Hair Light: Diffused or Un-Diffused...?

Lately, I have been placing a diffuser in front of my hair light, which lowers its intensity and does not look harsh on the subject's hair. Is this a common practice, or am I not supposed to diffuse the hair light? Thanks.

Most setups use a softbox or grid on the hair light so yes diffused is fine but if your model has dark hair you can get away with a un diffused light.
All in all it depends on what you want to create.

I have an 18" honeycomb grid on the hairlight, but have placed a diffuser in front of it. Does the honeycomb diffuse the light?

A honeycomb grid makes the light more directional without affecting the hardness or softness of the light modifier which it is mounted on. For a hairlight I use a 16x22" softbox with a grid. The softbox give me a softer light which has less tendency to burn out highlights and the grid helps keep the light from spilling onto the subjects shoulders or into the camera lens where it could cause flair.


Charles

It depends on the highlight you want to create.

If you use studio flashes, people typically use a snoot for rim lighting / backlighting of the hair and a honeycomb filter if they are projecting down onto the hair.

A honeycomb filter will give the light a slightly softer edge than a snoot. Both will direct the light with no/little spill onto the background.

Cheers,

Mitch

The only rule is there are no rules. Some of the best portraits I have seen come from a photographer who is prepared to experiment. The so called rules should only be considered a starting point.

As a hairlight I actually quite like a strobe with a white open dish on but then turn that strobe down to about 1/4 of the main light and mount it above and slightly behind the models head. Its quite harsh but picks out any variation in hair colour quite nicely and placing it behind limits the spill onto the face.