Should I lighten my own hair then dye it pink?

[cosmopolitanplease]

I had a hair appointment booked for the day after it was announced we were entering tier 4 which was of course cancelled. I was going to discuss getting my hair lightened, or at least a lot of highlights, so I could then colour it pink. I last went to the salon at the end of September and I'm really fed up of how my hair looks now.

I've attached a couple of photos, one shows my hair with lots of highlights (from a couple of months ago) and as you can see my natural hair is medium brown with a scattering of greys. The other photo shows my hair with a pink temporary colour that I put on a few weeks ago. I loved the colour but of course it didn't touch my roots or greys. It's almost washed out now with just a light pink tinge in my highlights.

So I don't know whether to get a home lightener for my roots (about 2'') and then put a pink semi on top. It's not like I'm doing roots on a solid whole head bleach as it's highlights and two different shades of highlights at that. Will I be left with a line where the highlights and lightened roots meet? Will my hairdresser be able to correct it if it goes wrong?

Thanks for any advice

Just going to be honest. In the first photo, your hair looks full from root to tip which is great considering how much lighter than your natural colour you go. You managed to evade breakage, however your hair does look a bit dull. It’s not very shiny and could be dry.

Therefore if you continue to bleach it, or god forbid bleach it at home, you do run the risk of damaging the condition of your hair further. I like the pink hair, but would highly recommend you keep using the temporary colour.

You could end up sporting a vivid shade of orange, and no hairdresser will risk a £10000 fine to fix it for you.

Also as a trend-aware 23 year old, I think it looks better to have a shadow root when going blonde or pink! Salons don’t even go for a full head application of bleach for blondes, it’s usually just a high concentration of highlights for a modern look.

So if you bleach your roots, you’re actually going for a more outdated look that requires high maintenance. It would look better if you left it as it is, and it would be easier for your salon to correct when they reopen.

The most I would attempt is a few highlights, to see how the colour takes. I expect you'll end up with orange rather than blonde.

Treat lockdown as a conditioning phase. Get a good treatment for fragile hair, then once the salons are back open your hair will be in a better condition for bleach.

Oh dear

I hoped someone would say it would be fine to do at home. But now I think of it my hair has been described as 'hard to lift' by hairdressers and I always get put under the heated ring thing when my highlights are on.

I suppose my hair is quite dry, I only wash it once a week and then with conditioning Moroccan oil shampoo and conditioner, and then I put loads more Moroccan oil on before I dry it. It's much longer than I like it to be at the moment, I like it about jaw length or just below, so I avoid too much damage by cutting it off usually.

What can I do about my roots then? I don't mind the brown so much but the frizzy white pubes around my hairline really get me down.

If your hairdresser struggled to lift your hair, you definitely would. Watch YouTube home bleaching fails to see what would happen!

Use this lockdown to improve the condition of your hair. Buy a protein treatment and a moisturising mask and alternate them. Bleached hair is porous and needs an extra boost to look healthy.

For your greys, just use the L’Oréal root spray or the colour wow root powder. Don’t bother colouring them - try and wait until your next salon appointment and ask for “money pieces” which will long term help to disguise them.

Please watch some Brad mondo on YouTube. Honestly if you reaaaaallllyyyy wanna do it then you can! It might not turn out great but it’s just hair! I deffo recommend bleach London’s “the big pink”. And it doesn’t matter if your hair goes ginge as another has said if you’re going pink anyway 🤷🏻‍♀️

What hair treatment do people recommend? I have a Give Me hair mask which was alright, good at first but then it seemed to get less effective. I've never used a treatment that really made a dramatic difference to my hair's condition.