Liz Haven

Gradient Balayage creates the look of a melt without a melt. 😍

Through precision lightening, strategic placement, and manipulation of saturation, we create a seamless transition from natural depth to brighter ends during the lightening process itself.

Low-maintenance luxury. 🤍 High maintenance is optional, never a necessity.

And if your guest loves visiting every 4–6 weeks, that’s where Strandlights come in. We can continue to refine and customize their color while preserving that effortless, natural result.

If you love learning the artistry behind hair color, follow along. I love sharing what I’ve learned over the years with other artists. 🫶🏼

LIZ HAVEN HOUSTON HAIR SALON | KALEIDO HAIR

Sometimes less is more. 🙌🏼

In this case, strategically detailing from recession to recession + cutting a few inches was all we needed to create the fall color we were going for.

And the best part? We’re already setting her up for spring. Her natural color is preserved, her hair integrity is amazing, and she’ll be ready for a full transformation when the season changes. 🤍

LIZ HAVEN HOUSTON HAIR SALON | KALEIDO HAIR

Corrective color can be tackled so many different ways. You can do it all in one session, or you can choose to work in sessions. This was our first visit together, and for this guest, I chose session work. It allows us to better control timing, price point, maintenance, and, most importantly, the integrity of the hair while slowly working toward our end goal.

I first blended her gray with a demi-permanent retouch and then married that into my reverse balayage application. If you love your client’s natural root and your guest is simply dealing with a horizontal line of demarcation, you can skip the root coverage altogether and just blur out that horizontal line by applying your formula where you want to see that shadow of depth. The trick is matching the natural. 👏🏼

I hope you enjoyed this breakdown! Follow for more hair education + tips. 🤍

LIZ HAVEN HOUSTON HAIR SALON | KALEIDO HAIR

Amanda is one of my faves. 🫶🏼 I’ll post the full haircut breakdown next, but what do y’all think?!

LIZ HAVEN HOUSTON HAIR SALON | KALEIDO HAIR

Being a creative means eventually finding the medium that allows you to express what inspires you. For me, that medium is hair. 🤍

Nature has always inspired me. I love being outside, I love the way the sun affects everything around us. It darkens our skin, lightens our hair and even changes the shades of green within a single plant depending on where the light hits. I notice things like that all the time, and I think without even realizing it, so much of it has influenced the way I create hair.

I love creating hair that feels organic. Enhancing what’s naturally there, mimicking the way the sun would naturally lighten it and creating dimension that feels like it belongs. I’m incredibly grateful that the way I get to express my art also gets to be my career. 1 Peter 4:10

If you’re behind the chair, what makes your heart sing the most? What’s your niche? Not necessarily the only thing you do, but the thing you could create over and over again and never get tired of.

For me, it will always be sun-kissed hair. ☀️

LIZ HAVEN HOUSTON HAIR SALON | KALEIDO HAIR

Strandlights started with the density of the weave, but over the years, it’s evolved into so much more than that.

I’ve been refining this placement since 2017, and nearly 10 years later, it’s become an entire customizable approach to creating dimensional hair color.

I use Strandlights differently depending on the guest in my chair. Gray blending, lived-in color, mimicking the way the sun naturally lightens the hair, softening horizontal lines of demarcation, or transitioning someone from high-maintenance blonding into something softer and more seamless.

That’s what I love about this placement. The foundation stays the same, but the way I customize it can completely change depending on the guest, their starting point, and the result we’re trying to create.

In this video, I’m lifting the foil, so to speak, and giving you a little look under the hood at the mechanics behind my Strandlights placement. 👀

Save this for your next gray blending appointment and follow for more hair education + techniques. 🤍

LIZ HAVEN HOUSTON HAIR SALON | KALEIDO HAIR

This client (my Mom 😁) comes in every 3–4 months to maintain her bob, so at each visit, we take it pretty short to make sure the shape lasts.

The goal isn’t just how the haircut looks the day she leaves. It’s also about creating a shape that will continue to work for her as it grows out. 🙌🏼

Save this for your next bob appointment and follow for more hair education + tips! 🫶🏼 LIZ HAVEN HOUSTON HAIR SALON | KALEIDO HAIR

Longer hair doesn’t always mean fewer haircuts. 👀

Lexi came in wanting to refresh her color, feel a little brighter, and keep enough depth for contrast. But during our consultation, we also talked about what her hair needed beyond color.

Her ends were showing signs of dehydration and stress, so I’m SO excited to get her on a maintenance plan that supports the health of her hair while we continue working toward her long-term length goals.

This is something I think is so important to educate our guests on: skipping regular trims doesn’t necessarily mean your hair will get longer.

When the ends become compromised from things like heat, dehydration, and everyday wear, waiting too long between haircuts can allow that stress to continue traveling up the hair strand. Eventually, those ends begin to break, and your hair is essentially giving itself a haircut… just not the one we want. 😅

For Lexi, we’re starting with a slightly more intentional haircut schedule to strengthen her perimeter and gradually remove the areas that need the most attention. Once we get her hair to a healthier place, we can transition her into a lower-maintenance schedule that supports the length she wants to keep.

For her color, we created a soft honey bronde Gradient Balayage, seamlessly tying her postpartum new growth into her existing color while maintaining intentional depth and contrast.

Beautiful color is only one part of the plan. The goal is creating healthy, beautiful hair with a maintenance plan that feels realistic and manageable for the guest sitting in your chair. 🤌🏼

She’s a fiancée now, y’all!! 💍🥹
We had to brighten Sierra up for her beach proposal. We had a feeling it was going to happen… and it DID!
Sierra’s color has been a journey. She came to me last year with auburn hair, and we’ve been correcting her color in sessions ever since, slowly working our way toward a more natural, lived-in result without trying to force it all in one appointment.
For this session, we tied her new growth into her pre-existing color, added brightness in all the right places, and finished with soft, face-framing layers.
And I think we can officially say… GOAL ACHIEVED. 👏🏼
The color. The beach. The ring. Couldn’t be happier for you, Sierra!