The hair product that’s making me hold off on getting pro highlights long after summer…
White blonde throughout my entire childhood, my hair has progressively been getter darker since high school and, well, that’s always made me want to go blonder. So naturally, I first embraced chemicals when I as 17. A friend had lightened her own hair at home with a DIY kit so I tried the same. It worked out pretty well if you didn’t look too closely at my dried frizzy ends. Did I mention I also had a perm? I kept up the DIY colouring for about a year and then I went pro, getting salon highlights two to four times a year. Honestly, I’ve never looked back until now.
This summer my highlights came straight out of a bottle and I’m carrying over my new DIY fix through the fall. Maybe even the winter. It’s Ouai’s Sun of a Beach Ombre Spray to be exact and I blame Jen Atkin. The hairstylist behind the brand and celebrities like Kendall Jenner, the Hadib sisters and Chrissy Teigen, is all about sun-kissed looks and quite frankly, I’ve fallen under her spell.
Considering I’m super loyal to my salon colourist and Sun of a Beach is essentially Sun-In 2.0 (1998 anyone?), I’m shocked that I’m even interested. But between the #OUAIAddicted hashtags popping in and out of my Insta and Twitter feeds like popping corn, and the spray’s fresh-smelling blend of lemon and pineapple juice acids, I’m hooked. It’s ridiculously easy to use too, which is great since I don’t really enjoy sitting beneath a huge hair dryer waiting for my hair to lighten.
With its combo of hydrogen peroxide, hydrating coconut water and non-greasy dilo (a tropical African plant) oil, all I have to do to lighten up now is spritz a little onto my towel-dried hair, blow dry and let the heat do the rest. Key tip: I avoid excessive spraying and hitting the root line, while focusing on the middle and lower parts of my long hair. This keeps my new highlights looking more natural and if I want to go blonder, I just repeat the entire process the next day. I intend to keep this up until the snow falls.
Ouai Sun of a Beach Ombre Spray, $30 at www.sephora.com.
