Tips And Tricks To Bleaching The Crap Out Of Your Hair

From popular demand I’ve decided instead of answering your questions individually this post will give you every detail on how I changed my hair from dark brown ombre to peroxide blonde. You’ll be getting tips on all the products I’ve used, how I’ve faded bright colours on my bleached hair and how to keep it in the best condition you can!

Hair history

Firstly I’m going to give you a brief bit of history of what I’ve done with my hair so you can get an idea of how I’ve managed to keep it in decent condition. Years ago I had extremely long dark hair and decided I wanted to bleach it, after many years of bleach, way too much dye and heat my hair ended up going shorter than shoulder length from damage. I decided to dye it brown (my natural hair colour) and just leave it until it was relatively long again. I didn’t use any heat on it at all. After having a shower I would towel dry as much as I could then tie it up and let it dry naturally. I know there’s some of you out there that won’t be able to do this I’ve just been lucky that my hair doesn’t need much taming. I hated it at first but within no time it grew so much and it was getting really thick again. I did get pregnant whilst trying to give my hair a break and people have said pregnancy can help but I don’t advise having a baby for longer hair! Whilst I was pregnant I decided to just get some dip dye. My hair soaks up colour/bleach really well so it didn’t need to be on long at all and the condition was still lovely and long.

Recovery products

As a lot of you have probably heard Moroccan oil is amazing! Unfortunately it is expensive and there are cheaper versions you can get but I don’t think they are as effective.

From personal experience I think you get what you pay for. Another favourite of mine is moroccan oil nourishing intense hydrating hair mask. Best used once/twice a week for best results. Again it is expensive but it lasts for months and really does do what its supposed to.

I like to alternate between different shampoo but the one I love the most has to be Joico Kpak shampoo and Joico deep penetrating treatment. 

Preparation

Even though I didn’t dye my hair for years I was advised to use a hair stripper to level it all out a bit so I didn’t have bands of different colours once it was bleached and hopefully it wouldn’t need to be bleached too much. There's a lot of different products you can use but I used a simple one called ‘colour before’ you can get it from pretty much any supermarket. 

Bleaching

Okay so now here’s the hard bit! I didn’t bleach my hair myself and never will simply because I don’t trust what the outcome will be. A professional knows what they’re doing and will make sure you leave with the best results they can provide. I was really careful with how mine was lightened. Firstly I had a full head of watered down bleach, this is called a bleach bath. It’s just a weaker solution that lightens your hair without being too harsh too quickly. After that was washed out my hair went a really copper orange colour. It didn’t actually look too bad but it wasn’t the look I was going for! Then I had a full head of bleach put on. Now my natural hair is pretty dark so it wasn’t platinum blonde after that. it was kind of like a yellowy colour. Some hairdressers may have toner to put on but I much prefer doing the rest myself because you can then pick what products you prefer and use them as much as you like in the comfort of your own home.

Getting rid of that yellow

Right! Depending how dark your hair was before bleaching it could still be quite yellowy and uneven. Best thing to do is give it a rest for a few days (if you can stand it) then try Bleach London Toner on it. I was advised to leave it on quite a bit longer than it said on the box but I was nervous because it has some bleach in it. If you don’t want to try Bleach London, you could try an ash blonde hair dye to even out the tones in your hair. 

Toners

I was told to try all sorts of toners but I found the one with the best results was the white toner by Directions. This stuff does no damage to your hair. Before applying I wash my hair in the morning but only with shampoo then leave it to naturally dry. I strongly advise to ignore what it says on the tub and leave it on for at least 3-4 hours to begin with. My hair is quite long and thick so I have to use at least four tubs of it to get it really well covered, then to avoid it drying out just twist your hair into a bun on top of your head and put a bag on it. If you don’t put a bag over your head the toner will dry out and stop working. Depending on how well your hair takes to products it could end up going a little lilac but don't panic! If you don't want the lilac it fades after just a few washes. 

Treat a toner day as a you day. Get some films, your favourite food and stay in your pj’s!

The fun bit!

A lot of you have been asking me what dye I used to get it blue. It was once again by Directions and its called Blue lagoon. I left it on for about an hour and my hair took to it ridiculously well. To apply I did the same process as explained with the white toner just don’t leave it on as long. Oh and make sure you wear some gloves, I stupidly didn’t use any and looked like something out of Avatar for a few days! 

I didn't bother dying my hair again for a while because I wanted to see what would happen as it faded. As expected it eventually went to a light blue. As some of you will know blue is an awkward colour to get out, I learnt this the hard way. I didn’t want to have to bleach it out for a while so I decided to get different shampoos that are supposed to help fade hair. The best ones I thought were head and shoulders shampoo and conditioner. I heard that coca cola or washing up liquid is meant to help fade hair too but I’ve never personally tried it so I can’t give a review on whether it works better. I used the head and shoulders pretty much every day as well as using my hair recovery products to keep it as healthy as possible. Eventually my hair faded to a kind of minty green, which was nice for a while but it wasn’t a colour I wanted to keep.

To get the last bits of green out of my hair I had to go back to the salon (I’m really lucky my sister is an amazing hairdresser) and she used a bleach bath to get it out.

I hope this has helped you all! Sorry if I seemed to ramble a lot but there has been so many questions I wanted to try and cover everything. If you’ve got any other questions or topics you want me to cover let me know!