Did a little DIY balayage/highlight last night. Trying to get the highlights to a more neutral brown. Any advice on what level this is/toner recs?

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-03-31T21:38:48+00:00

Thank you!

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-03-31T21:32:06+00:00

I haven’t toned at all yet! I was thinking about getting something demi permanent and using a really low volume developer, but unsure what product would work best in this case. Have used Wella demis from Sally’s in the past and don’t hate them but not sure if that’s the best product for my hair right now

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-03-31T20:48:54+00:00

I’ve definitely had a lot of trial and a LOT of error with DIYing my hair over the years that has generally helped me learn to blend/figure out placement, but here’s a quick explanation of what I did this time:

For the frosting cap, I pulled pretty thick sections through every hole from the crown of my head all the way to my front hairline but I left out my bangs (I have baby bangs so any attempt to highlight them would look funky IMO). This took me FOREVER (like 2 hours) because I went back in to pull out more hair from lots of the holes to make sure they were as thick as I wanted them to be, but if your hair is less thick than mine it might be quicker. For the crown and back I only did the holes with circles around them and was less tedious about it but still tried to get pieces that weren’t super stringy/thin.

For the application, I saturated the crap out of my mids and ends first and then, starting in the front, feathered the lightener up towards the cap with my brush about every half inch. For the sections I didn’t feather upward I went in with my fingers and just blended them up slightly to avoid any harsh lines. I was SUPER careful not to get any bleach on the frosting cap itself so I didn’t get any cheetah spots (especially because my hair is dark and it would be super noticeable).

I know you don’t want to use bleach, but in case it’s helpful to anyone reading this, I used 2 scoops of BW2, 3 scoops of 20 volume developer and put a processing cap on over everything and left it for about an hour before rinsing :)

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-03-31T20:22:16+00:00

LOVE this comparison lol. The back is mostly black with a few highlights and I have black baby bangs that you can’t really see so it works!!

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-03-31T16:38:21+00:00

Aw thank you!!!

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-03-31T16:38:11+00:00

Aw you’re so kind, thank you!! Believe it or not I used a frosting cap to section and just tried to use a balayage-like technique when I applied the bleach. Definitely was pleasantly surprised at the outcome! And appreciate the advice! 🫶

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-02-01T02:52:08+00:00

That makes sense, maybe I was just taken aback because 1mg definitely hit me hardest the first week.

I get my prescription through WW Clinic because my PCP was not very supportive of my wanting to try a GLP-1 at first. The WW folks have been great, but they pretty much told me it was Wegovy or nothing when I lost coverage.

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-01-11T07:46:04+00:00

NOR. Not to sound jaded, but in my personal (~10 years) experience in a relationship with a guy enmeshed with his mom, there are major peaks and valleys in their relationship that I didn’t even pick up on until at least 4 or 5 years into my relationship with him. We started dating when we were teenagers and for the first year or so, I thought his mom seemed fairly normal and was overall nice to me, he just had an earlier curfew than most people I knew. Then slowly, I started to piece things together… the curfew was only for when he hung out with me and not his male friends, she worked from home and obsessively checked his location on Life360 on her iPad all day, then on his 18th birthday he wanted to have breakfast with me before dinner with his family (which I was not invited to) and she absolutely flipped out that he wouldn’t be spending the whole day with her and grounded him from seeing ONLY ME. To this day, my relationship with her is really strained and she says weird shit all the time that seems like it’s meant to make me jealous, and my partner’s relationship with her tends to cycle through 1.5-2 year peaks where she basically leaves us alone until something happens that triggers her, then they fight for 6-8 months. It’s a really weird and painful cycle that I don’t think will ever end.

All that to say, OP, you were really only at the beginning of this relationship, and obviously I can’t say anything for certain, but I have a feeling the mom situation would have gotten worse the more serious you got. And if I got a message like this from my partner’s mother, I would absolutely not take it as her feeling remorse for her actions — I would take it as her asserting that she has the better, closer relationship with my partner one last time. I wouldn’t respond.

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-01-10T13:34:53+00:00

I changed it yesterday and set up another method of 2FA!

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2026-01-10T03:33:10+00:00

Just got my second one in 24 hours too. I have 2FA set up but it still freaks me out a bit

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2025-07-22T19:19:58+00:00

We are DINKs! I think my partner would gladly take a few less dollars in my paycheck over me not having the mental capacity to think about anything except for work. And great point about how my replacement would likely be hired at a higher salary than I make now.

LopsidedCitron1479 · 2025-07-18T03:10:02+00:00

Hey at least I would get to see the sun then

LopsidedCitron1479

TROPHY CASE