Pintura Highlights Will Give Your Curls New Life This Winter

The minute it was safe to reunite with our hairstylist, our wheels started spinning. After months of sitting at home, it was tempting to cut all our hair off and start over with something drastic. Baby pink tips? Or a platinum-blonde buzzcut, perhaps?

That all went out the window when we noticed a surge in the popular color technique Pintura highlights. The method, which translates to "paint," is by no means new, but continues to increase in popularity — especially post-quarantine.

"Pintura is a technique that colorists and stylists use to apply hues and tones directly to your curls to "paint" them without the use of the traditional bleach-and-foil method," Devachan Salon Colorist Nicolle Lemonds tells us. "The Pintura method allows colorists to pinpoint exactly which strands of curls look better with different shades of color."

Consider your curls a colorist's canvas: Everyone's results will look a little different depending on their coils, cut, and desired color. "The method is tailored to each client's hair in order for the best illumination," MATRIX Artistic Director Michelle O’Connor says.

Because of the freehand nature of Pintura, you can go super-bold or barely-there with your highlights. And the grow-out is seamless, making them ideal for the cold winter months. Ahead, we rounded up different ways to rock the color technique, so you can start screenshotting them to send to your stylist.