To dye my own blonde hair?

[Helpmymum]

Hello,

Just wondering if anyone knows if this is possible or a total disaster in the making.

I have always had blonde highlights, mousey hair colour naturally but with the price of everything nowadays paying for a full head of highlights every couple of months is no longer doable/ reasonable. Can I dye my own hair and it be successful? Obviously I wouldn't try highlights but am thinking something along the lines of buying professional hair colour to use at home and asking a friend to help do it, just painting it on the roots so its more of an allover blonde colour than highlights? I usually just have bleach highlights but I don't think I can just pour bleach wholesale onto my roots.

Does anyone have a at home solution?

Thanks!

Don’t use a box dye to go blonde unless your roots are grey. Not enough peroxide in them and it will be a mess. Ask your hair dresser to do balayage and grow it out.

Thankyou for the reply. Yes, I've heard about box dyes and the disasters they can cause so I was hoping that there may be another solution. I have thought about just growing it out but would really like to avoid that if atall possible, I'm about 25% grey and my natural colour doesn't look great on me but of course would look far better than orange roots 🤣

I’m in the same situation as you. Mousey with blonde highlights. During lockdown I found this

www.amazon.co.uk/John-Frieda-Blonde-Blonder-Lightening/dp/B01DSSO6VY/ref=asc_df_B01DSSO6VY/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310172312551&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5700515808630827424&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007155&hvtargid=pla-617021988687&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

It gives my hair a lift, doesn’t result in dark roots and means I only have to do a full head of highlights twice a year now.

I’ve recommended to others and they’ve liked it. Don’t over use it though - it can get yellowy.

I use blonde box dye.

I used the lightest one you can buy to get it blonde from brown and now I just use the one that's got Holly Willoby on the box, can't remember the make but it's L'Oréal or someone like that.

Looks very natural and I do it monthly so about £7 a month. My hair is quite dark naturally but I've not had any issues at all with it.

@Helpmymum do you have any other dark colour on your hair or is it just your natural colour and then your blonde highlights?? I ask as a hairdresser because you don't want darker coloured hair going orangey or lighter colour going green if that makes sense?

@Helpmymum also how long is your hair??

I’m part dark hair & part grey.
I’ve used Olia blonde for about five years.
No probs
my oh applies it, then I do the rest after the required amount of time elapsed to then rinse it out, condition etc.
im in my 60’s and my hair is mega thick and about shoulder blade length… this requires two boxes.
so roughly (depending on promotional offers) comes to about £12/£14…
hope this helps.
if however you not convinced you want to home dye,
I previously used my local college that trains would be hairdressers.
the college salon likes us to make appointments, as the student then gets a real life experience as opposed to using the dummies.
I never had a major problem with using that avenue.
the class tutor oversaw all of the students work.
just be prepared for the appointment to last longer than a qualified professional…. The students are learning, and some do take longer when first dealing with real people…
it’s a lot cheaper than a high Street salon, and really not much more expensive than doing it at home.
I only began using it at home because appts were hard to keep when I was suffering a migraine.

I've dyed my hair very blonde with this
www.superdrug.com/hair/hair-colourants/permanent-hair-dye/preference-balayage-for-light-blonde/p/814299

I didn't use it as a balayage kit, I slapped it on my whole head basically. It's pretty strong stuff in terms of its bleaching potential. But you could try using it like it says to too. Wasn't at all damaging, didn't bother with the weird root blending mask but it wasn't going to do much by that point anyway.

I'm lucky in that I have a lot of different tones in my hair anyway so all over colour doesn't look flat. And then I used plenty of purple conditioner to stop it looking brassy.

I'm more wondering how to dye over it with brown now as once you've done it the roots look quite obvious and you really have to keep doing it whilst I prefer darker in the winter months.

@TheOGCCL if your thinking of going darker over blode whatever you do dont put it straight on blonde you will go green😱 you have to add a tiny hint of warmer shade e.g reddish colour mixed into the dark first! Just a helpful hint😉

Thanks very much @Puddinandpie!

@puddinandpie I've just got highlights in, theres lots in there so I think it looks almost fully blonde all over anyway, my thoughts were that I could just paint on a colour and it would match up but I havn't got a clue so could be way off the mark here. My hair is fairly long, down to about boob level!

Thank you, I will look that up! Great idea about going to a college but I wanted to avoid going to any hairdresser if atall possible as I don't even enjoy the experience. If I could do something at home that looked okay then that would be the preference!

The potential for disaster is large. Just go to a hairdresser.

Would you try to build your own extension or fix your own car or rewire your house yourself or try to diagnose amd treat yourself for a medical condition or represent yourself in court? Sure, some people do these things successfully, but the reality is that most people do not. We specialise in jobs for a reason. Get an expert and let them deal with it.

Here's a pic of it now, It's very much due to be done!

Thank you, sounds like you've nailed it. I'm so nervous to try a box dye as all I've heard is horror stories!

I use john frieda lightening spray. Spray it only onto the roots of your hair when wet then comb through and dry with a hair dryer on hot setting. It creates sun-kissed streaks that every hair dresser I've ever met thinks are natural and aren't I lucky.

Don't use it too often or your hair will go brassy, but about once a month is fine. The trick is to only spray roots and then comb through so it doesn't get over bleached.

Well yes thats a fair point and obviously i have been doing until its now unfortunately no longer viable. Obviously its not the end of the world if I don't have highlighted hair but I'm just wondering if there is another option 🤷‍♀️. I guess I'm hoping it's a bit like shellac nails, I bought my own kit during lockdown and have been doing these successfully myself ever since.

Sorry if you are a hairdresser and losing business, it must be really upsetting and frustrating if your clients are suddenly trying to save money and not coming anymore. I will still go to my regular hairdresser for cuts.

I never had any problems with Nice n Easy on mousey hair with greys. I used their second lightest cool blonde that is formulated for grey coverage (the ones not formulated for greys are less effective, lower peroxide content I think). It never caused brassiness, always took well and was easy to do root touch ups with a brush or larger areas straight from the bottle nozzle. My hairdresser always complimented the colour because the hair’s natural tones are allowed through, it doesn’t look too flat.

I‘ve let my natural greys grow out now but if I ever fancy a change back I’ll stick with nice n easy as it’s never let me down going several shades lighter than my natural colour.

@TheOGCCL no worries its always handy to know 😉

@Helpmymum yea it looks like you have pretty much had highlights til it's a full head, so basically if you are entirely sure you want to do it at home it would be a full head tint (roots only and i stress roots only as if you start painting over bleach with highlift tint youll end up with chewing gum for hair) but I would say you need proper tube tint as because you have been having bleach the colour is incredibly light, so it needs to be a tube tint from a hairdressing suppliers, you can buy online with the peroxide I'd say a 9% and the colour looks like it needs to be in the 12 or 10 range to get the Ash blonde you've got, no box dies from the supermarket is going cut it I'm afraid!

Although depending on your skin tone a few warmer tones would look lovely through your colour to bring in some depth! (Sorry I got a bit carried away, I can't help it it's the hairdresser in me🙈)

I'm sorry to be the voice of doom and gloom but I have just absolutely destroyed my hair dying it blonde by myself. I'm a good bit darker than you naturally, but I've gone from a thick, healthy bouncy head of shoulder length hair to a sad little nest of frizz after six months of home bleaching, and have just had to go back to brown to try rescue what little hair I have left.
I used Bleach London Plex Bleach, and everything was fine until about the third time I did my roots - it is SO hard to avoid overlap when you're doing it yourself. I overlapped on the previously bleached hair more than I clearly thought I had - turns out bleach expands and creeps onto your already coloured hair, and I ended up leaving it on too long and frying the hair at the overlap point. When I rinsed it out, it came out in literal handfuls and what was left was gummy and weak - it's going to have to grow out to recover as there seems to be little chance of repairing it.
It was 100% user error and I know there are plenty of others on this thread who've done a cracking job on theirs but I just had to mention the risks before you embark, especially as my hair is making me so sad right now!
Good luck if you go for it!

Yeah, from looking at that photo, I think only bleach is going to do it. Your hair is pretty much completely bleached (its a lovely colour!) Surely you will get orange roots if you go for a box dye?

I bleach my own hair at home - I use Scharzkopf (?) Blond Me with 20 vol developer. I won't say my hair is in perfect condition, but I still have a full head of hair and it's just so much easier and cheaper to do it myself.

I've just had to do this and while I am by NO means an expert, I did two semi perm reds in a row to deposit the warmer tones before putting the brown on - someone far more competent than me will be able to advise but the research I read said don't try to go more than 2 shades darker at a time. Lots of theory to read on this, but in a nutshell I got one semi perm warm, gingery blonde in a level 4 (the number on the box starts with 4) then one with a 6, then went to a dark brown (starts with an 8).
Hope that might help!

This is so interesting, but the instructions say "Do not use on natural brown".
I'd be interested because I get my hair professionally coloured copper and can never get my hairdresser to agree to go lighter, but it seems you can't use it if you've used bleach in the last few weeks (I presume my hairdressers use some bleach for my copper colour).

Fab, thankyou for the advice, I think there is a Sally's in my local town so I might pop in there and have a look for that stuff. Just need to find a friend competent enough to help 🤣