How to Highlight Hair at Home (Ideal for Short to Medium Hair)

Example on what your hair might look like after prepared
for highlighting at home

One day as I was contemplating on whether to go back to Tony & Guy to have my hair dyed in highlights or to dye my hair at home by myself, I remembered one brilliant very useful tip. I used this method for highlighting my own hair many years ago, but never since. I simply have too long hair now for this to work.

So, if your hair is short or shoulder length and you want to dye your hair at home without any assistance, then you may want to try this method. You may try this on long hair too, but long hair will likely to tangle too much and you will have horrible experience, so the shorter your hair the better.

Things you need

• Hair colour;
• A towel or anything else to protect your shoulders;
• A swimming hat;
• A crochet hook;
• Possibly, scissors.

The method

Swimming hat and a crochet hook

I am not going to go into details on how to use the dye to highlight your hair at home as all you need to do is follow instructions on the leaflet that comes in the box. I will write about how to prepare your hair for being coloured in highlights to make the process as simple as it can be.



First of all, take your swimming hat and a crochet hook, try to hook many holes in the hat with the crochet hook. If the hat is made of HARD silicone or latex, then you may use the scissors to make multiple holes in the cap. If the swimming cap is made of fairly SOFT material, you may be ok to puncture holes with a crochet hook, providing the crochet hook is sharp enough for this. Use your own judgement, but be very careful not to tear the hat as it does tear quite easily if you are not careful.

Soft swimming cap vs hard swimming cap

Once your hat is full of holes, brush your hair, put the hat on and start pulling the hair out with the crochet hook through the holes (see the picture with a doll as an example). Pull as much hair out as you like. Use your own judgement for this; with a bit of practice you will learn a very useful skill which might save you a fortune in hairdressers fees in the long term!

Once you've pulled out the hair that you want to highlight, get the dye ready and follow the instructions of your hair colour leaflet.

Also, the good news is that once you got the cap prepared you can wash it and use it in the future!


I have prepared a YouTube video where I talk about how to do highlights at home, but it does not have any additional information, so you are welcome to skip it. Watch it if you prefer listening to reading.

Final word

Do you dye your hair or have it natural? If you dye it, do you go to the hairdressers or do it at home? Do you wear your hair in highlights?