Showing posts with label from brown to blonde hair. Show all posts

Bleaching Hair from Dark Brown to Blonde Part 3

Ready for another episode in the journey to take my hair from dark brown to blonde?

It's been a while since my last update in this DIY hair adventure and with good reason. Whilst you might be thinking 'she finally used good sense and decided to give her hair a proper break before jumping in with yet another round of bleach' unfortunately that's not quite the case. My willpower is not that great. I was forced to leave it alone.

I was in hospital for two weeks due to a bad flare up of multiple chronic conditions all at once. It has not been fun. I am home again now though fortunately and working hard to get myself back to something that can pass as normal life again.

Disclosure: The FTC Disclosure Provision is a law that requires influencers to disclose when they are being paid to promote a product or service. So please know that if I'm not making money through affiliate links/sponsored content on the post you're currently reading, it's an oversight on my part and will be corrected soon. Read the full disclosure about all the legal stuff here.

My time in the hospital meant that not only could I not work on getting rid of the orangey phase my hair was in after part 2, but I also got quite a bit of regrowth on my roots. Add to that the fact that I couldn't brush my hair most days due to being on constant IVs day and night let alone wash it, my hair was not looking it's best.

After a few days back home I sent my son out on a mission to buy supplies and I was finally able to start on part 3.

As with the previous times, I used 20 volume developer and bleaching powder and left it on for about an hour. I didn't want to push my luck as given my current bad health (I couldn't eat or drink for about 10 days and then even with all the iron transfusions, IV drips of various natures etc and all the meds I'm on) I wasn't sure how well my hair would withstand another onslaught.

My bleaching kit:

20 volume developer
bleaching powder (three packets as I have a lot of hair and it's important to make sure you cover all the hair with a good amount. When in doubt, always buy an extra packet)
gloves
mixing bowl
brush

This is what I started with:

Jo Linsdell Before hair showing roots and orange tone

Very orange tone especially from mids to ends and dark root regrowth. Not my best look for sure.

When bleaching it this time round I started by covering my mids and ends (the orange parts) as this is where I still have stubborn pigments from the darker hair dyes I'd done previously. I also didn't want it going on the light blonde parts for too long to avoid breakage. As we've previously discussed, the roots always develop quickly due to the natural heat from the scalp and so should always be the last part you put product on to.

This is after one round of bleach:

Jo Linsdell hair after one round of bleach - roots and top very light blonde, lengths still yellow

The good news is that the roots blended almost perfectly and there was no notable hair loss at all. This is a big win! The bad news is that the more orangey tones are still sticking. It did lighten it quite a bit but I need the whole hair to be the colour of the top part and for now, I'm still two-toning it between a very light yellow blonde on top and an orangey yellow down the length.

I could have removed the orange tones a lot easier by using a higher level developer. Even a 30 volume would have made a difference. I didn't want to risk the damage though especially given my recent health and so opted for the safer choice of 20 volume. A 20 volume developer usually lifts 2-3 levels at a time so I was prepared for the fact that going from such a dark brown colour to such a light shade of blonde was likely to take a while when I started on this DIY hair journey.

As with the previous times I bleached my hair, the tone of blonde depends a lot on the light I'm in. If I'm outside in the sunshine it definitely looks closer to the tone I need it to be but inside with warm lighting the orangey tones are still showing through. I talk more about this in my post Understanding Blonde Hair Undertones: How Light Affects Your Shade if you're interested in knowing more.

I also trimmed a little off the ends as they were looking pretty dry.

Just as a reminder, this is the goal I'm aiming for:

AI generated image of Jo Linsdell with long layered ash blonde hair

I used the Gemini app to create an AI version of what I wanted so that I'd have a clearer image in my head whilst bleaching my hair and so that I have an accurate image to take with me to the hairdressers when it comes time to cut it. I obviously still have work to do to reach my goal. I am getting closer though.

Before, currently and goal:

As a recap, here's a reminder of how the journey from dark brown to light ash blonde is going so far:

As you can see I've come a long way in quite a short space of time. My starting colour was a very dark brown, almost black. I started this DIY hair journey from dark brown to blonde on 1st June. This means that all this change has happened in just over a month (two weeks of which I was in hospital). I shared part 2 of this journey on 10th June. Thinking about it like this I'm amazed at how much I've managed to accomplish. I'm actually not far from my goal colour now and my hair is still in pretty good condition. Once I get the final hair cut done it should get rid of any dry ends I have left.

I do not recommend doing this yourself unless you have a good understanding of your hair. Even more so if you suffer from health problems. Luckily I do know my hair and how far I can push it as I've done this multiple times before. If this is your first time DIY bleaching your hair go slow and use low volume developer to avoid doing any serious damage.

My next update should hopefully be with the final result.

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Bleaching Hair from Dark Brown to Blonde Part 2

It's time for an update on my DIY hair journey from dark brown to light ash blonde. If you remember in part one, I did the bleaching process twice and managed to get my hair to a light orange colour using 20 volume developer and powder bleach.

The first round I used 20 volume developer and powder bleach and then the second round I did a bleach bath using 20 volume developer and powder bleach and a large amount of conditioner.

I did the first round on the Friday and the second, the day after, on Saturday. I promised myself I would wait before touching it again in order to give my hair some time to recover... guess what? I didn't last very long...

Third Round of Bleach

On Tuesday I did another round of bleach, still using 20 volume developer and powder bleach. Not great, I know. I had planned on waiting at least a week but, like I've said before, patience is not one of my strong points.

This time I decided to use a clear plastic bag to incubate the hair whilst it was processing. This helps keep the heat in and helps it process quicker. I wet the bag slightly on the inside before putting it on my head to keep some moisture in and stop the hair from drying out too much.

Tip: If you do put a plastic bag on your head during the bleaching process make sure it is a clear plastic bag without writing or other print on it otherwise you risk the print transfering onto your hair.

Jo Linsdell with clear plastic bag on head whilst bleaching hair

I left it on for about an hour again, checking every 10 minutes to make sure there was no damage.

I was really pleased as the amount of hair loss was again very little (even less than last time). My hair is still feeling soft and in good general condition. Success!

A lot of that success is down to my most amazing discovery, the Schwarzkopf Gliss 4 in 1 Bond-Building Hair Mask (full review coming soon). This stuff is quite possibly the best hair product I've ever used! Remember when I said I was on a mission to find a good bond-building product at a budget price? Well I found it!

I used the Schwarzkopf Gliss 4 in 1 Bond-Building Hair Mask directly after bleaching and left it on my hair for about 5 minutes before rinsing it off. I swear my hair feels softer now than it did before I started this DIY bleaching journey. Miracle!

Jo Linsdell hair loss from third round of bleaching

The end result was now a lot lighter. As you can see, it still has a faded orange tint to it on the ends but overall it's now in the blonde range.

Jo Linsdell hair after third round of bleach

Obviously I'm still a long way from the light ash blonde I'm aiming for. Given how well my hair is lightening though it shouldn't take much longer to get to the level of blonde I need so I can tone it.

⚠️ The Rebel Disclaimer: While I know my own hair's limits from years of DIY experimenting, professional colourists will tell you that bleaching multiple times in less than a week is highly risky. If you are trying this at home, always do a strand test first and listen to your hair!

I'm now going to try and not touch it again for at least a week... maybe I'll actually manage it this time 🤔

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Bleaching hair from dark brown to blonde part 1

Are you ready to go on a DIY hair journey with me? Buckle up, this is going to be quite a ride! Join me as I take you through the process of bleaching my dark brown hair to blonde, at home, by myself.

Transformation at a Glance

Starting Base: Dark Brown (with active grey/white regrowth).
The Goal: Light Ash Blonde.
Formula: 20 Volume Developer + Powder Bleach.

The past few weeks have been rough health wise. I've been in a flare with my chronic conditions and so inflamed, in pain, and generally feeling very tired and depressed. Luckily my hospital visit ended in new meds that now seem to be working a bit better at getting it all back under control (fingers crossed).

Anyway as I've had a lot of time laying on the sofa, mainly watching Netflix (the series Ghosts is great by the way), I've had plenty of time to think. This lead to me to deciding I want to be blonde again.

My hair grows super fast and unfortunately the amount of white/grey hair coming through is increasing at a rapid rate. With the dark brown colour I've been doing in recent months the regrowth really stands out and means I'm dyeing my hair every couple of weeks.

I've also had the dark brown for a few months now and honestly I feel the need for a change. Playing with my hair is something I enjoy doing. It's fun giving myself different looks. I could also do with a distraction to help pick myself back up a bit too.

And so... I'm going blonde!

Read on the find out why I said "I'm going blonde" and not "I went blonde".

Jo Linsdell before colour dark brown with white/grey roots

What I used

Although going from dark brown to light blonde often calls for a stronger developer I was worried about damaging my hair and so opted for a 20 volume instead. Sometimes I'm sensible 😉

I got the largest bottle I could find and three packets of bleaching powder as I have a lot of hair and wanted to make sure I didn't run out. Seriously, always get an extra packet. As it turned out, this was just the right amount to get a good coverage of my hair.

Vitalcare 20 vol. developer and bleach powder

Bleaching the hair

I covered the hair and left it on for about an hour.

Although I did the mids and ends first and waited to do the roots (how you're meant to do it as the scalp gives off heat which makes the roots process faster. Add to that the fact that the hair closest to the scalp doesn't have previous dye on it and is therefore easier to lift), I did do the roots too soon. C'est la vie! These things happen. I thought it was lightening more than it had and so jumped the gun. Nothing that can't be fixed later on.

I checked on it often as I previously bleached my hair last year and so was a little concerned about how well it would hold up.

Hair loss during bleaching

Some hair loss is to be expected when bleaching your hair especially if you do it yourself at home. As you can see, I only had a very small amount and so consider this a huge success.

Hair loss on hand from bleaching hair blonde

Different shades before you get blonde

Going from a very dark brown (almost black) to blonde isn't going to happen in a day. A change this drastic takes time. I therefore wasn't surprised at how orange my hair was after the first round of bleaching. I was actually really happy as I got it a lot lighter than I was expecting. Last time I went from black to blonde the first round of bleaching left me with a kind of burgundy red so getting it to the orange phase was another success as far as I'm concerned.

As you can see the roots lifted quite a lot more than the lengths did and got to the yellow phase resulting in what is known as hot roots.

Jo Linsdell after first round of bleach 3 photos

With day one over I convinced myself that I wouldn't touch my hair for at least a week to give it time to recover... day two had other plans...

Second round of bleach

I'm not a patient person by nature and on waking up and seeing just how orange my hair was, against my better judgement, I decided to go for another round. I'm pretty sure that every hairdresser out there will scream that you should never do this, and they're right... but I did it anyway.

⚠️ The Rebel Disclaimer: While I know my own hair's limits from years of DIY experimenting, professional colourists will tell you that bleaching twice in 24 hours is highly risky. If you are trying this at home, always do a strand test first and listen to your hair!

I should point out that I know my hair. I've been dying my own hair for years and have done a wide variety of colours. This is also not the first time I've bleached my hair from such a dark brown to blonde and so I know how my hair responds.

For the second round I did add a large amount of conditioner into the mix so technically it was more like a bleach bath than a full on harsh bleaching session. See, I at least try to be sensible!

This time I checked it about every 10 minutes to be on the safe side. As it was looking good and passed the pull test, I ended up leaving it on for about an hour again.

The Colour Lifting Process (Where I Am Now)

When lifting dark artificial dye out of hair, the pigment must transition through a predictable spectrum of warm undertones:

\text{Dark Brown} \longrightarrow \text{Red} \longrightarrow \text{Orange} \longrightarrow \text{Yellow} \longrightarrow \text{Pale Blonde}

\text{Dark Brown} \longrightarrow \text{Red} \longrightarrow \text{Orange} \longrightarrow \text{Yellow} \longrightarrow \text{Pale Blonde}

As you can see, it lightened considerably especially the top. The mids and ends got lighter (although still orange tone, much less fire orange now, and the roots blended better to give a more intentional looking (even though it wasn't) reverse ombre look.

Jo Linsdell after second round of bleach 2 photos

As is often the case with lighter coloured hair, the colour looks different in different light.

My hair actually feels really soft which is excellent. The ends were already a bit dry and I plan on cutting my hair soon anyway so not a problem.

Jo Linsdell after second round of bleach

I really will be leaving it alone for the next week or so... at least I'll try to be patient. In the meantime I'll be using a lot of moisturising and bond building products.

What products do you recommend I try? I'm on a budget and so can't stretch for Olaplex (which I know everyone raves about). I'm sure with the right research and experiments I can find a budget product that does the job though.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I wasn't expecting to get my perfect blonde in one go. I know it takes time and multiple rounds of bleach to do such a drastic change in hair colour. So far, I'm more than happy with how the process is going. Sure, I do jump every time I walk past a mirror because I don't recognise myself but I also love playing with my hair. Whilst the orange phase isn't my favourite, I'm embracing it. For all anyone else knows the goal was to have a reverse ombre yellow to orange colour 😉

High-Utility "At-Home" Pros & Cons

A balanced view of the practical realities of bleaching your own hair vs. sitting in a salon chair.

The Wins (Pros)	The Realities (Cons)
Budget-Friendly: Cost a fraction of a salon correction process.	The "Hot Roots" Effect: Scalp heat caused the root area to process much faster than the ends.
Gentle Approach: Using 20 volume developer instead of a harsh 30 or 40 volume protected the hair bonds.	The Awkward Intermediate Phase: Walking past mirrors can be a shock when you're rocking bright copper tones!
Distraction Factor: An excellent, creative mental focus during a chronic illness flare.

Check back soon for part two of this journey and see if I make it to a light ash blonde.

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Hair and Beauty

Going Blonde in 1 Week Without Damaging Hair

Disclosure: The FTC Disclosure Provision is a law that requires influencers to disclose when they are being paid to promote a product or service. So please know that if I'm not making money through affiliate links/sponsored content on the post you're currently reading, it's an oversight on my part and will be corrected soon. Read the full disclosure about all the legal stuff here.

If you've been here before you already know that I have a tendency to change my hair... a lot! Well, I decided I wanted to be blonde again.

Last year I went from black to blonde but made so many mistakes and fried my hair. So much hair broke off. Lucky I have a LOT of hair.

I didn't want to make the same mistakes again and so did things differently this time round.

First I tried to go blonde without bleaching. I'd seen some posts on Pinterest and Youtube where it had worked for some people and so figured I'd give it a go. using the Schwarzkopf Natural and Easy Hair Dye 522. I made progress as it did lighten my hair... it just didn't make it blonde.

I wasn't surprised by the results but it confirm that my hair would need bleaching to get it blonde. I have to be honest with you, I was a little nervous about bleaching my hair again as it was still recovering in places from last years onslaught. I was therefore very careful to do it right this time.

I should point out at this point that my starting colour was a light-brown this time round and not black which makes a huge difference as there was less colour to lift.

Before bleaching my hair I used conditioning masks on it which I left in overnight and then reapplied the following day. I left these in for a few days before finally washing my hair. These really helped improve the condition of my hair pre-bleaching.

I then didn't wash my hair for a week so that my natural hair oils could build up.

Bleaching Hair Blonde

It was time to bleach my hair.

I made sure I had a good coverage of all my hair and left it on for just 25 minutes. I could have (and probably should have) left it on for a bit longer but I was scared of the damage it might do to my hair.

The end result was fire hair as my sons call it. Areas of my hair still had some red pigment and so had a yellow/orange tint. My roots also lifted much more than I thought they would and so got what is known as hot roots despite applying the bleach to my roots last.

I was happy that it didn't cause any breakage to my hair.

I then had to make a choice. Do another round of bleach or dye it and hope it had lifted enough to get a decent blonde.

I didn't want to do anything else to the colour for a few days to give my hair time to recover a bit so I used the next few days to apply conditioning treatments to try and improve the general health of my hair.

The products I used were; L’Oréal Elvive Bond Repair Leave-In Serum, Pantene ProV Miracle Serum, and Splendor Hair Oil.

Dying Hair Blonde

Having treated my hair for 4 days I finally made up my mind and decided to skip another bleaching and go straight for the dye.

The condition of my hair was looking good and I just didn't want to risk damaging it by bleaching it further. The colour was light enough that it was on the blonde spectrum and the orangey bits had actually calmed down a bit too.

I decided to opt for L'oreal Excellence Cream level 9. Based on the box it showed that my current hair colour should turn blonde.

I'm happy with the result as not only did I turn my hair blonde but it is also super soft and healthy looking. I kid you not, it actually looks in better condition than it did before I started the process of going blonde.

Is it the shade of blonde I want to be? No, not yet. Am I happy to keep it like this until my roots mean I need to dye it again? Yes.

My plan is to buy some purple shampoo to use in the meantime to make sure the warmer tones stay under control.

You might also like: A Guide To Different Hair Dye Colours: Tried and Tested

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Product Review

Schwarzkopf Natural and Easy Hair Dye 522

I decided to change my hair colour again.

For those of you that don't already know, I love playing around with my hair. I'm constantly changing the cut, the colour, or both.

Having experimented with going blonde last year, at the start of this year I decided to go red and then mid brown. Well, I've now decided to want to be blonde again. I know, I know...

I have decided to be a bit more gentle about it this time round though. Last year I fried my hair with bleaching multiple times. I was going from black to platinum blonde though so it was a necessary step... just probably should have done it gradually over several months and not over a couple of weeks. Oops!

Anyway, I decided that this time I'd try a different approach. As my starting colour this time round was brown I figured it was worth giving just the box dye a try in the hopes of skipping the bleaching and hopefully therefore causing less damage to my still recovering hair.

I chose the Schwarzkopf Natural and Easy Hair Dye 522 as the box promised it could take me from dark blonde to light blonde. My starting colour was not too different from the darkest shade shown on the box.

You might also like: A Guide To Different Hair Dye Colours: Tried and Tested

Product details

Schwarzkopf Natural and Easy Hair Dye 522 is a permanent hair dye designed for light blond to dark blond hair. The vegan formula containing up to 93% naturally derived ingredients deeply nourishes hair and covers up to 100% of grey, for natural-looking colours full of multi-tonal highlights and healthy-looking shine. The hair-strengthening conditioner with cold-pressed oil, leaves hair irresistibly soft from root to tip.

Permanent hair dye
This color is suitable for light blond to dark blond hair.
Up to 100% grey coverage and contains cold pressed oil for nourished hair
Vegan formula, up to 93% naturally derived ingredients
Multi-tonal, natural-looking colour

Schwarzkopf top tips:

Always perform an allergy alert test 48 hours prior to colouring
For long or thick hair we recommended using two packs
This shade is recommended for hair colours light blond to dark blond hair.
Results may vary on previously coloured hair

Pack contains:

1 tube Colour Cream 60ml

1 applicator bottle with Developer Lotion 60ml

1 sachet Care Conditioner 22.5ml

1 pair of gloves

1 instruction leaflet

Suitable for

Vegan

You might also like: Product Review: L’Oréal Elvive Bond Repair Leave-In Serum

Review

Having previously used Schwarzkopf Natural and Easy Hair Dye and had great results I figured this was worth a try.

It was super easy to use and one box dye was enough to cover my hair. If I grow my hair any longer I'll probably need two boxes to get good coverage though.

After using it my hair was also significantly softer, shinier, and less dry in general. Unfortunately it didn't make my hair blonde or cover my white ones.

When I choose this hair dye I knew it was a long shot as going from a darker shade to a lighter one without bleach is not easy. That said I'd done some research and found videos of other people who had managed to make this work on their hair. Maybe their hair wasn't previously dyed and it was their natural hair colour?

Whatever the reason, it just didn't work on my hair. It did make it several shades lighter but not the light blonde on the box.

The thing that surprised me the most was that it didn't cover the grey. Past dyes I've used in this range did a good job covering my grey hair (the box says 100% and whilst that might not always be the case it usually gets most of them). This time was definitely more miss than hit.