Fit Beauty: Extend your highlights

During the summer months, many women get a few extra highlights (myself included). Even if I'm not hanging out on the beach, my hair can still have that sunkissed glow ... for a few weeks, anyway, until my roots start showing. And no matter how many celebrities go around showing an inch of darkness at the root, I'm just not on board -- my hair doesn't have enough body to pull that look off.

Like many of you, I don't have the time or the money to get my hair professionally highlighted every four or six weeks, so I've come up with a way to go longer between highlights -- with a semi-permanent, at-home hair color (I personally use Natural Instincts).

First of all, I have to tell you that at-home hair coloring can be disastrous -- if you're looking to really change up your hair color, or go from light to dark, you really ought to spring for a professional. However, many of my friends and I have had great success by using a light shade to blend our natural hair color with our grown-out highlights.The Natural Instincts website makes it really easy to figure out what shade will work best for you. First, you select your current shade, and then you decide what you want to do (enhance or change your color). Then, you choose whether you want to go with a cool, neutral, or warm tone, and, voila! Your ideal shade is selected. When I clicked through, it showed me the exact shade I use, so I can safely say it works.

I do want to stress that, if you've never used a product like this before, trying it out for the first time a few days before your best friend's wedding is probably not a good idea. But, the beauty of a semi-permanent color is that, as long as you follow their color suggestions and instructions, it'll fade out in a month or so, at which point you might be ready to hit the salon!