A few people asked about my results with my recent blonde ambition, so I've attached before and after photos that I'll leave up for a bit and list my products/process. I thought others might want to chime in with their dark->light journeys with tips/questions/etc. I was told by a stylist that there was no way in hell I'd get my hair to anything lighter than orange/copper and although I still have some more golden tones I'd like to get out, I'm definitely a pretty light shade of blonde now and only began this process less than a week ago.
If anyone has any tips on how I ought to go about getting some *very* resilient golden tones out of my hair, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to not bleach it again for a few weeks and I want it to be as white blonde as possible. Thanks!
The State of My Hair (Pre-Bleach):
- Natural level seven or eight blonde, been putting permanent level 2 dye on it for years
- Pretty long with grown out bangs; going down my back, it hits right before the end of my ribcage.
- Very, very thick. A stylist quoted me several hundred dollars to bleach my hair just once purely because she didn't want to fuck with it.
- Fairly porous
- The ends were bleached to a brown stage last summer to get an ombre look, but I think most of that had already been cut off
- In pretty good condition otherwise in terms of ends, etc
My Process:
- I applied Rusk Elimin8 twice: once to dry hair, then another time right after the first application didn't lighten enough. I used a cap and blow dryer to help with the lift the second time. I shampooed twice during each rinse. The box says to rinse for a few minutes, but the woman who sold it to me said 15. I went for 20 both times. Rinsing is key to getting the desired results from these types of products.
- I took a day off, then bleached the next. I used L'Oreal Quick Blue Bleach with 40 developer. I did a strand test with a less intense product and it was pretty useless. Blue bleach got much better results, and the 40 developer was my best option for getting all of that dark dye off my hair. If you tell a stylist you want to use 40, you'll probably be discouraged and rightfully so, because this shit is rough. I have burns on my scalp and my ears and was nauseated by the end of my second day bleaching. One application of it got my roots to white blonde and the rest of my hair to a strawberry blonde/orange shade.
- I tried using a high lift toner after this (Clairol 12N), hoping it'd be enough to cancel out the orange, though knowing better. It took some of it out, but not all or even most. This also required a 40 volume developer.
- I took another day off and left my hair in a conditioning repair mask for several hours. At this point, my scalp had only become a little irritated, mostly from the last step.
- I bleached my hair again with the same mix. I should mention it takes twice as much time as bleach should process just to get bleach on my whole head. So I had to do it in sections.
- When I dried my hair, it still had some orange-ish streaks so I went to Sally's and got Ardell's Red and Gold color corrector. I was told it would be enough to lift all of the red/orange/gold shades out, so I mixed it with my high lift toner and applied again. I'm not sure if the color corrector helped or not. I definitely had lighter hair and the gold/orange had lessened, but I'm not sure whether to attribute that mostly to the toner or the corrector. It didn't get as light as I wanted, but I want the lightest I can get, so I was kind of doomed for disappointment on some level.
By the time I rinsed the final time, my scalp had had enough. It was reddish-purple and hot to the touch. I left a conditioning mask on for a bit last night and feel fine today, but I don't know that I would ever want to do that again. A lot of my issue is that, as I've said, I have a ton of fucking hair and it takes a long time to do, so the bleach mixture had more than enough time to fuck up my scalp. I had a little bit of breakage as I combed my hair, but it wasn't bad, surprisingly. I'll probably trim an inch or two to make sure my ends are healthy, but that's about it. I'm almost satisfied with my color results, but seeing as I had black hair less than a week ago, I think things turned out alright.



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