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When your house looks old and dull, you freshen it up with a new paint job. When you look old and dull (not that you ever do), adding highlights is a quick way to give yourself a fresh new "paint job." Consider adding two colors of highlights to your hair. This can blend the colors in more naturally with your real color for a more realistic finish or achieve the opposite: a slam-bang, fresh and funky spin on your normal look -- and a highlighting cap can help with either goal.
Defining the Cap
Whoever created the highlighting cap was a hair dye genius. While a swim cap and shower cap are meant to protect your hair, a highlighting cap actually acts to let the dye in. Fit the cap over your head, then pull strands of hair that you wish to color through the holes. The rest of your hair is protected, the strands are easily accessible and you're good to go.
For a Blended Look
If you're aiming for a natural look, think of your two colors as stepping stones, with each one a little further away from your real color. If you're a brunette and you want some blonde streaks, you can choose a very light brown to offset the difference. Pull your strands through your cap and strategically dye blonde and light brown streaks next to each other so that each section follows a natural progression from dark brown to blonde. You can even count holes in your cap: holes 1 to 3 are blonde, holes 4 to 5 are light brown, holes 6 to 8 are empty so they stay untouched, and start again.
For a Chunky Look
Chunky legs equal not good. Chunky hair equals fresh, cool and very good! To chunk-ify your hair and achieve a look worthy of Hollywood, use your cap to help you place perfectly uneven sections of color around your head. In the same way that bedhead messy is awesome and purposeful, purposefully messy highlights are trendy to the max. Choose two colors that will both stand out so that your chunks will be noticeable and count holes, but this time, keep the colors separate. For dark brown hair, holes 1 to 5 can be blonde, 6 to 8 empty and 7 to 11 light red. Leave another section empty and start again.
Two in One
Take advantage of your own two-for-one deal by using one box of dye to gain two different colors. Each box will tell you how long to leave in the color to achieve light, medium or dark results. Test a section on your hair to see whether these numbers are accurate for your hair type, and decide which two shades you want. Then, slap on your cap and get dyeing: Pull through the first round of hair (half as much as you want to dye), do your thing and wash it out after only a few minutes. Repeat with the rest of the strands you wish to color, but leave the dye in for twice or three times as long. Presto! Two shades of highlighting.
