Relief hair colouring: what it is

In my work, relief hair colouring is a combination of weave highlights with deliberate gaps and Airtouch. The weave gives visible light strands and texture, while Airtouch makes the regrowth soft. Relief suits anyone who wants depth and movement of colour in their hair but isn't keen on frequent corrections or a hard line at the root.

What relief means at Le Chris

With relief I work in two ways at once. Some sections are done with a weave: I take a strand, pick out fine pieces from it with intentional gaps between them, and lighten only those. Your natural base stays in between. The rest of the hair is done with Airtouch: I use a stream of air to separate the shorter hairs and lighten the longer ones, so there's a soft gradient from the root.

I don't do classic highlights on their own, because they're hard to correct safely without losing hair. In relief, the weave works together with Airtouch, so the regrowth doesn't leave a hard stripe and corrections can be done in a controlled way.

What relief colouring looks like

The main thing relief gives you is depth. Light strands alternate with natural ones, and the hair looks fuller, almost textured, even when styled straight. The contrast between light and natural colour shows more clearly than with Airtouch, where the transition is very diffused.

Relief can have different characters. It can be light and high-contrast, with plenty of noticeable strands. Or it can simply add glints of light to dark hair, with less light in a softer tone.

The other decision is where the light sits. Open relief is visible straight away, with the light strands lying on top. Hidden relief sits deeper, and the light strands show up in movement, when you turn your head or tie your hair back.

Which base relief looks best on

Relief is most striking on a mousy or dark blonde base. The contrast is enough for the strands to read clearly, and lightening to an attractive light shade usually happens without extra stages.

It works on dark hair too, especially as glints of light. For relief on dark hair it usually makes sense to start with warm or beige tones, because a dark base passes through warm stages as it lightens. How light the result can be in one visit depends on your hair's history and is decided at the consultation.

On curly hair, light strands bring out the shape of each curl, and the volume becomes more noticeable. On straight hair, relief adds movement and visual texture. In both cases the strands are placed according to how your hair falls naturally.

There are cases where relief isn't the best choice. If you want the most natural, barely noticeable result, classic Airtouch will be closer to that. If your goal is all-over light colour, relief becomes a stage on the way there. And if your hair is noticeably damaged from previous lightening, it's worth looking after its condition first, in which case it makes more sense to start with toning and reconstruction.

So at the consultation it helps to tell me how you wear your hair day to day: down or in a ponytail, with a centre or side parting. That determines where the weave should go so the relief reads the way you want it to.

How relief grows out and when to correct it

Thanks to the Airtouch element, relief grows out softly: the line at the root is blurred, and the hair still looks neat after a few months. The weave gives a little more contrast at the root than pure Airtouch, so open, very light relief usually needs correcting a little more often than hidden or soft relief.

The exact rhythm depends on which kind of relief we choose, how much contrast your base has and how fast your hair grows. I work it out individually. Between corrections you can refresh the colour with toning and reconstruction: toner fades over time and the strands turn warmer, and a fresh tone makes the relief look clean again. There's a more detailed comparison in the article relief or Airtouch.

Relief with contouring around the face

Relief pairs well with contouring. Contouring means lightening strands around the face and along the hairline, so when you put your hair in a ponytail, the light strands show in every visible area. Combined with relief, it brightens the face and keeps the light visible even when your hair is up. I explain contouring on its own in the article on hair contouring.

Getting relief colouring with me

My relief service (the technique or a correction) includes chelation, reconstruction and toning. It costs from 2,500 UAH for all zones. Partial work is possible, for example just the key visible zones: the face frame, the top and the temples. Toning with reconstruction on its own costs from 700 UAH.

Message me on Telegram: https://t.me/le2chris. Send a photo of your hair in daylight and, if you have them, examples of relief you like. Tell me what your hair has been coloured with before, and I'll suggest which kind of relief will suit your base. If you've had classic highlights before, mention that too: how we move into relief depends on the condition of those strands now.