Photographers get very excited about golden hour, because it’s the precise time of the day when the light falls perfectly on your hair and skin to warm it up and make everything look even more beautiful. The same goes for ring lights which bounce the light across our eyes and around our hair line. The halo effect makes our eyes sparkle and our hair celestially shiny.
Now that we’ve hit autumn and the natural sunlight is starting to dim, that’s exactly what a new hair highlighting technique seeks to replicate.
Ring-lighting, involves creating a halo of highlights to frame the face and make our features pop. “Halo lightening is a technique that lightens around the face but is also used around the hairline, the sides of the head and at the nape of the neck, providing brightness around the face even when the hair is tied up,” explains pro hair stylist and Editorial Ambassador for L’Oreal Professionnel, Adam Reed.
It can be tweaked to your specifications. For instance, you can dial up the brightness by wrapping the front and underneath sections in a luminous blonde, or you can opt for a more subtle, soft focus warmth with coppers and caramels woven through your strands, depending on what will best suit your existing hair colour and your desired results.
It’s designed with our current zoom-heavy lifestyles in mind, too. “This culture of working from home is meaning that women are frequently making video calls with friends and colleagues from home. They’re looking for colour that will also translate across screens, which is something we discuss a lot during the consultation process,” adds Adam. “A lot of my clients are wearing their hair up more and are therefore concerned about regrowth in a different way, so we’ve been discussing options that work as a halo effect around the hairline and colour that projects even when their hair is tied up.”
These services have been sped-up too, to fit more seamlessly into our schedules.”I’m also hearing from clients that they are finding it increasingly difficult to visit the salon for a lengthy amount of time due to commitments like childcare and so these speedy services are a great way for them to maintain their colour and also have a moment of me-time, which in today’s climate is as important as ever,” explains Adam.
“The L’Oréal Professionnel Speedy Services (which include halo highlighting) are a collection of clever techniques to pep-up colour in-between services in a fraction of the time,” he says. “Some of these techniques may take just 45 minutes depending on hair type. The techniques take into consideration how each client is wearing their hair at the moment vs pre-lockdown.”
In terms of what to ask for once you have an appointment booked, “a thorough consultation is really key,” Adam says. Our hair regime may have changed over lockdown, so it’s worth making your colourist aware of this so they can customise your hair colour to meet your new needs. “If you are wearing your hair up a lot at the moment, tell them, if you are unable to maintain colour as much as you once did, discuss this too, so that you are able to decide options based on your current lifestyle.”
As for maintenance, “it’s always important to upkeep colour at home, this can be done by using regular masks and colour care shampoos. The L’Oréal Professionnel Vitamino Collection is my go to,” says Adam. He also recommends reapplying hair oil throughout the day whenever you feel your hair needs moisture. Easier, now our desk is round the corner from our bathroom.