Sunday 10 February 2013

Dye Job Part 1A - Going Blonde


Wow ok this is a little longer to put together than I had planned sorry, but I wanted to be really thorough and get as much info in as possible. So as I put in my last post I get asked alot about how I get....well to what you see in my pics XD.

I will be addressing:
☆ Colouring your hair at home using at home dye kits
☆ Going Blonde
☆ Getting 'colourful' Hair (ie. pink, purple, ect)
☆ Pastel Hair
☆ Up Keep
☆ Lightening your hair naturally

Pt.1A - Go Blonde
Pt.1B - Lighten Safley
Pt.2A - Go Pastel & Coloured
Pt.2B -  Know Your Colours
Pt.3 - Lightening Naturally


I've been dying it since I was about 17 so I hope I can give help to others. I do my best to keep it in good condition and picked up alot of tricks along the way. I've gone through Black, Dark Brown, Chocolate Brown, Copper, (orange XD), Blonde & White and all inbetween.
SOME of my HAIR PAST XD

 
RULES & TIPS
Heres some general things you should stick to to get the best out of lightening your hair & tips getting it ready to do a lovely pastel colour (or any other colour)


Up Keep Between & After Bleaching:
☆  Avoid coloured shampoo's, conditioners and hair products while your lightening. White is best as other colours may add a strange tone to the hair.
☆ CUT OFF dead ends! It's hard to cut your hair (atleast for most im always chopping away XD) but dead ends are dead, you can't save them. After bleaching you will really feel them and it will feel really bad! Plus if your going onto pastel or coloured hair it won't take to the dead bits so they will stick out. Wait until your gotten it to your desired blonde and get out those dead ends. If you don't cut your own then get someone to help or go to a salon, but for your own sake I know some hairdressers can be very judgy about people who bleach so i'd do it myself XD (if people ask I will do a 'how I cut my hair' post)
☆ A decent hair mask are super cheap these days, and you can get them in big pots. Doing this will help keep your hair in great condition between and after bleaching. If you don't want to get a conditioner mask then just sit with alot of your normal conditioner on for a while when ever you want.
☆ I really advise investing in a silver hair shampoo or silver toner. These are all purple in colour which battles brassy and orange tones and really makes a big difference. It may even save you another dye if you've gotten to almost white but have patches of orange (normally around the back). It also helps with and for of purple hair!

☆ In between lightening if you think your hair needs a rest then give it one. Better safe than sorry. Giving it conditioner masks will help alot and giving it a rest from heating like hair dryers will also help.
Your hair is weakest when wet, if you have very dark hair and have to bleach it a couple of times please be very careful with your hair when you come out of the shower. If you notice it's very weak please don't worry just leave it to 'heal' in its own time. But don't dye it again until you feel it's srength is back
MY BIGGEST RULE, I always bleach my hair when it's 'dirty'. I don't wash it for a couple of days before bleaching or dying! It lets the natural oils in your hair to build and help protect your hair


What You Will Need:
☆ Your hair dye of choice (see below for hair dye choices)
☆ Mixing bowl. Any plastic bowl will do just make sure it's clean
☆ Hair colour brush/applicator (available in LOADS of places, don't worry too much if you can't get one)
☆ Gloves (i've seen people not use them and it's really silly)
☆ (OPTIONAL) Silver shampoo or White toner


'If you are hoping to achieve a light blue (or light pink), make sure your hair is the closest it can get to white (use a white toner after bleaching) before dyeing, or else your hair will turn green. Remember that blue and yellow equals green! Also if your hair has bits of yellow in it, use a dye that does not have hints of blue or you risk the chance of getting green tints in your hair. And adding pink to brassy tones may result in a lovely orange'
I'll be very honest it has never happened to me! I will go into more detail with the next post but the only time I made sure my hair was WHITE was when I did it silver, so if thats what your going for then yeah you will need it WHITE, but purple is used to counteract brassy tones and you will find most silver dyes are purple based (see more below & next post). But I've put it just to be on the safe side. If this does happen to you please feel free to mail me and I will try and figure out where it may have come from and how to fix it. You will see in my next post that I tend to make the dyes darker than needs be cos it fades, and I think this tends to protect largely from going green XD

Please know and understand I am not a hairdresser. From here on this is just how I have done it in the past and my own opinions!

Going Blonde
Ok so I have to put this, if you have black or dark hair you will have to bleach it if you wanna go light enough to dye it pastel. If your worried about it then go to a salon to get it blonde, but really if you are a medium brown and darker they won't even do it =/
Products I HAVE USED
(if you have used or want to use something different thats great, im just showing you how I do it)

OK so if you do have black hair or coloured it a dark colour this is where you need to start. It is a 'hair stripper' so basically strips out colour. If you have dark hair it's not going to go light brown, it will go brassy and orange, JUST to warn you XD but you don't have to deal with it very long and if you wanna go light you will have to put up with it. This is gunna BANG the colour out your head XD and is the only thing that could shift my super stuborn medium to dark brown hair. 
YES it is strong! Your hair is going to feel like it's had better days afterwords but if you have black hair (and im talking BLACK, i've been told Asian hair is especially difficult) then start here.
NO your hair is not gunna fall out! Unless your silly enough to use this 8 times in one day, then you may have a problem :-p. Also your ends may need a bit of a snip afterwards but it comes with the territory =D
This comes in 2 different main ways. 1 is just a highlighter kit which I know from experience don't have enough to even do a head of roots so unless you just want highlights then don't. And 2 comes in a box of 4-5 sachets of powder and separate bottles of cream. You buy the as many bottles as you think you will need and its one bottle to one sachet, but unless you have quite short or thin hair you will need more than 1 so it's cheaper in the end. Also they are colour coded by strength. If you have brown hair you don't need the strong one (it will have a % on the front! The one above is a 9% and the % is how strong it is)
PLEASE DON'T DO THIS MORE THAN ONCE IN ONE DAY
It is so much more effective if you leave it for a while to set. And I really mean that!! But i've never had to use it more than twice to get it light enough to use a dye. Using a silver hair (purple) shampoo between will help ALOT to.
If you already a medium or lighter go straight to a blonde dye (I personally recommend the L'Oreal *below) 
 Between Bleaches! Nice and Orange =D. I personally don't mind it, if your gunna go purple or green or something it will help you work up the nerve if you can sport this well! XD

 This is what I would usually use after the hair stripper to get it to a light blonde to white. It is very good at getting your hair super light. If your hair is still quite orange/brassy then I would use this, but I don't know if the L'Oreal would be better.
This is very strong so im really glad I found the L'Oreal (below), I prefer it alot more and I think you could use it twice and be alot safer than using this, where I have used it more than once to knock out any brassy bits and my hair has felt a bit ill aftwerwards
WARNING: I'll say this again, please don't use this twice in 1 or 2 days, give it time to set and you will get much better results
 

 Using this in the past




If I had it this colour I would not do the stripper and go straight to the xxl live OR the L'Oreal (or any onther blonde dye of your choice). I think that around this colour is light enough to avoid the stripper.
 
 This Is Awesome! I love it!
I don't think it's been around for very long and for that im very angry XD. In the past the only reason I have used the xxl live is bacause I couldn't find anything that would do a decent job oh getting my hair to that light blonde, but my poor hair would suffer for a little while afterwards.

 I used it for the first time to do my roots and im so shocked. I was looking for something that was less 'harsh' but there is only a couple of 'white blonde' dyes out there. It's just amazing, and my hair feels so great which is not what I would normally get from the above. And it took out my roots (which are SUPER stubborn) and all the purple. 
If you arn't too dark or you have gotten your dark brown/black up to a medium brown (or whatever colour you've gotten after the stripper XD) then I think you should go to this. It's 'High Shine Shot' really comes though, and it's conditioner is purple which reduces brassy tones.

 
If you wanna get it super blonde this is a life saver. Any PURPLE BASED shampoo helps and is great as the purple will reduce the brassy tones that come with going blonde. Also will give a great base to any pastel colour and keeping silver or lilac hair.




 

 
Vaseline
I don't usually use this...or ever but i'll put it up as some people may want to. IF I was going to go red then I would, or if I was gunna go blue again. They are very staining colours so use this just to go around your face, ears and neck, and just anywhere you may get dye and don't want it to stick (more for dying it colours than bleaching it)



Step 1. Gather all materials
Make sure you have a mixing bowl, gloves, an applicator and hair dye of choice. Also MAKE SURE you have a towel your not worried about getting the bleach on and old clothes. Also (and this is from personal experience) when your done with the towel and clothes make sure you wash them separately from your oher clothes. If by some chance you have dropped a but of the dye on anything it will pass onto other things, and thats the last thing you want on one of your good tops XD
If you can get someone to give you a helping hand to apply dye to the hard-to-see places but don't worry too much if you don't. I do it on my own all the time, but once in a while I get my mum to do the back when the roots grow out XD

Step 2. Mix up your dye
Anything you buy in the shop will have the instructions in the pack. It will generally be your main applicator will have a little liquid in and you will add cream and powder. Please read the instructions you get and make sure you already have your gloves on when you start mixing it.

Step 3. Apply color
Again some basic instructions will be in your pack, but generally I will start at the hairline, right around my head, as this it's whats on show most of the time. If your doing it alone them put a small blob of the dye onto your finger, lift up your hair and rub it into the hairline around the back. then part the hair all through until your root are covered then go down the length of hair. It's best of you do this in sections as then your less likely to miss anything. Work the color in using your fingers then leave it be =D. The instructions will have a leave in time. Theres no point leaving it in much longer than the instructions tell you to do so as it basically stops working after a certain amount of time.

Step 4. Wash out
WASH IT OUT after well whatever time it tells you to. Sometime I leave it in a little longer but as I said before theres no point leaving it in much longer as after a certain amount of time it just stops developing. I always use shampoo when washing out bleach, just in case. Then if it's very orange a dose of the silver toner and you can leave that for about 5 mins. Then LOTS of conditioner, I will sit with it on for a while. Then I like to give it a rest and I DO NOT blow dry it or straighten it, leave it alone for a while XD

DONE! If your very dark you will have to do this a couple of times but FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T DO IT AGAIN STRAIGHT AWAY! I've seen vid's of people doing it 2 or 3 times in one day, thats just STUPID your STUPID! lol
Firstly if you want to keep your hair thats just not the way to go, and second these things are most effective when left to sit. When im dark and wanna go light I will leave it a week atleast before doing it again, and even thats pushing it really but im not a patient person. So if you do it again staright away chances are it will have very little effect so your wasting time anyway. Giving it time to sit will help you go fast in the end. ALSO you may be a big brass head or a ginger PREPARE FOR THIS TO HAPPEN. In the time that im leaving it to sit it helps SO MUCH to use a silver shampoo.

Did My Roots
I was going to show you how I did it, but I was using a dye I hadn't used before so wasn't sure how it was going to go!
What it looked like before I dyed it
AHHH ROOT CITY!
Lol my hair grows so fast. I'd heard that green is super hard to get out, but it was pretty faded
And purple is amazing to have in your hair, it's used to counteract brassy/orange tones (which you've just read 100 times XD)

Normally I would have to use the xxl Live but I went into boots hoping to find something not as rough on my hair. All I really wanted was to do my roots but I am really shocked just how much I got out of it AND how my hair feels afterwards! Not like it wasn't just dyed BUT like it#s just had a hair treatment!
 So this time round I used L'Oreal Feria Extreme Platinum Power 
 
The End Result
And this is from GREEN! So it works really well im super happy. The ends had faded alot but I only applied to roots and up into the purple but while washing it out it took the rest, but what im most happy with is IT-FEELS-AWESOME i've never dyed it blonde and have it felt this good! If you use a strong blonde dye and get it to a or already are a medium brown I advise you just use this as it knocked out my roots in one go! Also it's the first blonde dye i've used to come with non brassy 'purple' conditioner so super amazing. I don't even feel like i've dyed my hair! Feel like i've been to a salon for a hair treatment! Next time I do this i will take pics, or work up the nerve to do a vid! haha
All Ready For The Next Stage! ^_^

Thank you so much for reading! I hope i've been atleast a little help to anyone trying to get thier hair lighter =D. If i've missed out on anything or you have any questions about anything or want advise on your hair then please ask! Im happy to reply to anything I can ^_^

NEXT POST
♥ Pastel Hair ♥
And generally colouring it yummy colours 

☆ Thank You So Much For Reading ☆

2 comments:

  1. AMAZING post sweetie! this is so detailed, it was a really great help! Your pastel hair is super pretty too, looks in great condition!
    I used to have blue hair last year i I really miss it but I'm too scared to bleach it at home. I'm going to beg a salon to do it for me (my hair is naturally dark brown almost black).
    x<3

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    Replies
    1. THANK YOU! =D
      Yeah it took me a whole day longer than I though it would, and i've had to split it into over 3 parts! XD But wanted to get as much in as possible.
      Thank you so much, yeah I think it's doing well, love it =p
      Niice blue is such a nice colour to have, you can do so much with it. Aww if you scarred then go for it! But if it's that dark they normally won't im afraid. If they do then thats fantastic!! But if they don't then look into the L'Oreal Feria. I am sooo shocked and soo happy with it! It really did knock out my roots which as you can see are really dark AND it feels so good! Like it hasn't even been done =p
      Please let me know how you get on! ^-^
      ~<3

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