Balayage Hair for Brunettes is Everything + My Before and After

Hey Verbal Gold! It’s Kristina in New York! Looking for hair inspo or just want to try something new next time you hit the hair salon? Those were my thoughts exactly but I didn’t want to go too extreme, just something that would bring my hair back to life.  I’m sharing my story on a subtle change that makes all the difference in the world.  Want to give your locks new life?  I highly recommend balayage!

Here in marks the 6 months countdown until my official walk down the aisle and I’m now on a serious mission to get wedding ready. My first endeavor was a hair cut & color by my cousin Melissa who is lovely enough to be doing my hair the day of my wedding. As someone who has always played it safe with my hair, there is no one else I would trust to take my “virgin hair” from drab to fab other than her.

Aside from being full of spunk & energy, she is uber talented, having just been on tour with Michael Buble as his hair stylist for the past year & is now branching out on her own. Needless to say, I was very confident that my hair was in good hands (if you want a fun Instagram to stalk of her Buble world travels, here ya go). Now I have always been told that I have great hair; it’s thick, holds a curl and has decent shine. Although, you would never know by looking at this sad “before” picture. My hair looked dull, flat, dry & lacking anything close to style.

Melissa took one look at the current state of my hair and immediately asked how’d I’d survived this long, to which I had no reply. After 10 minutes of taking a look, she went straight to work; mixed colors, toners & used the technique known as Balayage and painted on the various shades of highlights and lowlights. My hair has been one shade of brunette since my high school days when I thought it was a fabulous idea to dye my own hair a shade of black only nascent to a sharpie pen (everyone had a goth phase, right?!). Needless to say I was hesitant to go too light but when she recommended to use a golden beige with a combo of ombre and balayage I was nervous, but trusted her innate confidence and let me say, I could not have been happier. After legitimately 4 hours, yes that’s 4 (told ya my hair was thick) here was the final result!

For those of you hesitant to get Balayage, I would say run don’t walk to your nearest salon or to Melissa! 😉 Balayage is not your mom’s highlights, they are subtle and natural, and give the appearance that all you’ve done is been in the sun. No exaggeration, I could not walk down the halls of my office without every person commenting that my hair made me look like a celebrity, let’s just say it was worth every penny.

A few things to keep in mind would be color/shade, basically do you want to go Lily Aldrige or Mila Kunis?  And also whether you want to go with a full or half, I went with full but half will give you more of a subtle appearance if that’s what you’re looking for, and be a little more reminiscent of ombre. Either way you can’t go wrong!

Now to get those effortless curls, try THIS CURLING IRON, Melissa swears by it. And to keep the shine bright, I’d say splurge a little & go with this Shu Uemura shampoo and conditioner. I mean no expense is too much for shiny, beautiful locks right?!