So, for the last several years I have had light to medium brown hair (ion intense neutral browns) with highlights (revlon frost and glow for light to medium brown hair- sometimes I would go for darker highlights sometimes lighter so there would be variation.) I used to experiment when I was younger but I have gotten really stable the last few years! Until last month that is. I came across a picture online of this really great brown color that had these red highlights that looked amazing and
  perfect for fall. I really craved that color. I decided to go for it, warm it up for fall, rock a brownish red. I went to Sally’s (my holy land of beauty supplies!) and picked the Wella color charm permanent color in Allspice. It was horrible on my hair! It was a really weird light I don’t even know what color but I hated it.
Then I got the demi-perm wella color charm color in chestnut which resulted in a kinda nice deep brownish-red color that I was perfectly okay with.

The double color process left my hair in not so fine condition though, so I read a bunch of reviews on http://www.makeupalley.com on the aphogee 2 step protein treatment and decided to give that a shot. It worked really well but stripped the color from my hair so that I went to a very bad orange-purple color. I was totally embarassed, I didn’t even want to leave my house! That is how bad it was! The hubs and I made an emergency trip to walgreens and I got the super cheap (but very true to swatch) colorsilk color in rich medium brown and it worked like a champ. Great color, a bit dark which left me a little washed out but pretty good none-the-less.

My 9 year old daughter was very  horrified by the different colors that I went through during this period, responding to each change with an incredulous, “What happened to your hair mom?!” Totally great for the ego!

Ok, so I was happy with the color, but not so happy being washed out so I decided that I needed to highlight and get back to normal. We went to walgreens and I got, instead of my usual kit, a glamlights blending highlight kit for dark blonde to light brown hair. I used to use the cap but I really liked the look of the balayage highlights and read every tutorial I could find and watched every YouTube video on the subject as well and felt like I could do this. I went with the wilde method http://www.wildefashion.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/diy-balayage-hair-2/ of teasing sections and applying bleach to the bottom so that it would blend when brushed out. It was okay, not quite right, so I went back and took small sections and applied bleach, really blending like crazy so there wouldn’t be any splotches or uneven areas of color. Left that on about 45 minutes and rinsed out. Much better but the glamlights didn’t really lift the color very well (on my massively color treated hair anyway) and really I knew going in that this would take several sessions of lifting to get to the level I was wanting.

I waited a couple of days and then got the cremelights in the yellow box from Sally’s which is enough to do 2 separate batches of bleach, yay! I mixed up half of the kit and took tiny sections going about half to 3/4 of the way up, varying the lengths for a more natural look, blending like mad, about an inch to half an inch apart with heavier applications around my face. I left it on about 45 minutes and it was amazing! I was so happy with the results, they looked so natural, like I had spent a lot of time in the sun! Exactly what I was going for!
The best part is that the next time I do it the colors will be lighter and even more sunkissed! I am really happy with balayage and I think that this will be the way I do my highlights for some time to come. My mom liked it so much she asked me to do hers, which is cool because she never highlights, just colors her grays. When I picked up my 2 younger kids yesterday from school Alex, my 11 year old, said, “I like your hair mom, you look normal again finally”  He always notices stuff like this, he will be a great husband one day!
I am in no way a hair professional, I am a diy mom, I have never had my color done at a salon or by anyone BUT me. This method of diy balayage worked for me and worked well, but it was definitely a trial and error and please don’t blame me if you try this and it comes out bad! Also, please watch the jesse james decker method of balayage, or “honey dipped” as she calls it! Her method is amazing and this is what I did the second time. Blend, blend, blend and you should be good!
      Stay tuned for more how to’s and beauty product reviews!