Tried a balayage with foils and then with freehand painting on the same client, and freehand won by a mile
Did a color correction on a client in Portland who had box dye bands from about 8 months back. First side I used traditional foils and the bleach lifted uneven at the roots even with 20 volume. Second side I switched to freehand painting and the blend came out way softer with no harsh lines. Same lightener, same developer, just a different application method. Now I'm second guessing if I should switch all my balayage clients to freehand or if foils still have a place for certain hair types. What do you all reach for when the client has old box dye?
My buddy Marcus ran into this exact thing last year at his chair in Austin. Client had 10 months of black box dye grow out and he did foils on one half, freehand on the other, and the freehand side blended out so much cleaner at the line of demarcation. Foils kept grabbing that old pigment deposit and leaving a hot band right where the two colors met, even with lower volume. For heavy box dye buildup freehand gives you way more control over where the lightener sits, but I still keep foils in my back pocket for fine hair where I need the lift to stay off the scalp.