Going blonde on natural hair using bleach

inachristelled
6 mars 2017
4 min de lecture

Dernière mise à jour : 19 oct. 2020

Bleaching? Ahahah! I will tell you everything about it!

DO NOT BLEACH YOUR HAIR IF IT ISN'T ALREADY HEALTHY!

There’s no doubt that bleaching makes your hair more porous; you’re stripping the melanin out of your hair and basically leaving your shaft 'bare'. This sounds scary even as I type it! So if your hair is already fairly porous, you may want to reconsider because making it more porous could result in moisture loss and difficulty retaining moisture.

How to maintain?

If deep conditioning wasn’t a big part of your regimen before, it needs to be now! Immediately after you bleach your hair, you should do a moisturising treatment. Afterwards, make sure to deep condition at least once a week. Alternate between moisture and protein treatments.

Co washing is super important! Just getting moisture in your hair is important. I’ve started to do this every few days.

There are a few different ways to protective style, and the goal of protective styling is to maintain your hair/ends. Try doing mini twists, braids, or other styles that will leave your ends protected. It’ll also result in less manipulation and less breakage.

+ daily moisture; I have a few leave-in spritzes that I use, including oil

Reduce heat: You wouldn't want to increase your chances of hair damage prior to or after bleaching and/or dying. Comb your hair when it's still a little bit wet to style it as straight as possible.

I use a condition cap on my hair 1 to 2 times a week with a menthol cream to massage and revitalise my hair and scalp to help growth of my hair and avoid damages.

+ About masks and scalp gommage; I am into natural homemade products and I'm used to preparing them by myself - I will detail in another post.

Now How to bleach at home ?

Do not do it at home if you don't feel comfortable to do so!

You need to protect your hair line, neck and baby hairs with natural oil (olive oil, almond) or natural Shea butter.

For me, I use Shea butter; it's cheaper and so much more nutritional.

I just bleach my tips because I like to keep my roots black to create a tie and dye effect, and for professional purposes. Maybe this summer I will bleach my tips and my roots as I used to do...

It is the same process if you want to apply on your whole hair or just your tips. The following photos will show bleach applied only on my tips as mentioned earlier.

Application Process:

Put on plastic gloves and protect your eyes with goggles (recommended). Also, wear old clothes and consider putting something on the floor to protect from spills or do it somewhere safe.

In a non-metallic mixing bowl, combine equal amounts of lightening powder and 20 vol. developer. Mix until creamy

The mixture has to be creamy like this:

For me, as mentioned before, I will only bleach my tips and so will use aluminium foil

Apply mixture. With your tint brush, starting 1/4 - 1/2 inch (about 1 cm) away from the scalp, begin applying bleach mixture. First do one section from one of the back quarters, making sure it's totally saturated before moving on to the next. Clip the section back into place before moving on to the next one.

If your hair is short as me you cannot only section your hair into four but have to make more sections and add aluminium folio on the bleach part.

Work in the direction of hair growth, from roots to ends. Work as quickly as possible if you want the hair to bleach the same colour, then put on the processing cap or plastic bag.

Check every 10 minutes until the desired result is reached

Leave for 10 - -20 minutes or 30 but not more to avoid damages. If you want to apply bleach on all of your hair, apply your bleach as I said earlier then leave for 20 minutes check every 10 minutes then apply to the roots. The hair at the roots process faster than the rest because of the heat of your scalp, so the bleach will work faster. If you're opting to dye your roots, it's best to do at the end of the process. Use the same sectioning but this time adding the mixture to the roots only.

Once your hair become pale yellow, or you've left the product in for the maximum time recommended, rinse your hair of all bleach with water. Shampoo lightly; a shampoo that contains purple toner, for example, will help balance out yellow tones (you can find at the pound shop for £1).

Towel dry your hair and style as usual. If you can, avoid using heat products to style, as they will damage your hair.

I use the pound shop product, because it's cheap and works well, but you can use any one you like.

For me I end my journey here because I'm happy with my colour, and just comb my curls with an afro comb, then use Cantu conditioning lotion plus the polish hair aloe vera.

If you find your colour too yellow you can choose a toner. I never use toner so I cannot advise you on it but I think Yella's brand seems great. Toners help balance out undesired tones, helping you get just the blonde you want. Blue toners balance orange, violet toners balance yellow, and blue-violet balance orange-yellow

For white hair, choose a toner that is specified for white. You cannot bleach your hair white, you have to tone it.

+ If you have any questions about which toner to pick, you may want to consult a hairdresser.

+ Leave 2 to 6 months between each bleaching session, and if you want to add a process to a dying session wait 2 weeks before applying on your bleached hair. Do not do it on the same day!