Bleaching hair from dark brown

[TheBoots]

Quarentine has finally driven me mad and I've decided to go blonde, reasoning with myself that if I look awful I'll go purple or pink. So I've merrily bought myself Bleach London's Total Bleach and done a strand test.
BUT! Even after toning (twice!) my strand test is looking decidedly strawberry blonde. I'm not sure that a bright purple would look vibrant enough without more lightening. If I go ahead, could I bleach twice? Maybe a week between to let my hair rest a bit?

For reference, here's my strand test before bleaching and after

Fuck no. Don’t go blonde from dark without going to a hairdresser. That strawberry colour basically is your colour stripped out.

You’ll be an attractive orangey brassy colour and it will cost you a fortune to get it rectified (quite rightly) due to the work needed to be done

Really not a good idea.

DO NOT DO IT...

I tried and it cost me a fortune to fix my hideous hair, I had to wear a woolly hat out in the summer to get to the hairdressers.

Cost a flipping fortune to fix it.

I seem to have repeated myself there

DO NOT DO IT

As above DO NOT DO IT!

Don’t do it! I’ve become obsessed with Brad Mondo videos with extra time in lockdown 🙈. Watch a few of those before trying it!

I guess I'm doomed to never have my brightly coloured hair then! Sigh...

Not doomed forever - just hold off until you can get to a hairdressers...put down the bleach!

I bleached DS2s hair with bleach from superdrug. He went from dark brown to beach blonde. Then blueish.

I managed to go from dark red to blond over lockdown so far with minimal damage. Took 4 boxes of bleach, 3 separate occasions and a tonne of deep conditioning hair mask. I’ve been dying my own hair successfully (my hairdresser regularly complements me on it!) for 8 years but never bleached. The first attempt looked awful but I’m very happy with the colour it is now. I want to add some colours to it, but a box of blonde dye would be good to make it look more natural (it’s more of a white/icy blonde now). I wouldn’t go for it if you’ve never dyed your own hair successfully before though. I’m obsessed with Brad Mundo currently but i went for it anyway and decided I’d give it a pixie cut if it looked awful

It is really hard to bleach your own hair evenly all over without causing untold damage. I've had disasters in the past where I've bleached my whole hair from my natural mid-dark brown and been left with orange patches. I've thankfully learnt a lot from my mistakes and, after a disappointing experience having my hair balayaged at the hairdressers, I now do balayage highlights (in foil otherwise the bleach dries out) on my hair and it looks great. People are shocked that I do it myself.

I use Wella Blondor bleach plus Wella Koleston Perfect and pastel developer to tone. To maintain the condition, I use Olaplex or Innoluxe in with the bleach. Toning is also absolutely essential. I've found it hard to get a nice clean blonde. Luckily, I like my hair pastel colours so I deliberately over tone with a range of muted lilac tones which covers any yellowness. If there are any orange tones, you need a blue based toner to counteract this. Always tone with the colour opposite the colour of your hair on the colour wheel.

Your bleached strand would not be light enough to be a vibrant colour, it would need bleaching again but you really risk damaging your hair.

Step away from the bleach and watch Brad Mondo’s Youtube channel

DS before and after the bleach.

Please don't! If you fancy some colour use a wash out spray