‘Money Piece’ Highlights Are the Face-Framing Hair Trend Anyone Can Pull Off

If you’re anything like us, you’ll be long overdue a trip to the salon to get your highlights freshened up. Dark roots? Don’t know her. 

It’s true: We spent every day in lockdown dreaming of trying out the latest hair trends. Ribbon blonde? Sign us up. The textured bob? Chop it all off. Even the modern mullet? Yep, there was no trend we wouldn’t have tried (Thanks, Miley). 

But now that we’re out the other side and my hair salon is officially open, we’re looking for a slightly more subtle switch-up—something soft and flattering for autumn that doesn’t require too much maintenance or upkeep.

Enter “money piece” highlights, a happy medium between two-tone hair and super-soft balayage highlights that instantly brighten and frame your face. “Money-piece highlights are a fuss-free way to change up your look without having to touch the whole head—it’s all about face-framing and contouring the hair,” says Natalia Romaniuc, colorist at Windle London.

Money-piece highlights were popularized in the ’90s and have made a notable comeback lately. “The main inspiration for this throwback trend is probably ’90s-era Geri Halliwell,” says Romaniuc. “It’s just been a little bit more refined and softened to suit the 2021 market.”

“It’s a super-flattering look because it brightens your face, accentuating your facial features and your own base hair color,” explains Romaniuc. “Best of all, this technique works on any color of hair and really can suit everyone, whether you are a warm blonde or a deep, cool chocolate brown—the money pieces can pop when you choose a color three to four shades brighter to achieve the full impact, and this usually requires bleaching those specific areas of the hair beforehand.”

Money-piece highlights are a hotly emerging trend as we ease out of lockdown and look toward the holidays, with clients looking to embrace a new and exciting look in a fuss-free way, says Romaniuc.

“We are able now to work with the clients’ more natural color and offer them services such as money-piece highlights to immediately update their look with very little effort—and of course, less time in the chair meaning more affordable and maintainable,” explains Romaniuc. “My clients at Windle are incorporating this trend into their usual balayage colors, where we just intensify the placement of highlights and freehand around the face.”

So how do we maintain the look? “The level of lightening involved with money highlights mean you should use gentle, natural shampoos so as to not strip the hair or affect the color,” advises Romaniuc. “After all, you wouldn’t buy a Gucci dress, then wash it with dish soap, would you?!”

Ready to look a million dollars? We thought so. 

This story originally appeared on Glamour U.K.