Balayage, Sombre, Ombre, Peek-a-boo...What's the Difference?

I love Pinterest! Love Love Love it! It has made my job so much easier as a hairdresser. Instead of my clients having to sift through crappy waiting room hairstyle books from the 90's hoping to find something they kinda want, they now bring me several pinterest pics on their phone that really help me to understand exactly what they are wanting. If you aren't already doing this for your hairdresser for your hair appointments then make sure you do it for your next. You will probably get what you want, or at least closer to it. Here lately, more times than not, they show me a picture of balayage, A.K.A. sombre. Yes, they are the same thing. Ombre is a two or three toned look that goes from dark at the scalp, medium at the mid-shaft, to light on the ends. Usually bleach is painted on from midshaft to ends, creating a gradual blending effect. Sombre is a subtle Ombre, where only some of the hair ir strands are given the ombre look. Pretty much the exact same thing as balayage. I'll explain it more down below.

Two years ago I was giving everyone the ombre look, and before that peek-a-boo highlights were popular. As I was scrolling my Facebook page through years of my hair design pics I started to notice the trend of transitioning highlights changing throughout the years. I have very much enjoyed learning how to ombre and then how to balayage. I love doing balayage! It's my favorite type of color and it always turns out so visually pleasing. Below is a little picture documentary of transitioning highlights I've done over the past few years. You can see that it gets more natural and dimentional towards the end. I really hope this balayage phase stays around forever, it's so fun and GORGEOUS!

So here's my very first ombre. I was fresh outta beauty school when I did this one, circa 2010.

These were the days when I would actually apply a dark, medium, , and light color to the hair in order to get a nice fade. Geez was it tedious!

Here I was beginning to learn how to tone the midshaft durig the shampoo to give it a more natural fade. This was done pre-pinterest, pre-thousands of how-to videos, so applying ombre color was pretty much a guessing game at this point. But it was starting to look more natural-esque...

and then all of the sudden, colorful ombres became super popular! Purples, magenta, blue, and pink became very popular

Here are a few more ombres I did a couple years ago

The two pictures below are of peek-a-boo highlights. I only have two examples because I really don't do it too much anymore since balayage has taken over. Basically, you keep one solid color on top and put highlights, or lowlights, under the top layer.

AND FINAALLLLY my favorite part, MY BALAYAGES!! The difference between ombre and balayage is that the balayage still has some of the root color throughout the hairshaft and to the bottom of the hair, whereas ombre usually goes from dark to medium to light, and has only one solid color at the bottom, usually lighter. The balayage has a much smoother and more natural transition from dark to light, with painted on highlights throughout that don't go from scalp to ends like highlights do. The highlights are painted on with a more natural appearance as if you spent a lot of time in the sun. If that doesn't make sense then just compare the ombre pics above with the balayage pics below and eventually you'll see the difference...

These are all my most recent work, done over the past year. Enjoy!

Here is a very subtle blonde balayage