Highlights can certainly be a fun way to spice up your hair, and balayage hairstyles, in particular, can give your ‘do a soft, natural look while still adding a new dimension of color. Many of us get bored with our hair color but don’t want to erase it completely. Highlights can be a fun way to add some dimension to your hair color, but what if you don’t want thick, chunky, noticeable streaks? What if you are just looking for cute easy hairstyles that find a way to enhance your color but still maintain a natural quality? Balayage hairstyles are a highlighting technique that accomplishes exactly that.

45+ Cute Balayage Hairstyles to Add Dimension to Your Hair Color

What is Balayage Hair?

When the balayage highlight is applied, they are put on in such a way so as to make them look as if they were native to your hair color. It results in a gradual, soft highlight which can really give you that “sun-kissed” look many of us desire in our hair color. It is a technique that blends the highlights seamlessly into your hair and is perfect if you’re looking to spice up your color without having noticeable, over-dramatic streaks in your hair.

What is the difference between balayage and ombre hair?

Many people confuse balayage hair with another similar style – ombre hairstyles. Ombre vs balayage a harder distinction to make than you might think. They both involve subtle gradient coloring that gradually fades one color into another, and to varying degrees. As a result, some balayage styles can be difficult to distinguish from some ombre styles. However, there are some major differences between these two styles.

Ombre, which are also cute hairstyles, are more of a color-blocking technique. By the time you reach the bottom sections of your hair, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single strand that is the same color as the top sections. It’s a total fade from one color to another. Balayage, on the other hand, focuses more on the sweeping technique (“Balayage” in fact, is French for “sweep”) of subtle highlights. There are still some sections of hair at the bottom that are left the same as the original color – intended to give the hair a more effortless look with more dimension.