Highlights, woven through — in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
Highlights are streaks of lighter colour woven through the hair, applied with foils to lift specific sections away from your natural base. Done well, they give the hair real dimension — more brightness on top, depth underneath, and the kind of finish that catches the light when you move. They’re the most adjustable colour service we offer: you can have a few woven pieces to brighten things up, a half head for noticeable but contained change, or a full head for a properly transformed look.
How highlights differ from balayage: balayage is hand-painted, soft, lived-in, and slow to grow out. Highlights are foil-applied, more uniform in brightness, and grow out with a more visible regrowth line. Neither is “better” — they’re different tools. There’s a fuller comparison on the balayage or highlights blog if you want the detail. We talk through which suits you at your consultation.
Call or WhatsApp us on 01235 534705 if you’d like to talk through whether highlights are right for you.
T-section, half head, full head — what you’re choosing between.
Highlights come in three main coverage levels. The choice depends on how much change you want, your starting colour, and how often you want to come back:
T-section. Less than a half head — foils placed across the top of your head in a T-shape (down the centre parting and across the crown). It’s the lightest commitment, suited to clients who want subtle lift, grey blending around the parting, or who already come in every four to six weeks and want to keep things minimal. More on what a T-section is.
Half head. Foils through the top half of the head where hair sees most light. Visible, but the hair underneath stays your natural colour — which means regrowth is less stark and you can wear your hair up without an obvious line.
Full head. Foils throughout. The most dramatic, the most popular option (roughly nine in ten of our highlights clients go for it), and the highest maintenance — you’ll see regrowth more clearly and want to top up more often. If you’re after maximum brightness or a meaningful overall change, this is the one.
Some clients alternate between a full head and a half head every other appointment, which preserves hair health and stops the colour going too “blocky” from over-highlighting. Your stylist will advise on what makes sense for your hair specifically.
Highlights aren’t only about lift, either — adding darker sections instead of lighter ones is called lowlights, and we use the same foil technique. Often the most natural results come from combining the two.
Colour and technique: babylights, AirTouch, grey blending.
Within “highlights” there are a few different application techniques, each suited to different goals:
Babylights. Very fine, delicate highlights packed tightly — designed to mimic the natural lightness children’s hair has. The softest, most natural-looking option, and the kindest to grow out.
AirTouch. A technique that uses a hairdryer to separate finer strands from thicker ones before foiling. Gives a particularly seamless blend. We have a dedicated AirTouch highlights page with more on the technique.
Grey blending. Highlights used to soften the contrast between greying hair and the rest of your colour — much lower maintenance than chasing the grey with a full tint. More on grey blending with highlights.
Colour-wise, most highlights use one to three shades selected to suit your eye colour, natural base, and skin tone. We have dedicated pages on the most-requested colour directions: blonde, platinum, gold, and natural highlights — each covers the technique and colour choices specific to that look.
Every highlights appointment starts with a consultation.
Free, no-obligation, and includes the skin test we’re required by manufacturers to do before any colour service. We use JOICO for our colour and treatment work — it’s the brand we trust for both the colour itself and the home-care recommendations we’ll make alongside your appointment. We use the consultation to look at your hair in person (photos and descriptions only go so far), understand its history, and work out whether highlights are the right tool for what you want — or whether you’d be better off with balayage, a tint, or something else. Sometimes the answer changes once we’ve actually seen your hair, and that’s exactly what consultations are for. Expecting or nursing? Our guidance on hair colour while pregnant or breastfeeding is worth a read before your appointment.
The honest part: cost, time, and maintenance.
Highlights aren’t quick. A full head typically runs three to four hours; a half head, two to three; a T-section, around ninety minutes. Pricing varies with hair length and how many foils your stylist places — across Abingdon salons the range is roughly £120 at the lower end up to £300 or more for longer or more intricate work, with our average sitting around £150. Your consultation gives you a firm figure before you book; the full price list is on a separate page.
Maintenance: most clients with highlights come back every eight to twelve weeks. Regrowth is more visible than with balayage because the contrast between the foil-lifted sections and your roots is more defined. If lower-maintenance matters more to you than the bright, woven look highlights give, balayage is probably the better fit and we’d say so at the consultation. Transitioning from highlights to balayage later isn’t particularly cost-effective, so it’s worth thinking about which direction you want before you start — there’s a blog on transitioning from highlights to balayage if it’s relevant. We’d rather book you the right service than the most expensive one.
Curly hair and highlights.
Highlighting curly hair takes a different approach from highlighting straight hair — placement matters more, and the wrong technique can disrupt the curl pattern or end up looking patchy. We specialise in curly haircuts and colour, so if you’ve struggled to find a salon that can highlight curly hair without making the result look uneven, this is worth flagging at your consultation.
Booking your appointment.
If you’re new to us, book a consultation first — it’s free, it includes the required skin test, and it gives us both a chance to make sure highlights are actually the right thing for what you want. If you’ve had highlights elsewhere before, bring photos of how they were done so your stylist understands what you’ve liked and what you haven’t.
Online booking is at wisteriaavenue.co.uk/bookings, or call us Tuesday to Saturday on 01235 534705. WhatsApp the same number if it’s easier.
