What are Highlights?

Q: What are highlights?
A: Highlights are hair strands that are lighter in color than your existing hair color. They are very popular. Since highlights are lighter streaks, they work best on darker hair. Usually, two or three shades lighter than the existing hair color is chosen.
The most commonly used highlighting method is the foils technique (foiling). The hairdresser uses sheets of aluminium foil to separate strands of hair. The strands can be thicker or thinner, depending on the look you wish to create.
These strands are covered with bleach and then wrapped in a sheet of foil for processing. The foil traps the heat and speeds up the lightening process. Another advantage of the foiling technique is that the colorist can get close to the roots of the hair.

Some hair salons use a method from yesteryear: a highlighting cap. The colorist uses something that looks like a swimming cap with holes in it and places it on the customer's head. The holes serve to pull strands of hair through. The strands that come through the cap will be highlighted with bleach, and the number of holes used determines the number of highlights.

See also:
What are lowlights?
How to choose natural-looking highlights