Hair colors and styles go through cycles just as any other fashion, and they also change with seasons. As we go through the fall and winter months we see browns, auburns, and warm red hair colors, transitioning into neutral colors in the colder weather. Spring and summer bring with them a promise of excitement and new trends. It’s time to take your existing solid color and create some positive and negative space to brighten, lighten, spice it up, and add depth—of course, this means highlights.

There are many varieties of highlights, ranging from diverse patterns, light and dark contrasts, and color selections. They all revolve around one thing: your personality. Personality has everything to do with your hair—from the cut, color, and even your own daily styling routine. Highlights allow you to show your character, blend away unwanted gray hair, and add dimension to your hair.

Highlights can be customized to fit you. Did you know the width of highlights can correspond to personality and lifestyle? Showing your stylist a picture of highlight examples is a good basis to work from, but the honey colored highlights Jennifer Aniston is sporting may not suit your personality. So let’s take a closer look at what style of highlights would be right for you. I’m going to break them down into three categories based on the style of the highlight and the personality that goes with them.

Natural highlights are for those who are more conservative and reserved and like the elegant look. Most professionals use natural highlights. These individuals generally want to brighten up their hair color without being recognizably different. These highlights are applied on a diagonal line, giving a more natural and blended look, but giving a contrast of light and dark. As light reflects from the highlighted area, the hair appears bright, with depth and volume.

Dimensional color highlights are used on those who want contrast with a little more kick. One form of dimensional color highlights involves using a darker color on the underneath layer of hair and adding highlights to the top surface layer. Another up and coming trend in dimensional color highlights is known as peek-a-boo color. With this, the lighter shade or color is applied in the center layer of the hair. So as the hair moves, the color emerges from the middle layer of the hair.

Chunky and bold highlights are for those who want to be noticed. They want attention to be drawn to their colorful hair. These individuals have outgoing personalities and like to play with different color ideas. These highlights are applied with a contrast of light and dark colors back to back to give that striped look. It’s a very trendy and stylish look—definitely for the young.

So as the seasons change, it’s time bring out the brightness in your hair, and highlights are one way to go. But as your stylist will advise you, your personality, lifestyle, and profession will dictate the type of highlights for you. It’s not a question of what looks good on someone else, but what looks good on you. TPW