For short haircuts the best hair color option is the all-over, block shade. Regular highlights can look weird and unbalanced on shorter hairstyles, that's why the coloring technique called 'glazing' is used where random sections of hair are backcombed and a toner is placed on the rest of the hair. The result is more subtle than by other highlighting techniques.
Short hairstyles fall into two categories, bold geometric crops and layered, textured haircuts. Stronger, geometric haircuts suit bold, all-over coloring to complement and emphasize their graphic shapes and strong lines. While textured, layered short haircuts work well with thick slices of different shades.