Please tell me how to highlight natural hair

[soslychic]

I've been toiling with the idea of highlites lately. I just cut off my permed ends a couple of months ago and have been wearing braids. I can't wait to take them out and start rocking some natural hair styles. I wanted a little color to kick up the look.
But the problem is that I have no idea how to highlite natural hair. I want subtle highlites so no foils. I would do the pull through method but I'm afraid I'll rip my hair from outta my head. I was thinking of random (carefully random) painting on the color, but I was afraid of a mistake. Has anyone chosen that method and ended up with subtle highlites? What sort of application tool did you use? Also I want to do this myself, I don't want to go to a salon. I was thinking of using Textures and Tones Cherrywood or Textures and Tones Bronze.
I was even thinking of a few streaks of honey blond.
Can anyone help me out?

 

[soslychic]

pretty please

 

[Netta1]

check my album--I placed in a few chunks of color.

 

[soslychic]

Thanks for responding Netta. I like those highlights. So did you just color some of the twists that you had taken down?

 

[Netta1]

No prob, yep all I did was take down a few twist, color them, wash em and then retwisted them.

 

[lovelymissyoli]

Do you like the African Pride line of highlights? They have it where you can pull your hair through the cap or you can apply it without it. They have some very nice shades of bronzes and reds. I can't really help on the do-it-yourself part though; I had my hair professionally done the first time and will probably keep it that way, I'm afraid of messing my hair up

. Whatever you do, I hope it turns out great.

 

[soslychic]

Thanks lovelymissyoli

I didn't know if pulling natural hair through a cap would be a good idea. Has anyone tried it?

 

[Soleado]

When I got highlights I would wash my hair and comb it out into a big fro. When I went to the shop the colorist would just section each part and foil it up with the color. If you are going to do it at home I would recommend doing it that way, so you can see exactly where the color is being placed.

 

[soslychic]

When you say "foil it up with color" what do you mean exactly? I'm not really familiar with the foils method of coloring.

 

[Soleado]

My haircolorist basically took a rattail comb and sectioned each part as she added the color, applied the color with a brush and then placed strips of aluminum foil over the section she just colored. I like the foil method better because you can control exactly where the color goes. Plus, when I was coloring I ususally did 3-5 colors at one time so placement was very important.

 

[soslychic]

Thanks you very much Soleado! So can you just use regular store bought aluminum foil or is there a special kind for coloring?

 

[AFashionSlave]

I have never highlighted my own hair before but check out these links on highlighting.
Here is a good link that shows you where to place highlights.
After you have filled out the consultation portion be sure to click on "your application tips"

http://www.lorealparis.ca/en/haircolor/couleurexperte/expert/index.asp

This one is good too:
Click on the link below /look under our products / click on new color rays.
http://www.lorealparisusa.com/frames.asp#h...color/index.asp