Wednesday, July 1, 2015

How to Add Beautiful Highlights to Hair Without Chemicals!


Blonde woman with pretty highlights.jpeg
Look at the gorgeous variety of tones in this beauty's hair.

Hair that has flattering highlights can do so much for a face.  Whether your complexion is fair, medium, or dark, those interwoven tones of varying shades of hair color can amazingly bring out your features in such a stunning way that it also helps make you look younger.

Of course, you can go to the salon and have professionals put those highlights in or you might try to do it at home without resorting to chemicals.  All you need are a few ingredients that you just may have on hand or can buy easily enough in your grocery store to use on your hair.

If your natural hair color is blonde, you probably heard about the lighting power that fresh lemon juice has due to its citric acid.  What you do is to squeeze enough lemon into a spray bottle that already has one-fourth cup of warm water and one teaspoon of olive oil.  

Give your unwashed hair a thorough spraying and then head outside to lounge in the sun for at least thirty minutes or so. You can keep this on longer and reapply the spray every half hour for further lightening. However, this method works the best for those with the lightest natural blonde color.  Darker blondes may not find the lemon treatment as kind to their hair since they can find it can turn their hair a brassy, orange yellow shade.

The better alternative for blonde is brewing some chamomile tea to use instead.  Boil up some water for your ceramic teapot or glass carafe from your coffee maker, only make it stronger and add two bags of chamomile tea.  Avoid using a metal pot with chamomile since a chemical reaction occurs that weakens the tea’s effectiveness for this purpose.  Let it cool and then go wash your hair. 

By the time that you finish shampooing, the tea should be ready and comfortable enough to either rinse your hair with before sitting out in the sun or to add to another spray bottle to take with you outside to spray select sections you would like highlighted. Enjoy the sun for a while to give your hair some processing time.

Beer also makes a great final rinse to bring out some fabulous highlights for blonde hair.  Take a bottle outside and just pour some over freshly washed hair before relaxing in the sun.  

Brown hair can take advantage of several others ways to add different color tones.  The first is making a cinnamon mask to use in your hair overnight.  This will give you gorgeous red tones shining through your hair.

Mix one and a half tablespoons of cinnamon, two tablespoons of honey for help activating the coloring like a chemical developer and one-half teaspoon of olive oil together to form a thick, reddish paste that you will need to thin with some hair conditioner.  Use about a teaspoon or so to get the right consistency.  

Let the mixture rest for about twenty to thirty minutes to gain a better texture as those ingredients combine.   If this is too thick, just add a bit of water. Remember, you need it to be a creamy paste.

Before you begin, you need your hair to be damp.  Wash it and let it partially dry before sectioning off or just spray your hair with some water so the mixture can take hold.  Once your hair is treated, you need to thoroughly rub that sticky mixture in as best as you can, making sure it is well distributed.  Try pushing your hair up and then covering the goo with enough plastic wrap or a shower cap and wrap in a towel because you will keep this mask on your head overnight. In the morning, you wash this mixture out.  In its place, you will find a new striking shade of brown.

If you grow herbs, you might want to experiment with sage or rosemary rinses for pouring over brunette hair that has gotten too brassy.  Use about one-fourth cup of fresh sage or rosemary leaves and brew in about a cup of water.  Let this mixture seep, strain, and then apply as a final rinse to darken.

You can also brew up a few a strong pot of darkening tea with two bags of black tea to one cup of water. Seep this mixture and apply to freshly washed hair as a final rinse.

Those redheads among us might try the power of beet juice.  Pour about a half cup over damp hair and relax in the sun with it on for about a half hour or so.  

Another thing that can enhance the red is following the same procedure, only substituting carrot juice. 

Then again, you can be adventurous and combine both along with a teaspoon of olive oil or a tablespoon of a hair conditioner for some vibrant degrees of red.

All of these suggestions will gradually change the color.  You may need to repeat whatever method you chose to get the exact change that you are looking for.  

Do try because you won’t be subjecting yourself to any chemical procedure and save some money while adding some beautiful highlights to your hair!