March 13, 2009

Natural Way to Boost Blonde Tones and Highlight Light Brown Hair

On Wednesday, Jen shared a few from-the-kitchen tips to help extend salon visits for red and dark brown-haired gals or to enrich non-dyed hair of those hues. Today, I'm sharing a quick recipe that'll boost blonde tones and give lighter brunettes pretty, subtle highlights in place of the plain, mousy color we're prone to.

Notice that I've used words like "boost" and "subtle"—don't expect your locks to resemble Jessica Simpson's afterward. That requires trips to a killer colorist about as often as you wash your face! With this said, I've experimented with a few highlights concoctions over the years and have found that the following one works best.

• Steep three bags of chamomile tea in a large mug or small pan until lukewarm. I recommend Mighty Leaf Chamomile Herbal tea, which contains high-quality, whole Egyptian chamomile flowers.

• Add 1/2 cup of real lemon juice

• Spritz or pour on hair and leave in for an hour. Shave, clean the bathroom, whatever. Rinse and apply conditioner to ends.

Good to know: The soothing chamomile helps neutralize the effects of the acidic lemon juice.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love this recipe, thanks. I believe sitting in the sun will boost its effectiveness as well. :)

Lindsay B. said...

Thank you! I thought about including a line about being in the sun for the hour that you leave the solution on your hair--but I've found that it doesn't really matter. Just having the chamomile and lemon solution sit on your hair for a while is enough to see subtle highlights appear (over a few weeks). Plus, sun can zap color and lead to premature graying.

Virginia Green said...

Nice tip, Thanks Linds! I love the smell of chamomile...

Faith said...

Oo, thanks, this is awesome! I've been wanting my strawberry blonde hair to get some more highlights than the sun gives it over the course of the summer. I used plain lemon juice on it a few days ago but found that to be very sticky and drying to my hair. This sounds like a much better idea!