Do Blonde’s Have More Fun? Part 2: Bleaching

IMG_0439

Hey guys! Welcome to Part 2 of my series of my journey of going blonde. If you are interested, please read Part 1 here, which is all about preparation and getting yourself ready for the big change!

I will repeat my disclaimer, which is that these are my own personal experiences. Everyone’s hair is VERY different. I suggest contacting a professional hair colourist before attempting any drastic change to your hair. I am by no means a professional and won’t take responsibility for any damages. With those yucky formalities out of the way, let’s get to the fun stuff!

When I decided to go blonde, I already had bleached ends that I had done at the hair salon. By having ombered ends, I was able to get to a nice shade quicker. I also didn’t have a build up of hair dye in my hair, which means the roots and most of the brown hair I had was pretty close to my natural colour. If you have medium brown to darker hair, it will take longer to strip your hair of the pigment. It may also damage your hair more than if you were starting with virgin hair. It may be worthwhile to look into finding a colour stripper from your pharmacy or supermarket. This should remove the hair dye from your hair, without bleaching it. If you are ever unsure, consult a hair colourist. They are there to help you!

1. Choosing your bleach product.

To be able to dye your hair blonde, you first need to strip the hair of it’s pigment. Buying a box dye of plain blonde dye will do nothing to your hair, except maybe make it a little orange if it has some bleach in there. The bleaching kit I used was Schwarzkopf Nordic Blonde L1++. This is the strongest bleach that I could find at my local pharmacy or supermarket. I researched it thoroughly online and read a lot of different reviews, some saying it was amazing, and others saying it was crap. My experience was wonderful and this would be a product that I would recommend to others. It’s instructions were concise and clear, the bleach was easy enough to use, and the results were awesome.

2. Protect yourself

Make sure you do ALL of the following:

  • Read all the instructions on the bleaching. Three times. I am not kidding. Bleach is a very harsh chemical and can really do damage to your hair, scalp, skin and eyes if you don’t use it correctly. Not to mention the damage it can do to your clothing and bathroom! Do yourself a favour and be wary of chemicals. Walter White would agree with me here.
  • Protect your clothes, skin and surfaces. This means making sure that you don’t allow any bleach to get on your vanity, and tying a towel around your neck cape style. You should also dab Vaseline or another Petroleum Jelly around your hair line to make sure you don’t end up with a burnt forehead!
  • Phone a friend. Bleaching is tricky business. Time is of the essence when bleaching your hair, because you want to make sure that the majority of the hair develops all at the same time. The two times I have bleached my hair, I asked my sister and then my bestie to help me out.
  • Time that shit. Make sure you have your stop watch or iPhone nearby to ensure that you don’t leave the bleach on your hair past the maximum time. Your hair can fall out or snap off! Not cool! It’s a great time to catch up on Candy Crush while you are waiting though.
  • Again, be smart. Use your common sense, read instructions and research, research, research. I cannot stress this enough! I watched at least a dozen videos on bleaching hair before I took the plunge, and I am so glad I did. YouTube and Google are great research tools. Use them!
L -> R After first bleach, and after second bleach and toning

L -> R After first bleach, and after second bleach and toning

3. Don’t freak out if it’s not quite the right colour!

If you watch a lot of YouTube bleaching videos (you should be! See step 2!) you will see the canary colour that your hair will turn. It will be a bright canary yellow. Don’t freak out when you hair goes orange, that means it is working, and it’s almost ready!

When it gets to that chicken yellow colour, it will be time to wash out the bleach and start toning. I bleached my hair in two steps and I did a deep conditioning treatment in between. This gave my hair a break and I was able to strengthen it a little with a keratin treatment. We will go into treatments and toning in a future post!

I hope you got something out of Part 2 of this series! Is anyone thinking about bleaching their hair?

 

Stay Minty!

 

Kate Xx

Do Blondes Have More Fun? PART 1: Preparation

brown to blonde

I thought I would do a little bit of a series on here about my blonde hair journey. Please take note that these are my own personal experiences. Everyone’s hair is VERY different. I suggest contacting a professional hair colourist before attempting any drastic change to your hair.

That being said, I used to have a colourist bleach my hair years ago, and I was very familiar with the process and terminology. This first post is about being PREPARED.

1. Deciding on going blonde

The first step is making the decision. Seems easy enough, but you have to commit to this 100%. If you want to go blonde, there is no point putting your hair through a lot of damage, and then deciding a couple of weeks later that you don’t like it. I would recommend finding a wig of a similar hair colour to what you want and trying that on.  Also your skin tone, hair type and hair length should be taken into consideration. If you have long, thick hair, it may take a long time and a lot of bleaching and damage to get your hair to the desired shade. Is it worth the damage?

2. Research

Make sure you research the product that you choose to bleach your hair, and other people’s experiences with it, including developing time and damage afterwards. The more information you have, the less can go wrong!

Also researching which bleaching product will be best for you, and in your price range. I will be discussing which products I used in my next post about the bleaching stage. Stay tuned!

3. Gather your materials

No one wants to be caught running out to the chemist with half orange hair because you need a little more bleach than what you have at home! I would definitely recommend buying more bleach than you think you need. You can always use the other products later on when you are touching up roots. For my hair, I used two packets of bleach, left it two days and then another two packets of bleach (so four all up). I am waiting until I need to retouch my roots and then I will be doing another round on areas that are still a bit orange.

Also make sure you have old towels you don’t care about, gloves, a dying brush/comb and Vaseline. Also an old t-shirt that you don’t mind getting bleached would be advised as well! I would also be very wary of time. You need a lot of time to get this right, so no doing it right before a big event or date!

I hope you enjoyed the first part of Do Blondes Have More Fun? Stay tuned for Part 2 in the coming week - Bleaching!

Stay Minty!

Kate Xx