Platinum blonde after brown box dyes?

[artyandtarty]

Has anybody an experience of going platinum blonde over previously coloured brown hair?

I have an appointment with colour specialist at the salon shortly so she can see what we are dealing with & to set my expectations I guess.

I'm guessing it may take a couple of salon sessions of bleaching it a few weeks apart. I'm washing hair daily in head & shoulders with hot water to try to fade the brown in the hope that it may lift clean first time ( long shot I know )

Just wondering if any of you can share experiences... am I going to be a lovely patchy yellow/ orange after the first session ?

TIA.

I'm guessing it may take a couple of salon sessions of bleaching it a few weeks apart.

Oh dear, you definitely need your expectations set. No respectable salon would bleach anyone’s hair that frequently - you’re looking at 3-6 months for your next lightening session to protect the integrity of your hair. I know that’s disappointing but it’s better to have healthy hair than brittle platinum blonde hair. Your hair will look fucked if you insist on a 2nd full bleach within a month !

The transformation you want is one of the most extreme out there. Removing dark box dye is difficult enough, but you also want to go extremely light, as in the lightest colour possible!

Stop using the head & shoulders and hot water, instead deep condition it every wash with cool/lukewarm water. The condition should be your priority, not the colour.

It won’t look patchy after the first bleach, and the salon will make it look as presentable as possible but it will look like more of a warm brown/warm dark blonde rather than the colour you want

I am a hairdresser. It will take multiple sessions to get to platinum blonde over brown box dye. Are you wanting all over blonde? Like a scalp bleach? It will be costly and high maintenance - if you have been doing your hair at home this is something you need to consider, because getting to blonde is only half the battle, if you want to maintain that pure clean all over blonde you will need to be in that salon for your roots doing every 6-8 weeks come hell or high water or you will end up with banding. The amount of bleaching required will also leave your hair very porous which means you will fade warm very quickly as the raised cuticle will cause your toner to fade off after a few washes (all blonde fades warm, sorry it’s just how it is). You will need to use really good quality products to wash and style and you will need to avoid heat styling as much as possible.

Sorry to be so doom and gloom! It’s just that a lot of people do not realise how much maintenance a really good white blonde requires. Tell us a bit more about the look you want, how high maintenance you are, do you have grey, what’s your natural hair like? What do you definitely NOT like? Sometimes knowing what you absolutely don’t want can be as helpful as knowing what you do like going into a consultation.

I bleached my hair from box brown to almost platinum blonde. It took all weekend & I was lucky not to wreck my hair. First had to use a colour stripping kit, which turned hair ginger, then had to bleach it twice over 2 days. After the first lot of bleach it went peachy/pink but after second it went blonde. Then I toned it. I did strand tests each time to check hair wouldn’t break off. Roots need doing every 6 weeks. In between days of bleaching I heavily conditioned. It’s a hugely long process!

Thanks for the helpful replies : )

Yes, I want to be all over full head blonde so will require scalp bleach. Salon uses olaplex so that's a bonus too I guess.

I've been blonde in the past & loved it, then I had ombré done which I loved too but the greys are a battle that now start appearing after 2 weeks of having roots done & there are more & more of them happening & faster! So instead of maintaining frequently a hair colour I'm ok with ... i'd rather be putting the time & effort into maintaining the blonde that I love.

I'm high maintenance already I love messing about with hair/beauty etc & am aware keeping this blonde will be lots more maintenance but I'm ok with that 👍🏻

Ok so it's going to take A LOT longer than I anticipated.... like months... I'm ok with that too just as long as I'm not left with horrendous patchy bright hair for months on end mid process.

Pics included... my hair is the left pic & the right is what I like, I'm up for a good cut like 4/5 inches too .

Ive ordered a shower filter too as in the past I've found that minerals from water darken my blonde.

[Images removed by MNHQ at OP's request]

@Buggedandconfused you are brave doing it yourself!

Top salon job for me though ... no way would I do it myself.

Glad yours turned out ok though

Forgot to add that hair is coarse & naturally curly too ( it goes smooth after straightening)

If my hair didn't lift quite that blonde I still like darker shades of blonde on me, like a sandy beige colour has looked nice in the past

Natural hair colour is dark blonde ... but I'm guessing that's now changed to grey at the rate & amount of them that come through

Your ends are light enough to reach a similar blonde to what you want after 1 session. The difficulty would be in evening out the darker box dyed areas to match as you want to be light blonde all over, particularly as it’s not virgin hair.

Would you consider a full head of highlights instead of a full head bleach? I think that it could look nicer during the in-between stage/as you wait for the next bleaching session? The pic below is what it may look like in terms of placement of highlights - there will still be some brown coming through but won’t be as noticeable after a 2nd session. Full disclosure - you probably wouldn’t end up that blonde after one session due to your box dye.

images.app.goo.gl/HeWPkRe4xjmevv2B7

I think they’ll probably want to do a full head of foils to begin with, followed by half heads of foils thereafter, and get you gradually more blonde that way.

Full head of bleach is a crazy idea. For what it’s worth I’ve gone from salon dyed black since lockdown, she didn’t a full head bleach bath in the first appointment, then my second appointment 6 weeks later was a full head of foils. Intention now is to have half heads of foils where she picks out the remaining dark bits to lift in the foils.

My hair is down to my bum, and a lot has already snapped around the nape of my neck and I can tell its damaged when it’s wet now. Part of me wishes I’d not started it, but like you, I want to get to a point where I’m not fighting my gray and it can just grow out.

*she did a full head bleach bath

Wow so much help thanks ladies : ) I now have a much better understanding what is maybe going to happen.

I'm definitely open to the idea of lots of highlights to ease me into the transition, but I thought that doing highlights would make it more difficult to go full head as it would eventually involve just picking out the darks & not re bleaching the already bleached bits to try to maintain hair Integrity? I just presumed that full head would have been easier for all involved ... but maybe not.

I will ease off the head & shoulders & hot water daily showers & now concentrate on maintaining condition, I have a huge olaplex 2 so I will start using that as a weekly treatment along with a good conditioner.

I'm going to look at the Kérastase shampoos & conditioners too as once I've had the blonde done maintaining colour & condition will be my priority... are there any Kérastase ranges that you recommend? Maybe the green strength building one once the blonde transition has begun?

My mobile hairdresser took a cutting of my hair (you cannot tell) my hair is bra strap length and she took a full length piece from the back of my head.

My hair wasn't quite as dark as yours and is now ash blonde, I will try to upload photos. She used Guy Tang (amazing chap, has his own YouTube channel) and she used Olaplex. My hair was done in one sitting but she bleached my hair sample strip first to see how high it would lift. She did a whole head of foils.

I use Kerastase purple shampoo once a week at present as my hair is still very blonde after 7 weeks. It is in amazing condition. I have darker roots and my grey grow in is far less visible.

Before and after. I know my hair isn't as dark, but this was done in one sitting, so foils, rinse, toner, rinse, done. Guy Tang hair dye is incredible. Do look at his YouTube channel as he mainly does model hair so extremes of colour and bleach.

It all depends on the condition of your hair before and if you just put the box dye on your roots or like a lot of people, did the rest of your head which means you will have colour saturation at the ends.

@JoanJosephJim your hair looks gorgeous & your hairdresser has done a great job 👌🏻

It's a lovely shade of blonde too! Oh the thought of the pesky greys 'just blending in with the rest of the hair' sounds utterly fabulous ha.

Is this your first time blonde? In the past I've always found that my blonde loses its lustre & ends up a darker shade of blonde... which I now think is down to minerals in the local water supply building up on hair & dulling it. I've purchased a shower filter that attaches to the bottom of the hose so I'm hoping that will help keep my blonde light & lustrous along with investing in tip top hair care.

Thank you, she is good. It took almost 2 hours to put the foils in, it weighed so much and I was wearing a mask. But totally worth it. I have a long shadow root so it is darker at the top as you can see from the pic. My regrow hardly showed at all, I am about 70% grey now. That was the reason I went lighter due to the obvious regrowth on darker hair.

It is not my first time going blonde, I have been all hair lengths and I have been blonde, brunette as dark as yours, and blonde with baby pink highlights!

You need good shampoo and conditioner, I like Kerastase. I now have their purple shampoo but my hair is very porous so it went from the colour above to platinum at the ends. I reduced that down to once a week but as my hair gets "older" I will need to up it to 2 times a week. I wash my hair 3 times a week. Your hair will naturally want to yellow/ginger so you have to combat it with purple shampoo (opposite colour on the colourwheel)

What I was trying to demonstrate is that there have been major break throughs with hair bleaching, olaplex being one of them and people like Guy Tang creating new hair colour. Lots of salons still carry their old tried and tested range. My hairdresser is willing to spend money to experiment with new colours on all her head dolls. Hence why she took a cutting of my hair.

@artyandtarty forgot to tag you

Ok so I'm booked in at the salon to have the full head blonde done shortly. Feeling a little nervous but generally excited. I saw the colour specialist & she said that the condition of my hair was good & that as long as I'm open to it being maybe a different shade of blonde then I originally wanted ( see below pics ) we are all good for having full head done. The salon uses Wella, so I'm presuming it maybe Wella blondor Bleach they use, I'm hoping it lifts good as I've seen lots of good reviews for it lifting previously coloured hair quite light.

I gave my full colour history which is that the dark is L'Oreal majirel 7 ( which I've been putting on my roots for approx 15 months & pulling through further down hair towards the end of the 30 mins processing time ) she then stated that as it was a professional colour ( rather than box dye ) we may get better results with the bleach first time. So that was fine. But I've now just remembered that before I started using the majirel I was using nice & easy, did a couple of Superdrug's own box dyes approx 15 month ago ... of course I will now tell her this but I'm now worrying that the box dyes won't lift & it won't look a uniform colour. Can anyone put my mind to rest re this? My hair grows so fast so I'm hoping the cut will cut off most of what the box dyes was.

Also any recommendations on leaving natural oils on hair to protect scalp from scalp bleach? I've washed & deep conditioned my hair today ... shall I now leave it & not wash it before my appointment on Saturday?

TIA : )

Update .... I had it done. When I sat down for my appointment the stylist explained that my previous dyes would lift better & with a cleaner result in foils. So I agreed to full head of highlights. First she did a bleach bath. Then she put loads of blonde foils in & a smaller amount of darker colour in foils so it would break up the blonde a little. I was there for 5 and a half hours!

I do like my hair lighter but it's no where near as light as I wanted it. She said I can go full head but it's better to do it gradually.

I've invested in some good quality shampoo & conditioner & will limit using straighteners to once a week with lots of deep conditioning in between.

If I keep my hair in good condition approx how long until I can get the foils put through again? As the blonde isn't really quite as light as I wanted it. It's more of a golden toned blonde rather than a platinum blonde.

TIA

Can you put a before/after pic up OP?

Before & after pic

@Horsemad

Please excuse the messy hair I'm refraining from using any heat to style it. My hair is curly & a bit wild naturally

A better photo showing the dark that she put through

@lhmua12

I had it done but it's not as light as I wanted it.