Lightening dark hair at home

One of my best friends has been dyeing her hair black from her natural dark brown for a few years, and after a few months of growing out her roots, decided she wanted to go lighter instead.

Much lighter.

She went to a hairdresser's for some foils, but, a significantly lighter wallet and half a head of blonde highlights later, realised that she wanted the bottom half of her head done as well. 

Now, I am well aware of the dangers of DIY hair colors, and also know how much more dangerous trying to lighten dyed black hair can be. I am also, however, somewhat of a risk taker (albeit not with my own hair, which is so fragile that just brushing it tends to be a major risk), and therefore begged her to let me do her hair. 

Before I get lynched, I would like to point out that I did do a ton of research first. 

Although, as one 'kind' soul in a hair salon/store pointed out to me: she had studied for four years to become qualified to dye hair and I should not aspire to equal her with my pathetic home research, done from the safety of my home/laptop. 

Despite her condescending tone and rude whispering with the other sales attendant, I managed to ferret some valuable information out of her, which is seriously the only reason why I restrained myself from asking her if she had also studied makeup, and if so, how she could justify walking around looking like this: 

Anyway. 

Armed with my new knowledge, as well as a:

• tub of blue Salon Smart powder bleach
• 30 volume creme developer
• 10 volume creme developer
• bottle of purple conditioner
• 8C Crema Color by Sol-Fine (toner)
• pair of latex gloves
• mixing container
• long-tailed comb; and,
• tinting brush

...and having firmly tied my friend Jaycee (not her real name) to her chair, I proceeded to torture her by "umm-ing" and "aah-ing" over her hair for the next few hours, as I bleached, washed, conditioned, toned blow-dried and straightened her hair. 

I made sure to throw in quite a few worried glances and panicked "oopsies"  in there for good measure too. 

The end result was really close to what she was after, and she has now asked me to start looking into how to tint highlight regrowth for future reference. 

The top left photo is Jaycee's (still not her real name) hair before I got my hands on it. 

The other three are "After" photos. 

Unfortunately, the sun set before I finished so I couldn't take photos out in the natural light, but I did not touch the top half of her head - which had the original foils in - so that can be used for color reference purposes from the top left photo. 

I will try to remember to take some more shots when I see her during the day next. 

The process: 

I decided to use blue tinted bleach as her hair was quite dark and black hair tends to go quite red/orange when bleached.

Knowing there was a good chance that I would be too scared to leave the bleach on very long, which meant her hair was more likely to turn out orange, I wanted to cover as many bases as I could to minimise it and the blue bleach was one of those steps. 

Bleach is mixed with a developing creme to activate it. 

Despite one of the ladies at Priceline suggesting that I use the 40 volume developer, I decided to go with  30, mainly because I did not know how fast I could work in her hair, and preferred to underprocess all of her hair rather than overprocess one side while applying bleach to the rest of her head. 

As the bottom half of her hair was dyed black from previous dye jobs (this is visible in the "before" photo as her natural hair throws off a reddish reflection in the sun), I first bleached that section for about 10 minutes to remove the previous dye and then spread the bleach upward toward her hair line. It worked quite well and the end result was quite homogeneous. 

After bleaching and towel drying her hair so it was just damp, I mixed the 8C Light Ash Blonde toner with a 10 volume developer and used this to tone Jaycee's hair back from a bright orange color down to a gorgeous caramel shade. 

There is a slight chance that the developer was not quite a high enough volume and it may fade, but I have a second bottle handy, so at the slightest hint of orange highlights, I will be putting Jaycee through another round of toning.

Obviously, DIY dye jobs require gloves to avoid damaging the skin, so I used some chemical proof latex gloves throughout the process.

I also bought the purple conditioner to offset the orange that I felt would inevitably come out of the bleaching over time. 

Although I used it when washing her hair out, I definitely did not leave it on long enough to achieve visible results, but I have seen girls with extremely orange hair use a purple shampoo mask to tone their hair rather than a actual toner so I know it works!

Other info: 

I used a simple plastic container to mix the products in.

Long tailed combs are handy for parting hair, and I used a hair dye brush, as well as my gloved fingers to apply all the products on to Jaycee's hair, taking care to rinse and shampoo everything well in between different chemicals. 

Jaycee loved the results, although she did mention that she would like to go even lighter soon, but agreed that we should probably wait a little bit and see what happens to her hair before we do anything else to it. 

I am really grateful that she trusted me enough to let me do this, and had so much fun doing it, plus I really enjoyed watching a ton of videos and learning about bleaching, dyeing and toning. 

If you are thinking of a DIY dye job, may I suggest enrolling the help of a friend who has a strong interest in hair (and is therefore more likely to take things seriously)? Doing your own hair can be extremely difficult even if you know what you are doing - I don't know about you, but I struggle to see the back of my head most days... and, as a starting point here are a few of the things to consider looking at:

Pink so Foxy's blog: Balayage Highlights At Home and YouTube videos.

Clairol Professional: Lightening and Toning Hair FAQs

Hair color shades - a selection guide

I would also suggest going into a hair salon and telling them what you intend to do and what you are trying to achieve. Yes, they will try to dissuade you and attempt to book you in to an appointment, and they are likely to be extremely condescending, but at the end of the day, that is their job, and whatever advice they give you may just help you avert a crisis. 

As always, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post! 

Love always,

Tatiana