Hair Highlights: Reasons Why You Should Not Do Them Yourself

High salon prices may tempt you to try one of those drugstore do-it-yourself kits for your next highlight job, but there are plenty of good reasons why getting your hair highlighted by a professional is a safer, smarter choice!

Accountability
Doing your highlights yourself is very risky, and if something goes wrong, there's nobody to blame but yourself! If you get your hair done by a professional, you can insist that they fix any mistakes until you are satisfied, and if you're unhappy with the end result, you'll have some recourse, and can work with your stylist to fix the problem. With a do-it-yourself kit, you're the stylist, and if you come out looking orange, uneven, or fried, your options will be very limited, and you may end up spending more money trying to fix the problem than you would've spent going to a professional in the first place.

Chemicals
You can tell from the moment you mix the highlighting cream that you're dealing with some pretty serious chemicals. You can smell the burning aroma of the peroxide bleach, and may even start to feel a little ill if you're in a room that isn't well-ventilated. Though highlighting kits come with rubber gloves, application wands, and all kinds of safety precautions, dealing with toxic chemicals without a professional present is always risky. It's best to leave such potentially dangerous work to professionals who will use and dispose of the chemicals in a proper manner, leaving you safe and gorgeous.

You could seriously mess up
Let's face it: a major problem with doing highlights yourself is that you could make a mess of your hair! You can't see the back of your own head, and a mirror is never going to tell you the whole story. It's too difficult to gauge the timing, amounts, and positioning of all the components involved in doing your own highlights, and it's ultimately best left to the professionals. Yes, some kits come with 'fool-proof' caps and application wands, with directions so clear that messing up seems nearly impossible. Truthfully though, if you're not a stylist, and you simply aren't trained to do highlights, you're never going to end up looking like the girl on the box when you're through. A professional stylist will make sure you don't leave their chair looking like a fright, because your beauty reflects their skill, and it's important to them that you look good!

The bottom line is that it simply isn't worth it to try to do highlights on your own! Go to a salon, spend a little extra money, and don't feel guilty about pampering yourself for once! Yes, getting your hair professionally done is an expensive indulgence, but doing it yourself is a risky endeavor, and could end up being very expensive in the long run.