, and these sprays are no exception (which is also why you should never use undiluted lemon juice, straight from the lemon, to highlight your hair; because it's so acidic, the juice can strip moisture from your strands and leave them dry and brittle). In addition to a daily conditioner, use a deep conditioner once or twice weekly."

Angelo also suggests that you carefully map out exactly where you want to shine brighter. Don't just spray blindly all over your head.

"As a general rule, highlights toward the front of your head and around your face should be thinner and closer together than the ones in the back. If you're having trouble managing the spray, pull your hair back into a ponytail, separate the strands you want to highlight from the rest of your hair, and then dip a new toothbrush into the solution, using the brush to "paint" the highlights on."

It's always easy to add more highlights, than to spray on too many, and then try to take them away. So don't be too generous with the pump spray.

"Start small and do just a few highlights the first time (about one-third of the amount you imagine you want). Then, see what you think of the results (you should be able to see them as soon as your hair dries); you can add more if you want. Once you're happy with the look of your new streaks, you can use the spray as often as needed to maintain the highlights--and/or touch up the roots."

Excellent spray-on highlighting advice by expert stylist Angelo David.

Here are two blonde highlighting sprays we like:

Sun-In Super Hair Lightener Lemon (with marigold and flaxseed, $5, drugstores).
Clairol A Touch Of Sun Highlighting Spray with Lemon ($5, drugstores).

Shine on, and stay brighter, you blonde beauties.