22 Balayage Highlights To Inspire Your Next Salon Visit By Kaitlyn Yarborough Kaitlyn Yarborough Part of the Southern Living team since 2017, Kaitlyn Yarborough Sadik is a Georgia native living in Austin, Texas, who covers a wide variety of topics for both the magazine and website, focusing on culture and lifestyle content, as well as travel in the South. Southern Living's editorial guidelines Updated on June 12, 2025 Close Credit: @ninezeroone Some realizations occur when sitting under a red-tinted hood of heat and wearing enough foils to make contact with an alien mothership. Sure, you can get six weeks of color before growing roots plant you back in that salon chair, but you can also end up with brassy zebra stripes that bring back memories of ultra-glossy Lip Smackers and frosted cream eye shadow. (The early 2000s called, and they want those platinum blonde stripes back.) Thankfully, traditional foil highlights are no longer the only go-to hair color choice. Now, game-changing hair coloring techniques, most notably balayage highlights, let us get the hair of our wildest dreams: natural-looking, low-maintenance, and endless in options. Balayage technically means "to sweep" or "to paint" in French, but in our opinion, it might as well mean to look beautiful, natural, and enviously kissed by the sun. We can't help but drool over rich chocolate brown brushed with melted caramel and honey, or swoon over golden blonde touched with smooth butter and amber. These dynamic color blends are achieved by free-hand painting hair with lighter shades, which catch the light perfectly and look like the natural highlights from the summers of your youth. The strokes are artfully placed all over the hair, but often frame the face and coat the ends most prominently. They grow out flatteringly, making touch-ups few and far between. If you want to liven up your locks for spring and summer, it might just be time for a hair color pick-me-up á la balayage. No matter if your hair is curly or straight, we have the balayage hair highlight inspiration you need to take to your next salon appointment. Balayage Fast Facts Balayage (pronounced bah-lay-ahj) is a free-hand technique of painting graduated highlights onto hair. This soft, more natural look requires fewer touch-ups but is more expensive than traditional highlights, typically costing between $150 and $400. 01 of 22 Chestnut Brown With Caramel Balayage Credit: @justinandersoncolor/Instagram This balayage looks like someone poured the perfect caramel color onto warm brown hair for a light-catching effect all over. You still see plenty of the dark brown throughout, resulting in a super dynamic head of hair. 02 of 22 Brunette Curls With Blonde Balayage Credit: @leysahairandmakeup/Instagram These bouncy curls get so much more definition and movement from blonde balayage. Long, curly hair can look weighed down, but adding light-catching color makes all the difference. 03 of 22 Brunette With Beachy Balayage Credit: @suetyrrellstylist/Instagram This combination of shades gives that perfect sun-kissed, beachy look that everyone loves, but it's usually seen in pure gradient ombré form. This makes it look natural and frames the face nicely. 04 of 22 Cherry Cola Balayage Credit: @colour.jade/Instagram This cascading brown hair gets a boost of shine and color from red-brown balayage. The plum hue bleeds down from the mid-lengths onto the ends. 05 of 22 Violet Rose Brown Balayage Credit: @leysahairandmakeup/Instagram Rose tones look amazing on brunette shades, and this curly bob uses it on the ends to bring light and interest up front. We're thinking this is the shade to try this year. 06 of 22 Coppery Red Balayage Credit: @colour.jade/Instagram This bold, highly pigmented red really gets a flash of personality (like it needs any more) from caramel-honey balayage. The tones in the warm caramel and honey shades blend with the red shade for a cohesive look. 07 of 22 Baby Blonde Balayage Credit: @los_pastel/Instagram We're not sure we've ever seen such baby blonde goodness as in this silky, mid-length haircut. The natural brown and pops of blonde are perfectly blended together throughout. The options are endless with balayage, so make sure to bring a photo—or several—to show the stylist what look you're trying to achieve. 08 of 22 Copper Balayage Credit: @suetyrrellstylist/Instagram Create a delicious blend of dark chocolate and copper for a look that's dynamic and rich in color. You'll be tossing this mane around to witness the layers of warm color. 09 of 22 Warm Blonde With Honey Balayage Credit: @ninezeroone/Instagram This base color has a hint of warmth to it, making honey the best blonde shade to enhance the natural tone. The honey shade is used to frame the face and is peppered throughout the rest of the head for cohesiveness. 10 of 22 Ashy Brunette Credit: @mizzchoi/Instagram A dark brown base gets ribbons of ashy brown-blonde balayage towards the ends in this look. It captures the ombré dark-to-light style without getting too stark. 11 of 22 Royal Rust Balayage Credit: @leysahairandmakeup/Instagram This red-brown base gets even more lively and bold with rust colored balayage that looks sun-kissed and fiery. This unique blend won't work on everyone, but man do we wish. 12 of 22 Dark Chestnut Brown Balayage Credit: @suetyrrellstylist/Instagram Strokes of chestnut add drama to dark brown hair. This look is perfect for any season of the year. 13 of 22 Honey Butter Balayage Credit: @thisislaurendavis/Instagram These locks look spun out of gold and give major Rapunzel feels. Different shades of blonde are blended together in smooth strokes. 14 of 22 Warm Chestnut With Rich Caramel-Butter Balayage Credit: @colour.jade/Instagram Though a little more outgoing than most, this balayage look is mesmerizing with its dynamic color placement and vivid shade selection. Each strand seems to feature more than two colors, making it a blended dream. 15 of 22 Soft Copper Credit: @mizzchoi/Instagram A soft copper is created with a darker, warm base and caramel and honey tones on the end. This lob-length cut feels fresh and fun, and we're loving it. 16 of 22 Lived-In Color Credit: @anjabee/Instagram Lived-in color is the recent trend that uses an intricate system of balayage, incorporating both lighter and darker shades from the base color to create a blend that looks so natural that you only have to head in for touch-ups every six months. 17 of 22 Layered Brown Balayage Credit: @colour.jade/Instagram This subtle look starts with a dark brown base color and enhances it with warm brown strokes on the ends and around the face. Using a shade close to your natural color requires fewer trips to the salon. 18 of 22 Tousled Bob With Blonde Balayage Credit: @styled_by_carolynn/Instagram Liven up a shortcut with face-framing blonde sweeps of color. This neutral blonde gets some freshness from a honey blonde. 19 of 22 A-Line Bob With Caramel Pieces Credit: @ninezeroone/Instagram A light balayage treatment gives a subtle punch of interest to this rich brown bob. It's just enough color to keep things fun and interesting. Discuss long-term goals with your stylist before your balayage treatment. If you're looking for more length or want to grow out your bangs, this could impact where and how your stylist applies color. 20 of 22 Warm Buttery Balayage Credit: Getty Images This head of caramel hair strays from sticking with one tone by weaving in subtle buttery blonde balayage. The lightest pieces are around the face and on the ends for a sun-kissed look. 21 of 22 Ashy Blonde Balayage Credit: @anhcotran Natural, imperfect pieces of ashy and icy blondes are swept throughout this lightly textured haircut. Ashy bronde is one of the hottest hair trends this year, and this look shows why. 22 of 22 Cream Soda With Rose Gold Balayage Credit: Instagram/@chandlercleveland Although the cream soda blonde shade already features warm golden and honey tones, this style ramps up that warmth with some more rose gold blended throughout for a cohesively eye-catching color. Explore more: Style Hair Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit