eSalon's New Kit Makes DIY Balayage A Thing

While coloring your hair at home always requires a bit of bravery, giving highlights a shot on your own is an especially bold move. But take heart: eSalon's upcoming at-home hair highlighting kit, Lightlab, is on its way to reduce your risk of a DIY job gone wrong (and leave you with a pretty new look, too).

Lightlab highlights are inspired by the ever-trendy balayage look — natural, sun-kissed, and relatively easy to maintain. But rather than a one-size-fits-all lightening kit, Lightlab is individually tailored to your base color as well as your hair #goals.

You'll start with a lightening powder and a custom-selected activator, then move on to a sulfate-free shampoo and a toning mask to condition and add back pigment, according to the site (hair toner is also great for getting rid of any brassiness that can come along with blonde tones). The kit includes the tools you'll need as well, including gloves, an application brush, a sectioning comb, and a mixing tray.

Sounds easy enough, right? Personally, though, I know I could 100 percent eff that up (I have never considered myself a good candidate for at-home hair coloring, TBH). That's where the personalized instructions, how-to videos, and access to real colorists online come in — for the DIY-challenged among us, that brings some serious peace.

Lightlab is set to launch this summer, which is basically the perfect time to try out a fresh, sunny look. One application can lighten hair up to three levels, according to eSalon, and your look will get progressively lighter with more applications (they recommend touching up every two to six months). Here's an example of what blonde hair looks like before...

And here's what to expect after one application.

Neat, huh? The best part: the price tag is much, much lower than what you'd pay at a salon. The first application is $14, and from then on, a single order is $35. You can also choose to auto-renew for $28 a shipment.

When it comes to at-home hair highlighting, it really doesn't get much simpler than this — granted, it still takes some guts (if you're like me, at least), but the payoff has seriously gorgeous potential.