How do I bleach my hair at home?

[User14567891]

I have an amazing hairdresser and have been silver/ashy blonde for a while. But it costs so much and takes so long at the hairdressers!

I’m thinking of doing it myself at home but worried it will kill my hair and/or go brassy. Do I use permanent or semi-permanent? I genuinely have no idea what I’m doing. Please help me!

Please don't.

I beg of you.

Would it look really bad?

Go to your local hair college will be much cheaper

I used to do that when I was a student but they take even longer! I just don’t have the time to sit for hours in the hairdressers every few weeks. ☹️

I use Nice n Easy ultra light ash blonde on mine. You'll need a permanent dye containing bleach to lighten it.
It's easy to use, just follow the instructions but proceed with caution. You only need to touch up your roots each time so you'll need to be able to divide your hair into sections and apply to roots only. Continually putting bleach on already bleached hair will cause damage.

Go for an ash shade to avoid brassiness. You'll probably benefit from a toning shampoo as well.

Do a strand test first on a small section of hair a couple of days before- pour out small equal amounts from both bottles (developer and colour) mix on a saucer and apply. Check the resulting colour on the strand once it's dried in different lights. This will prevent any disasters.

I think you need to be fairly competent with re touching roots to get good results.
If you don't feel confident, stick with your hairdresser.

Ive found after been to the hairdresser no home colouring kit touches my hair no matter how long i leave it on. Whatever you try make sure you do a strand test x

Thank you! I’m not feeling very confident about DIY bleach.

Maybe embracing dark roots is the way to go....

Yeah I think when it comes to bleach the only safe way without burning your scalp or making your hair fall out is to unfortunately paying big bucks at the hairdressers :( x

I constantly have this dilemma but there really is no alternative. I've had an awful experience at a local college just having a cut, so there's NO WAY I'd let them loose with colour! That said, my friend has dyed her hair platinum for years but she has short thick hair that could withstand a nuclear holocaust.

I read about a new way of doing highlights. It's L'Oréal Instalights. Whole process takes less than an hour but I bet it's expensive.

My dd did an £8 home bleach kit

Cost her over £100 and three trips to the salon to make it wearable

Just don’t

The bleach you buy from Sally's is the same as the hairdressers use, people fuck up at home because they don't read the instructions properly, time it correctly and condition their hair well.

you buy the peroxide in percentages, pretty much no one needs the highest one. There are plenty of articles on how to do it, if you everything right it's fine. I got all my bits from Sally and bleached for years. However it's still time consuming but not as expensive as the hairdresser

I have a white/ blond pixie cut.... Ive used this for years,
with Lee Stafford bleach blondes shampoo the first couple of times after.

Do I use permanent or semi-permanent?

'Bleach' is always permanent - you are stripping the hair of pigment. Do you mean colouring your hair blonde? What is your natural hair colour? If it's already very light then you can use a blonde hair dye on it, permanent or semi, but if you want to actually lighten your hair you need bleach.

From your OP I would say you are better off going to the hairdressers.

who the heck is sally.

i bleached my hair a month ago, had to go to superdrug with orange hair to buy more bleach and a box of dye to cover it, the girl serving me looked at me and couldnt stop smirking..i have very olive skin and the orange hair looked ridiculous, im more than happy with the colour now but im surprised im not bald considering how many times i put bleach and dye over it in one weekend to get it the colour it is now.

I am a successful box dye blonde.

1. I always soak my hair in coconut oil for as long as possible. Don’t wash it off. This helps the bleach spread, avoiding patchiness, and leaves the hair softer.

2. if your natural colour is darker than a very light brunette, use a high-lift bleach first. Jerome Russell does one, about £6-7

3. partition your hair properly - into quarters from the crown downwards (front to back, then just behind your ears) Use a tint brush to work upwards one section at a time, separating the section into layers which should be the same thickness as the current length of your roots.

4. depending on the lift from the bleach, use a natural or ash toned dye - natural is usually 10.0 ash would be 10.1. If the roots have a yellow tinge use natural - ash will make the colour murky/grey. If you have orange tones, use the ash. Same method as the bleach.

At least if you fuck it up you can go back to your hairdresser, but this has worked for me for years.

Just don’t. You will end up orange... says the voice of experience...

Seriously don't. You need to be experienced to do this a 'mobile hairdresser' ruined mine 😢

You'll end up looking just like you've bleached your hair at home.

And then starting a thread about how to fix it.

Please don't; just pay the money.

No I did this and over bleached. My long hair all broke off to above my ears. It took years to get it back to normal. I now get highlights at a salon please do not bleach at home. Please I really mean it. DONT

Ok. Im definitely not going to do it!!
Thank you for averting a potential hair disaster!!

if your natural colour is darker than a very light brunette, use a high-lift bleach first. Jerome Russell does one, about £6-7

Don't do this. Please, for the sake of your scalp, don't do this. There is no such as 'high lift' bleach. There are high lift tints but not bleach. The Jerome Russell bleach is bleach with I believe 40 vol peroxide, which should be nowhere near your scalp.

Roots are ‘in’ now anyway

Roots are ‘in’ now anyway

Yeah, I’m going with that

Roots are ‘in’ now anyway

Yup. People pay to have roots painted on. Explaining that to my nan when she's looking through pictures of what I've been doing with my day isn't easy. Last time I showed her a shadow root/reverse balayage I'd done on a natural blonde, she admonished me for not offering the poor girl a discount on a root retouch

It is do-able but you do have to be careful. Assuming you are bleach blond now and you're just doing the grow-out you need to be careful not to get the bleach on the hair that's already blonde otherwise you risk damaging it. When you're just trying to get the roots, rather than all-over it's much harder.
I learnt my lesson the hard way - it's a long story but I put bleach on my hair 3 times in one day followed by a hair dye and the top layer of my hair broke off a few cms away from the roots. 13 months on and it's grown down to the bottom of my ears - another year and I think it'll look a bit more normal but that's 2 years of looking a bit weird!!
It all comes down to whether you're willing to take a bit of a gamble.