Neons Trending for Summer: Highlighter Yellow Formula

Cristophe Salon Beverly Hills Master Colorist Erick Orellana expects neon hair color to be huge this summer. He recently did highlighter yellow on one of his clients (which, he says, inspired Kylie Jenner’s wig stylist to create something similar for Jenner to wear to Coachella). 

"I definitely see this highlighter color trend really taking off, especially this summer since the colors are vibrant and intense - as summers can be," Orellana says. "Some favorite colors I have been playing with lately include shades from Pulp Riot and the Joico Intensity Colors. These colors are rich in pigment and very vibrant, not to mention fade beautifully on the hair.” 

Here is how he did it: 

STEP ONE: "First, my client had been previously lightened from a level 4 brown to a platinum blonde tone. I can’t stress enough the importance on working with as light as possible hair so you can achieve the perfect true to tone hue. For that I use L'Oreal Professional Platinum lightener with 30 vol for 50 minutes. 

STEP TWO: "I always like to ensure the hair stays in good condition while I work with it, so adding my L'Oreal Smart Bond serum to the bleach was absolutely a must. 

STEP THREE: "Next, adding a dark root for this look to have the depth and pop had to happen. For this I usually like to use a demi-permanent L'Oreal Richesse at a level 4 with 9 volume. This will give you the root look as close to her natural as possible (depending on your client you can customize the root color to suit them).

STEP FOUR: "Adding some conditioner to the lightened ends and lifting them when rinsing will help ensure the rinse out process is easy and the dark doesn't grab on the light blonde. 

STEP FIVE: " I recently worked with Pulp Riot semi permanent hair color which comes in so many variations of colors. What I like about them is that they are very spot on to the color you mixed and do not fade quickly.

FORMULA: "Mixing ratios for the highlighter yellow I mixed was 1 tube of Lemon and then added just about 15 grams of Absinthe. Adding the green really helped to give the yellow that depth it needed.

APPLICATION: "I applied all that on towel dried hair to make sure the saturation was even.

FINISH: "Finally I sealed the color with the L'Oreal Smart Bond post treatment.

"To get that highlighter yellow color on my client was not easy, but once we were done it looked absolutely stunning!”

A very beautiful "Before"

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Anne Moratto

Anne Moratto

West Coast Beauty and Markets Editor

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