advice on bleaching dark hair please

[pumpa]

i have got dark brown hair and today bought a bleach which is specifically strong to lighten dark hair. i have done a strand test but the result is, as usual, orange. i see the toni and guy models with dark or black natural eyebrows but white hair, how do they achieve this?? i also have a couple of questions:

is there any way to minimise breakage whilst using bleach
why can you not use it on top of henna or red dye?
can you use straighteners on bleached hair or will it break it off


please answer asap as i am about to go for it lol!

[impy78]

I bleaced my hair and it was a disaster - it was like a bale of hay, and I looked like Myra Hindley.

It is sonething I wouldn't attempt myself again - I would go to the hairdressers.

[pumpa]

last time i did it with sun in-it didnt break but it went orange you see, so any advice appreciated-and i cant go to hairdressers so thats not in the equation really, its only the fringe i want to dye.

[Karnam]

i have black hair and went through a bright green or blue or red stage.

i used the jerome bleach, and the first time would generally go ginger (!) and then the 2nd bleach a few hours later (yes i bleached it twice in one day) would be white blonde. is that what you are looking for? my hair is quite strong and well cared for though and it managed ok with two bleaches.

[pumpa]

yeah ive left it on a strand test for abt 3 hrs, i wouldnt do that on my own hair but im just testing whether my hair would disintigrate or not (i cut some off and bleached that)-so far its light gignger. id be worried if i bleached it twice as my hair, although it doesnt break is very dried out.

[Judi]

I have very dark hair and went through a blonde phase a few years ago. Your hair has to go through various shades of colour to get to the desired shade. Yes orange is one of the shades - it scared me witless the first time i tried it myself. One of the best ones you can get is the Jerome Russel blonding kit. I found that the others i tried, didnt lift my colour enough.

This (http://goblonde.net/) site gave me the encouragement and the inspiration to try it myself. I found the forum a mine of inspiration, and Rick the chemist was worth his weight in gold.

I stopped bleaching my hair as i wasnt very successful at doing it without help and the damage was awful, but i do miss having blonde hair.

[pumpa]

well i bleached my fringe today and left it on for the recommended 45 mins, it was the strongest pre lightener i could find and it went light ginger. i have covered it with pink (which i wanted to do anyway) but its not bright enough. if i bleach over it it might break. what do you recommend? is sun-in less harsh than powder bleach? opinions on bleacing over bleached hair please (by the way it hasnt wrecked, melted or broken, seems fine)

does any natural stuff work like camomile? really could do with advice, dont want to melt my hair off!

[Judi]

You may need to bleach it a number of times to get the lightening that you want. Also, i had to leave my bleach on at least an hour to get a shade i was happy with. It helps if you can heat your head too as it really speeds things up. You could try wrapping a hot towel round your head after you have put the cap over it. What colour is your hair naturally?

Sun In is a hairdressers worst enemy as it is so unpredictable. Saying that, i have tried it, and it didnt lift the colour of my hair and made it dry and frizzy.

Once you start bleaching your hair, you would need to invest in some decent products to help keep your hair in good condition. I used Aveda Sap Moss shampoo and conditioner and occasionally when i was desperate i used e45 on the ends of my hair. However, i still had breakage and was forced to keep it fairly short - but then again, my hair is very dark and yours may not need to be bleached as long as mine did.

[pumpa]

wont it melt if i leave it on longer than it says though? my hair is darkest brown.

[Judi]

Thats where a hairdresser comes in useful as she can check the lift and remove it at the earliest possible time. How light do you want to go?

Your hair wont melt exactly but will break off after numerous bleachings. Unfortunately that will go with the territory.

To be honest i wouldnt recommend going down the diy route.

[pumpa]

i just want it light enough so the pink i do over the top of it is true pink. i used sun in last time but had to do it 4 times and had a bit of breakage. its a bit bright at the min but has an orange tinge and the bleach i used made my hair go copper. i cant afford a hairdressers, not just to bleach my fringe anyway!

[Alltheloginsaretakenappar]

Hello, I used to work as a colour technician at Toni & Guy. Most of the T&G models you've seen with bleached hair will have dark blonde hair naturally, it just looks darker at the roots as it's next to bleached blonde (or sometimes the roots will actually be coloured darker)

The short answer is "don't do it!" There, you've been warned.

Long answer: Think of hair colours on a scale of 1-10 with 1 as black and 10 as lightest blonde. Bleach will only lighten hair about 7 levels, after that we use a toner to cancel out any remaining warmth.
Technically, black or dark brown hair is a base 1 or 2 and so will only ever lighten to a base 7 or 8. The undercoat of the hair at base 7 is orange, so you'll never get a pale or platinum blonde. Dark blonde hair will lighten to a base 9 or 10 which is a yellow or pale yellow undercoat, then we just use an ash toner (blue or purple) to neutralise the yellow.

If you leave the bleach on after its reached it's maximum level of lift, it won't go any lighter and will start to destroy the hair instead. It's removed all the colour molecules that it can, so it then starts breaking down the cortex (like a spine) instead. If this happens - it cannot be fixed. No amount of conditioner or serum will fix it!

So, if your hair won't go lighter than orange then just accept it. But if it's a yellowy orange rather than a firey or reddish orange, since you're only doing small sections instead of a whole head, you can probably neutralise it with a toner (or crazy colour). Remember the colour wheel from art lessons at school? Well the opposite of orange is blue and the opposite of yellow is purple. Ash toners are usually blue or purple.



You can't use hair colourants on top of henna because they react and destroy the hair in the same way as leaving bleach on for too long does. The hair goes like chewing gum after the cortex is destroyed. The same goes for Grecian 2000, Sun-in (never, ever put this on your hair!!!) and some other old-style colourants that contain metallic salts. I have seen this happen, but thankfully only on strand tests where I've suspected there was something like henna on the hair, and after only a few seconds there would be a reaction.

You can bleach over red dye, but..
Coloured hair won't lighten as much as natural hair. You won't get 7 levels of lift, more like a maximum of 5. Reds and black colours are the hardest colours to bleach over (to do with the size and amount of colour molecules) and so you definitely won't get a very light blonde (see Sharon or Kelly Osbourne recently). So if the natural colour is dark AND the hair has been dyed, it's not going to lighten much. And even less if it's dyed red or black or dark brown.

I wouldn't use straighteners or even a hairdryer for a while after bleaching as the hair will have been through enough. It will be dryer and weaker after bleaching and heat will make it worse. Provided it hasn't been over-bleached, it will need lots of conditioner, regularly, to help it recover.

By the time you read this you've probably already done it, so I hope it went okay. If not, let me know and I'll try to help

[pumpa]

hi..well i did it before i read your post...i tried the highest 'normal' blonde hair dye i could find which was nordic colors or something, said it could lighten by 7 shades and it went ginger, so i remembered last time i used sun-in and my hair went yellow, which is fine as i wanted it pink anyway..after the nordic wotsit i put the pink over it and it went red so i thought so what ill have a go with the sun in, i did it twice and i now have a pink fringe which im pleased with, no hairs broken and its not even dry, im surprised, im pleased with the colour, just wish it was as fluorescent as it used to be but i darent attempt it again like when i was 16 just in case i wreck it..roots are brighter than the ends but i was careful not to bleach roots more than once as i remembered from the last time thats where it broke from, so, all in all i wish it was brighter but im quite pleased, i guess im lucky hearing all the horror stories on here!

[CCStar]

I bleached my hair light blonde when my hair was dark blonde and I could never get it to go as white as I liked. I did use ash tones which helped.

I have got darker as I have got older and my hair is now mid brown and no grey. Typical, so many people go grey when they are younger than me but as I wanted to go light, I haven't, still at least I look young for my age.

I dyed my hair blonde for 20 years - I found I needed to use the strongest bleach to get it white which really damaged my hair but I was prepared to suffer for my image

I grew it out in 1999 (after dyeing the ends to match the roots). My hair is down to my waist, which I could never acheive being light blonde. It is a lovely colour these days and had I been this dark in my teens, I would have kept this colour and not bleached it.

Question for the hairdresser

Gwen Steffani is really platinum blonde, yet her eyes and hair look very very dark - how does she acheive her blondeness?

[pumpa]

yes ive seen people walking around where i live with black eyebrows and roots and white blonde hair, id like to know too!! i put more sun-in in today as the pink was just too dull, looked like id sprayed it on, its gone significantly lighter, wish i had the guts to do it abt 2 more times but darent risk it! fairly pleased with it now anyway and still no breakage or anything..a question abt the dreaded sunin, it says on the bottle its now got some ingredient that carries on lightening after the initial lightening, but it also says to wash it out, so even though i have washed it out if i put the hairdryer on it now would it still go lighter? the instructions are really badly written..

[pumpa]

ok im annoyed, went to town today and i saw people with proper pink hair, and realised mine just looks dull reddy-pink. was thinking aby phoning up t and g to see if they could get it lighter, what do you think and how much would it cost just for a fringe? thanks

[wehavethepower]

You know you could always go to a Toni & Guy or Vidal Sassoon hair academy and get it done for around £20 as a model for their students. I have used Toni & Guy colour academy in London - used to be in St. Christophers Place but now in SE1 - near Waterloo for years and never had any problems.

[the devil made me do it]

http://www.robertcraig.com/php/index.php?location=consumer

check that site out for good tips


Also, put cling film wrapped round your head whilst bleaching, this keeps the heat in and stops the bleach mixture from drying out.

Above all, use a good conditioning treatment after and buy a protein repair spray.