5 Tips for Coloring and Highlighting Your Hair at Home

Most women are frightened to do their own color or highlighting to their own hair at home. Many of us have bought that elusive box of hair color and our hair turned orange or same lovely shade of purple. However with summer winding down here are some ideas to stop you from paying hundreds of dollars for things you can do at home.

1. Go to your local natural food store such as World Market or Wild Oats. They have little jars of Henna specifically for hair. This Henna will not only redden your locks but it will also give your hair a shine just like a hot oil treatment. The jars are only around 6 dollars and you only need one, even for longer hair.

2. Go back to your roots, remember the days of lemon juice? Take this trick and give it a new twist. Mix the lemon juice with a leave in conditioner, preferably one specifically made for blondes. Apply this into your root area the most than glaze over the rest of your hair. Than just go and spend your day in the sun. This is help to lighten your darkening roots and condition the bleached coloring in your hair. Doing this a couple days a week will help lighten even the darkest hair and keep it shiny.

3. Don't be afraid of the coloring boxes you find in your local store. Just remember a few things. First if wanting to go red don't just purchase a red hair color. Pick your favorite red shade of any hair color out there; Colorsilk which is one of the cheapest actually works extremely well. Than get a standard brown lighter or darker depending on what you would like the shade to be. Than purchase a .99 cent empty mustard bottle. Or empty out your Hershey's Chocolate Syrup bottle in your fridge and use it. Combine both hair colors into that bottle and than put onto your hair, this tones down the red they put in commercial box color and also keep the red from completely washing out. If you have longer hair you can use 3 boxes of hair color mix and match as desired. You can also use this when doing a blonde hair color. Purchase the shade you truly like, and then purchase one that is 2 shades darker than combine. Usually the box colors can overpower if you do not tone down with something else.

4. Do not use any hair color that says Ash. This means there is green coloring within the hair color, and if your hair is iffy in any way you may end up with Christmas tree hair. If you don't like gold or red tones just purchase hair color that does not have golden or red within the shade name.

5. Lastly everyone already knows how to highlight their hair with a cap that you pull y our hair through. This allows you to easily highlight your hair at home, however this can dry out your tresses as well. However why not purchase a creamier consistency hair color and add low lights or red streaks, the sky is the limit.

Just remember when dealing with a bad hair day, so not feel like you have to spend hundreds of dollars, you can find different way to color or change your hair and keep it healthy on a budget.