Highlighting at home is perhaps the last DIY beauty frontier that even the most skilled beauty enthusiast has trouble mastering. But Madison Reed has set out to change that. The San Francisco-based startup has launched a new kit, Light Works, a two-step at-home balayage set that helps users achieve natural-looking highlights. The service will also be available soon at Madison Reed Color Bars. The brand recently partnered with former L’Oréal colorist, David Stanko, who joined the company as a permanent team member last November in the role of VP of Technical Design and Education. With 32 years’ experience, he’s evaluated and launched professional hair color around the world. “Color is an emotion,” he said. “When a woman has beautiful color, and her roots are touched up, it changes her,” he explained. “She’s nicer, friendlier to the valet parking guy, and she loves her partner again, until her roots come in.”

Here’s how the new Light Works kit works.

Madison Reed develops and makes all of their own products, which differentiates it from competitors in the at-home hair color space. “There’s a clay component to the lightener, which helps the product stay longer and lighten a bit more for you,” David said. Typical at-home color kits include mixing powder instead of a cream format, which puffs when you mix it and dries out faster. What makes Madison Reed’s iteration innovative is that the algorithm on the brand’s site narrows down one’s candidacy for Light Works based on answers to 13 hair color profile questions. For example, those with relaxed, keratin-treated, or black or dyed-black hair are not suited for this product, but most others are.

There are two steps to the kit: the first is lightening; the second is toning. For the lightening step, the kit includes an ammonia-free lightening cream and lightening activator, as well as a patent-pending wishbone balayage applicator to ensure fool-proof application, designed by colorists to mimic salon balayage. “The bristles are soft, the advantage is that it holds the product but doesn’t push the product through the hair,” explained David. “You don’t want it to seep through.” For step two, there’s a toning glaze and activator. The toner is available in four different shades — Ardenza (warm caramel), Palmi (warm honey), Lazio (cool toffee) and Sorrento (cool vanilla). This second step, also referred to as glazing or glossing at salons, blends the highlights while imparting shine to hair. With warm- and cool-tone brunette and blonde toner offerings, this demi-permanent glaze will work for a multitude of hair hues.

There are also gloves, a cap, shampoo, conditioner, and a Bond Building Cleansing Treatment to strengthen recently-highlighted strands in the Light Works box.

Madison Reed is in its fourth year of operation and plans to open 20 color bars opening between now and 2019. The Light Works kit retails for $44.95 beginning this month exclusively at madison-reed.com and in Madison Reed Color Bars. It will eventually be sold in Ulta Beauty and Ulta.com.