There’s no better way to switch up your look than to color your hair. It adds instant pizazz to your style and may even jazz up your personality. There’s an inconvenient little reality no one ever talks about, though: Those pesky roots; the rude regrowth that sneaks up on you every 3-5 weeks like clockwork, compromising your gorgeous do.

Now, if you have one solid color on your mane, a quick touch-up, here and there, is quite easy to do; if you have highlights, not so much. Here’s how to touch up roots without ruining highlights between salon visits.

How to Touch-Up Roots Without Ruining Highlights

As tempting as it might be to want to fix your mismatched color the moment you spot hair regrowth, it’s always better to wait until you have at least 1 cm of new, virgin hair to work with.

If you can wait until it grows out to 2 cm, even better. That way, it’s easier to touch up your hair roots without ruining your beautiful highlights in the process. Getting this length of growth takes roughly four weeks.

Different Ways to Retouch Your Hair Roots on Highlighted Hair

If this is the first time you’re learning how to touch-up hair roots without ruining existing highlights, the rule of thumb to keep in mind is: Apply the hair color only where required. Dyeing hair that’s already colored is an absolute faux pas that will lead you right back to your hairdresser’s chair to fix it.

Likewise, coloring already-colored hair makes it look dull and unnatural and will most certainly ruin the highlights. Here are three hair coloring techniques you can use to retouch your hair roots on highlighted hair.

1. The T-Zone Method

This root touch-up method involves sectioning your hair in the middle to form a letter T. Start the part from the middle of your hairline above your forehead, running it to the topmost part of your head. Then, part the hair along a horizontal line terminating behind each ear.