3 Tips To Make Balayage Last Longer

How To Make Balayage Grow Out Seamlessly Between Color Appointments

The more you know! 🌈 With COVID-19, more clients are requesting low-maintenance colors that they can wear for longer. The answer? Balayage! We’re sharing how to extend balayage blends up to 6+ months from Alfaparf Milano US National Artistic Director Cassie Siskovic (@cassiskovic). Plus, tips on preventing warm transition lines, fighting brass months later and more! Just keep scrollin’.

1. Don’t Skip This Crucial Step

Real talk—every color fades, but the secret to a beautiful grow-out is making sure the lift is as CLEAN as possible. That’s why Cassie applies two different lighteners and the same developer using strategic placement. This ensures a clean lift around the hairline and throughout the interior, which means a more seamless fading process. Try this: 

• Hairline: Cassie always uses Alfaparf Milano BB Bleach Easy Lift 7 at the hairline where the hair is more fragile. The lightening powder is more gentle than others, so it’s a safer option to get the lift she needs while maintaining the integrity of the hairline.

• Interior: Clients with curls? Cassie applies BB Bleach High Lift 9 to lift the interior—aka where the hair’s texture is coarser than the hairline. Using the more potent lightener in this target area creates a clean, even lift.

• Use The Same Developer: Why not use High Lift 9 with a lower developer at the hairline? By using lighteners with different potencies and the same 20-volume Alfaparf Milano Oxid’o Developer, this ensures more efficient and healthier mixtures. 

Initial Balayage Service vs. 7 Months Later

2. Apply A Transitional Base Color

“Apply a transitional base for client wear, not just softening transitions!” shares Cassie. “I know basing is an extra step, but it ensures that your client’s balayage lasts longer and has no warm transitions lines.” For this client, she chose a violet ash hue with Alfaparf Milano Color Wear 7.21.

“The beauty of this base is it will softly fade as the client wears it,” adds Cassie. “As her hair grows, the base fades and allows more blonde to show through, so it lasts an extra few months.”

3. How To Fight Unwanted Warmth Months Later

Here’s the secret: Sending clients home with the right products! Cassie recommends Pigments by Alfaparf Milano, highly concentrated pigments that make tones more intense, add new tones or correct undesired tones. Plus, they’re pH adaptable!

For a situation where a gloss touch-up isn’t possible—this is all too common during COVID-19—she might send her balayage client home with Pigments Violet Ash .21 (which is a soft violet, NOT an intense violet) to add to a reparative mask to ensure she stays bright without developing too much unwanted warmth.

Bonus Tip: Offer Fast Refresh Services!

After 3 to 4 months, Cassie typically offers balayage clients gloss touch-ups. “However because [the client] lifted so well and because of the micro crystallized pigment in Alfaparf Milano color, her durability with no gloss was honestly amazing.” Fast refresh services are an easy way to extend color between major appointments, while keeping clients returning to your chair!

Products Used

Lightener

BB Bleach

Alfaparf Milano

Lightener

Oxid’o Developer

Alfaparf Milano

Color Depositing

Pigments

Alfaparf Milano