Discover the transformative power of professional highlights at The Refinery Hair Lounge. Whether you’re looking for sun-kissed dimension with partial highlights or an all-over luminous transformation with full highlights, our expert stylists create customized looks that enhance your natural beauty and complement your unique style.
Highlights are more than just lighter strands—they’re an art form that adds depth, dimension, and movement to your hair. Our stylists carefully hand-select placement based on your face shape, skin tone, and desired outcome, ensuring a result that looks naturally radiant and effortlessly beautiful. We specialize in both traditional foil highlighting for precise, controlled lightening and modern techniques that create seamless, blended results.
At The Refinery, we exclusively use EVO professional hair care products throughout your highlighting service. EVO’s high-performance color systems deliver stunning results while maintaining the integrity and health of your hair. From our lightening formulas to our conditioning treatments, every product is chosen to protect your hair’s strength and enhance its natural shine.
Located in Middletown, Kentucky, we proudly serve clients from Louisville, Prospect, Norton Commons, and La Grange. Our stylists stay current with the latest highlighting techniques and trends, from classic foil highlights to modern balayage and everything in between. We’ll guide you through the process, recommend maintenance schedules, and provide personalized care instructions to keep your highlights looking fresh and vibrant between appointments.
Whether you’re a highlight veteran or trying them for the first time, we’ll create a customized plan that achieves your vision while maintaining your hair’s health and integrity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Partial highlights focus on specific areas—typically the top layer and around the face—to add brightness and dimension where it's most visible. This option is ideal if you want a subtle change, need to brighten your face-framing pieces, or want to add dimension without committing to an all-over color change. Full highlights are applied throughout your entire head, creating uniform lightness and dimension from roots to ends. This technique is perfect for a more dramatic transformation, covering more gray, or achieving an overall lighter look.
A typical highlighting appointment at The Refinery takes 2-3 hours, depending on the technique, your hair's length and thickness, and whether you're getting partial or full highlights. This includes consultation time, application, processing, toning, and styling. We recommend blocking off adequate time to ensure your stylist can work carefully and precisely without rushing. Your initial consultation helps us estimate the exact time needed for your specific service.
Most clients refresh their highlights every 8-12 weeks, though this varies based on several factors: how quickly your hair grows, how much contrast you want between your natural color and highlights, and your specific technique. Balayage-style highlights can often go longer between appointments since they're designed to grow out more naturally. During your appointment, your stylist will recommend a personalized maintenance schedule and may suggest alternating between full and partial highlight sessions to manage both budget and hair health.
When performed by experienced professionals using quality products like our EVO professional systems, highlighting can be done while maintaining your hair's health. We take several precautions: carefully formulating lightener strength, using bond-building treatments during processing, and finishing with intensive conditioning. However, lightening is a chemical process that does alter your hair's structure. We'll assess your hair's current condition during consultation and may recommend preparatory treatments or adjust our approach to ensure optimal results while preserving hair integrity.
Foil highlights use aluminum foil to separate sections of hair while lightener is applied, creating more controlled, uniform results with precise placement. This technique is excellent for achieving noticeable contrast, covering gray, or creating structured dimension. Balayage is a freehand painting technique where lightener is swept onto the hair's surface, creating a softer, more graduated effect that mimics natural sun-lightening. Balayage typically grows out more seamlessly and requires less frequent maintenance. Your stylist can recommend which technique—or combination of both—will best achieve your desired look.
We exclusively use EVO professional hair care products for all our color services, including highlights. EVO's advanced lightening systems are formulated to lift color effectively while minimizing damage and maintaining hair integrity. Their products are free from harmful sulfates and parabens, focusing instead on high-performance ingredients that deliver beautiful results. During your service, we also incorporate EVO's bond-building treatments and conditioning masks to protect your hair throughout the lightening process and ensure you leave with healthy, shiny, vibrant highlights.
Yes, in most cases highlights can be applied to previously colored hair, though the approach may differ from highlighting virgin hair. During your consultation, we'll assess your current color, how long ago it was applied, and what products were used. This helps us determine the safest, most effective technique for your situation. If you've used box color, henna, or certain metallic dyes, we may need to perform a test strand first. We'll always prioritize your hair's health and may recommend a gradual lightening approach or alternative techniques to achieve your desired result safely.
Our Highlights Specialists
17 stylists
