The 2nd way of doing this is to prelighten the hair (bleach all over) then do the highlights and all over colour inbetween. Please bear in mind the highlights will probably not go blonde blonde on the first tint. There are 2 ways you could go with this one will be far less harsh on your hair - colour the hair brown all over first (you need to pick a brown with the base shade the same or 1 down from the base of the red) then in a few weeks time have highlights put through it. Hi there, red to brown no problem, red to blonde less straight forward.