Going blonde. Has anyone done it at home?

[Drunkendonut]

I've always been blonde but my hair got into a bit of a state as I kept going lighter and lighter so I wisely got it chopped and dyed brown last year. Now 'tis all lovely, shiny and swishy I want to go blonde again. But a sensible ashy, grown up blonde not a peroxide white which I secretly still love but I'm getting old
Also I'm quite skint so can't really afford a salon. I'm prepared to wait and save up if it can't be done at home but has anyone just bought a dye off the shelf and gone for it?
My hair is currently a shoulder length medium brown with no grey yet.

I went blonde at home with a Bleach London bleach, and an ash blonde box of nice n easy dye. I used lots of toner afterward and it didnt look awful.
Infact after spending ££ at the salon on my roots, they look brassy so I'm going to do them myself next time too.

Ooh ty.
Don't know why but I'm scared!! Have visions of orange straw....

Think I'll get some wine in one night and go for it!

Nice n Easy 9b. But perhaps not light enough for you.
My hair is in great condition.
Any diffs...there's always the salon.
Good luck.

Dont love. You have spend an entire year to get your hair in good condition again so dont risk it at home. (From someone who has done it...).

I did google it a while ago and there are some bloggers who have done it successfully. They mixed a neutral with a warm (gold) or cold (ash) tone and from the pictures it did look nice. It is so hard to get blond right. I am at the moment waiting for an app to go darker (kyle, sienna miller, lauren conrad) and just praying that this time the hair dresser gets it right.
Be careful!

No don't! The reason why it won't work at home is because you have brown dye in it already. If your hair was natural currently, then it would be possible, but you will need to strip that brown dye out first in order to lighten it, and that will be hard to do at home without ending up with dry straw.

I used to be a hairdresser and we were taught that 'tint won't lift tint', in other words dye can't lighten dye, you need to prepare the hair first.

You will end up with nice blonde roots and dirty orange ends if you try.
I'd use a hairdresser for the first time, then you'll be able to do your roots at home after that ( that's what I do, roots are much easier than a whole head when it comes to lightening).

I have atm. But my hair was a very short pixie cut. I put bleach all over it, then a light brown then highlighted it. Because of the bleach underneath it came up really well.
I wouldnt recommend it on longish hair though.

given your hair is currently brown, there is a strong chance just putting a blonde shade over that will lighten the brown but make it go very ginger. before christmas, i was dark ash blonde, i put on a much lighter shade, and admittedly, got caught up in a family crisis and ended up with the dye on for 20 mins longer than it should have been, but my hair went ginger. The dye stripped out the previous colour apart from the red which is the strongest pigment. have spent weeks using purple toning shampoos to take it back to a cooler shade, and have finally got there with a light ash blonde colour a couple of weeks ago.

i'd go to a salon for the initial lightening, then look into maintaining it from home. lots use nice n easy but i they don't suit me, i use l'oreal excellence creme.

What about starting with a few blond highlights around the face using a highlight kit. Do a test piece first and keep wiping it to see how blond it has gone. It will go through a ginger stage before it goes lighter.

There is only one way you can go blonde if you have dyed brown hair and that is to go to the hairdresser and get a full head of bleach highlights. When your virgin hair grows at the roots, you can then dye that with a home dye kit and with any luck you can match your roots to the body of your hair. That's how I went blonde a year and a half ago. Putting a blonde dye over your brown will do nothing. Bleaching at home I definitely do not recommend, though it can be done of course, but really you would then need to tone it. Scrape together the cash for a full head of highlights knowing that once you have achieved your correct base shade on the body of your hair you can do your own roots.

Not the only way Tatty. I have been blond for 20 years and I was originally dark brown. I used a Loreal extra lightening blond colour and then when that took me to a dark golden blond I then used highlights on top.

I've not tried to go blonde with hair that is already coloured.But I did lighten my natural dark blonde / mousey hair last summer using the John Frieda 'go blonder' range. That worked okay - I noticed a small and gradual difference after a week or so, but it looked pretty natural. I only realised that there was a colour difference when the roots started to show, but it has been really easy to maintain since. I'd be more worried about applying over colour though - good advice above I suspect.

Enlli The only way you can lift hair that has been dyed brown with any kind of predictable result is with bleach. A box dye off the shelf will not lift it. OP, by all means try it - if you can get your dyed brown hair to a sensible ash blonde with one I will write you a cheque for £10k and one for Enlli as well!

Thanks all.
I think I will wait and can probably afford it around march time...
It's in lovely condition, I don't mind it not being shiny and perfect (dyed blonde hair never is) but I don't want to risk ruining it again.
I wouldn't mind the dark if it was longer but shoulder length brown hair just feels a bit.... Is mumsy the right word? On me anyway. And I'm having to have regular trims so it's not growing very fast! Maybe I should invest in extensions instead :)