Balayage vs. Ombre

WRITTEN BY Tammy Dalton, Modern Salon and Spa
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jenni Council

For people who never color their hair, this is their favorite time of year. Those natural highlights have made their way back out once more and their color is at its peak for the season. I often hear, “why can’t my hair always look like this”? Well it can! With a technique called balayage (pronounced bah-lee-AHZGE), you can achieve that natural summer hair look all year round.

Balayage is probably a term you have heard before. Walk through any salon and you will most likely hear “balayage” and “ombre” coming out of the mouths of most color clients. These are both two very popular, and very similar, color techniques. They are so similar that I am finding most people really don’t know the difference between the two.

Balayage is a color technique where the coloring product is painted onto pieces of the hair. This creates a very customizable and natural look. With Molly, we mainly concentrated the pieces around her face giving her just a few in the back since her goal was to look as natural as possible. Usually the color is not touching the scalp like traditional foil highlights, creating a dark to light effect. This is why these two terms are often so confused because ombre, or “melting,” is also a dark to light effect. The difference is ombre is a more drastic effect of dark to light where the entire head of hair appears to be colored instead of just pieces. These two looks are still popular in most of the country, but ombre is slowly making its way out as balayage is quickly taking over!