Is Hair Lightener bad for your hair?
"Although hair lighteners are an easier and more cost-effective way to highlight the hair [than salon highlights], they ultimately end up doing the scalp more damage than benefit," says Reavey.
Not only does bleaching raise the outer cuticle, it also damages the bonds inside the hair too (hair is made up of three types of bonds: hydrogen, disulfide and salt bonds) causing them to weaken and break, and when the internal structure of the hair is compromised, strands are more likely to split and snap.
Natural bleaching agents like apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, chamomile tea, or cinnamon and honey can lighten hair gently and naturally with minimal damage. Rinse your hair in a solution of warm water and one or more of these lightening agents, then sit in the sun to dry.
Use a low-volume bleach developer, never higher than 20 volume, and ensure it doesn't sit on your head for too long to prevent breakage. Maintain your blonde color and extend the time between bleaching by using a semi-permanent hair dye.
Pay attention to the main differences between colouring, lightening and bleaching: Lightening - used to lighten natural hair. Lightening can be defined as a process of artificial reduction and dissolution of pigment in hair. Bleaching - allows lightening already coloured hair.
There's a misconception that bleach will work better the longer you leave it on. The maximum amount of time you should leave bleach on your hair is 30 minutes. Any longer than that and you run the risk of serious damage, including brittle strands.
Step 5: Using the Hair Lightener (Again)
To avoid breakage and damage, we recommend limiting use to 2X per week, just to be on the safe side. More specifically, try not to apply more than once between washes/shampoos. This should help avoid over-drying and hair breakage.
Teasy lights is a great technique to get a natural look with highlights, but in the process of backcombing, you're potentially tearing some of the hair. Redken Artist George Garcia shares a less-damaging alternative: split lights.
To go from brown to blonde hair and to lighten brunette strands in general, you will need to have your base color lifted with bleach. The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) suggests choosing a dye within three shades of your natural color to help maintain the health of your mane.
Wella Professionals Blondor Multi-Blonde Lightening Powder
"It's gentle on the hair and gives you incredible lift without having to use a high-volume peroxide," he tells Byrdie. "I also use this bleach for my clients' scalps when their natural hair is light brown."
Do hairdressers use bleach to lighten hair?
It is true that today many hairdressers use high-lift colours instead of bleach; however it always depends on the base colour of the client's hair. If for example your own hair colour is a light hazel brown or dark blonde, high-lift colours will lighten this hair colour easily.
Your stylist's goal is to achieve an even bleach and to avoid a patchy result. A bleaching session at a salon takes anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. Achieving a gorgeous shade of blonde is a journey. Additionally, take into consideration the extra time it takes to dye your hair after having it bleached.
Colouring and bleaching your hair involves the use of a chemical process to change the appearance of your hair colour. Bleaching lightens your natural hair colour while colouring involves changing the colour of your hair.
Can You Leave Bleach In Your Hair Too Long? No, leaving the bleach in your hair longer than 30 minutes can damage it. It can lead to dry and brittle hair strands that break easily.
After the first week, you can introduce shampoo back into your life. Use a gentle low lathering, sulfate-free shampoo the first week after bleaching. Make sure your shampoo does not contain sodium lauryl sulfate or sodium laureth sulfate; these are powerful degreasers and are just too harsh for over processed hair.
Unlike regular hair dye, which puts color on top of your hair, bleach removes pigment from your strands. Once the bleaching process is finished, the bleach itself needs to be completely washed out of your hair. But after the color has been stripped, there is no way to reverse the bleaching.
“A hair lightener breaks apart the pigment in your hair so that light is reflected through it and the color looks blond. The pigment is still there, it's just broken up so much that you can't see it,” explains Redken Artist Celene Dupuis.
If you have hair that has already been colored and you want to lift it or lighten it, you are going to have to use a professional bleach. There is simply no other way. Color does not work on color.
DEVELOP TIME
We recommend checking the hair every ten minutes with a scrape test. If you have thick hair strands that are straight, wavy or curly, your hair needs more processing time, so you can leave the bleach on your roots for up to 45 mins per quarter.
Apple cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar are easy and cheap options for lightening your hair. Rinse your hair in vinegar and then rinse it again in cold water to lift color and revitalize dull strands. Top with a gloss or conditioner to seal in moisture—this is crucial if you've had a bleach mishap before.
Will purple shampoo lighten hair?
Purple shampoo is for already bleached hair, so if you're hoping to lighten brown hair with purple shampoo, you'll be disappointed. This is all down to the fact that purple shampoo isn't lightening. Instead, it brightens blondes by canceling out yellow tones, which just happen to be opposite purple on the color wheel.
Highlights also are more likely to damage your hair. Many of the formulas for highlights contain bleach, which dries out your hair.
“Highlights are great for adding volume, but if you go too light at the root you can actually cause more breakage to the hair, which means thinner hair,” Orellana said.
However, if the hair is thin, excessive colouring can cause breakage and deterioration in the quality of the hair but this is a cosmetic problem and only affects the areas of hair that the colouring touches.
Pink: Cancels BROWN | This helps camouflage brown spots, age spots, sun spots, acne scarring, and more; it is especially helpful for fair skin tones.
- Stage 1: Black/Brown. ...
- Stage 2: Dark Brown. ...
- Stage 3: Light Brown. ...
- Stage 4: Dark Blonde. ...
- Stage 5: Medium Blonde. ...
- Stage 6: Light Blonde. ...
- Stage 7: Icy Blonde/White: Almost an invisible blonde; hardly any pigment should remain at this stage.
It is recommended to go not more than four levels up in one session. After two-three weeks, you can go four more levels up to get the lighter hair shade of your choice. Going drastically from dark to lightest can fry your hair and make it dry, brittle, and weak.
- 11 Hair Colors That You Can Get Without Bleach.
- Coffee Brown Highlights. These dark brown highlights give your hair more dimension. ...
- Caramel Hair Color. Love medium brown hair colors? ...
- Mahogany Hair Color. ...
- Chocolate Brown. ...
- Golden Brown Hair Color Without Bleach. ...
- Dark Purple Highlights. ...
- Burgundy.
Baking soda and hydrogen peroxide
Another popular way to lighten your hair is a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Following in the footsteps of the “No Poo” haircare movement, mixing hydrogen peroxide and baking soda is believed to lighten your hair while keeping it healthy.
Developer volume
10-volume developer is the weakest, while 40-volume developer is the most potent. If you've never bleached your hair before or have extremely thin hair, a lower volume is usually best.
Can you lighten hair without bleach professionally?
Box or professional color can lighten your hair 1-2 levels without the need for bleach. This is because you often use a developer along with these colors, which can lighten your hair even without the interaction with bleach. Keep in mind that color matters even when using box dye or professional color, however.
Hydrogen peroxide and ammonia are the most commonly used bleaching agents. They are often mixed together, because when used separately, they are unstable and very slow in lightening the hair.
The silicone found in some home colourants begins to coat the hair, which can make future colour changes or removal troublesome and expensive. Salon colours are mixed fresh and can be combined with bond multiplying products such as Olaplex which can help achieve a more dramatic colour change without damaging hair.
Maintenance - scalp bleach requires much more maintenance than highlights. The harsh regrowth from a scalp bleach means you'll have to pop back to the salon every 4-6 weeks to get your roots done and though we love seeing your faces, we know that isn't always doable.
Hair Dye. Understand that your regular hair dye and ammonia lightening, which can cause potential damage to the hair, is similar to what happens when you bleach your hair, but the bleach is more structurally damaging to hair follicles.
While hair lightener can help to make your hair appear lighter, it won't lift the pigment from your strands the way that bleach does. If you're looking for a more dramatic color transformation, best to make an appointment with your colorist.
The recommended bleach to developer ratio is 1 part Bleach to 2 parts developer. This will give you a fairly runny mix which will be easy and quick to apply.
Box or professional color can lighten your hair 1-2 levels without the need for bleach. This is because you often use a developer along with these colors, which can lighten your hair even without the interaction with bleach. Keep in mind that color matters even when using box dye or professional color, however.
Hair Dye. Understand that your regular hair dye and ammonia lightening, which can cause potential damage to the hair, is similar to what happens when you bleach your hair, but the bleach is more structurally damaging to hair follicles.
Temporary dyes are less damaging to the hair. They don't use peroxide to lighten your hair colour; they purely change the colour of your hair. Alternatively, permanent hair dyes use the same oxidisation process that bleaching does, but it doesn't lift the cuticle and damage the hair to the same degree.
Does lightener damage curls?
While the bleaching process can be damaging to any hair texture, it has a unique effect on curly hair—it can damage or change your curl pattern altogether. Damaged curly hair is easy to spot, the bleached curls tend to feel drier and look looser or straighter.
Is It Actually Possible To Lighten Hair Without Bleach? "Yes, you can use color to get lift," says celebrity colorist and Matrix brand ambassador, Rachel Bodt. "The biggest question/issue is if you have previous color in your hair, which can change how much lift you get out of it."
Product Information. Garnier Nutrisse Ultra Color LB2, Ultra Natural Blonde (Piña Colada), is specially formulated to provide up to 4 levels of lift without bleach.
Most people find that once they stop bleaching their hair, their natural hair grows back as thick and healthy as it was prior to bleaching.
In some cases, the only way to fix damaged hair is to give it time, about 6 weeks after bleaching to see if your hair starts to recover. In most cases, damaged hair will grow back healthy.
It is possible to have healthy, bleached hair! You'll need to follow a constant care routine after this chemical process, starting even before you arrive at the salon. Firstly, you'll need a hair schedule. This is simply a hair care programme that you commit to.
Semi-permanent hair color is "deposit only,” which means that it won't chemically change the hair shaft and it contains no ammonia or peroxide.
Once you have processed or color-treated hair, it can never go back to being virgin. That's right, once you've dyed your hair, even just once, you lose your virgin strands forever. Virgin hair is a hair colorist's dream because it's also much easier to color hair that doesn't already have dye on it.
Depending on your hair, it could take up to two weeks before your strands feel ready to play again. If your bleach damage is more severe, you might need a month of care before your hair starts to feel smooth and shiny again.
Make sure you use a heat protectant because blow drying, straighteners and curling irons will cause a lot of damage. Try to use a gentle, low setting with them and of course any other tools you use, like your hairbrush, should be really gentle and less prone to cause breakage.
How do I prepare my hair for bleaching?
Wash Your Hair 2 Days before Your Appointment
As we've mentioned, you should wash your hair two days before you have it bleached. This is so that all those lovely natural oils that your scalp produces are still coating the strands of your hair, protecting it from the effects of the bleach.