Did a strand test with bleach 8 months ago, safe to go ahead?

**Wendyp** · May 29th, 2018, 05:00 PM

Not if you want healthy nice looking long hair. Bleach is one of the most damaging things you can put on your hair.

**PixieP** · May 29th, 2018, 05:25 PM

Find a good professional salon that uses olaplex and you’ll do just fine with a round of bayalage

or if you find a salon that has Aveda. Bleach, especially salon versions, have come a long way. The techniques and products used are way better than just 5 years ago. But you have to pay for it!

**Glitch** · May 29th, 2018, 06:31 PM

Just be cautious (which I'm sure you will be).

I saw my friend the other day who had a few rounds of bleached hair. She brought it up herself right when we met up, that our hair looked like it was from two different planets

Hers almost didn't move at all, and looked crunchy. Really took me back to my own bleach and dye days of the past lol. There were many times where my hair still looked great, but also times where it couldn't get any worse. Toning, root touch ups, overall upkeep, hair resilience - lots of factors! However, I'll never forget this girl's hair I saw a while back at a dinner party. Her asian black hair was bleached to a platinum blonde, and was also naturally pretty thin. Nonetheless, it was the best hair I have ever seen in person. Flowy, silky, tailbone length princess hair

She received one too many compliments that night from us all! It may be tricky (and I emphasize tricky!), but I believe bleaching + healthy hair really can be achieved

Best of luck to you!

**Wendyp** · May 29th, 2018, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by PixieP

Find a good professional salon that uses olaplex and you’ll do just fine with a round of bayalage

or if you find a salon that has Aveda. Bleach, especially salon versions, have come a long way. The techniques and products used are way better than just 5 years ago. But you have to pay for it!

Yeah that’s what aveda told me too. Meanwhile growing out a head full of aveda colored damaged hair

**lucid** · May 30th, 2018, 03:22 AM

Originally Posted by _twiggy

Thank you guys!
I totally forgot about Sun in! i remember Nightshade had a post with great result a few years ago!

I'm almost certain that your hair is too dark to safely lighten it with sun in or similar sprays, going by your color on page 1. You would have apply it a lot for it to lighten enough, and you will have a good chance of getting orange hair that is super crispy and dry. You should also never bleach hair that has been lightened with sun in, so you can't go to a salon to bleach it further if you end up with orange hair.

I have used sun in before, and it works, with much less damage than bleach (only if used sparsely). But it also only lightens your hair a fraction of what normal bleach does. In addition, it's difficult to control. Finer strands will become much lighter than thicker strands for example. The darker the hair is, the higher the risk of a patchy result.

My hair lightens easily in the sun and with bleach, and it lightens without brassy undertones. That's why sun in worked for me. The result is similar to what you would get if you spent a loooot of time in the sun, so don't expect the same results that you'd get from regular bleach.

**PixieP** · May 30th, 2018, 04:10 AM

Originally Posted by Wendyp

Yeah that’s what aveda told me too. Meanwhile growing out a head full of aveda colored damaged hair

Then you have had a bad hairdresser :/ I have two friends who has Aveda in their salons, and they both have extreme coloured hair and lighten their hair to achieve it. And as often as they need to lighten it to stay fresh, they have much less bleach damage than you would expect.

I bleached with Olaplex two years ago and the damage I had was minimal, and only on my already damaged parts of the hair.

**Nightshade** · May 30th, 2018, 03:44 PM

Originally Posted by lucid

I'm almost certain that your hair is too dark to safely lighten it with sun in or similar sprays, going by your color on page 1. You would have apply it a lot for it to lighten enough, and you will have a good chance of getting orange hair that is super crispy and dry. You should also never bleach hair that has been lightened with sun in, so you can't go to a salon to bleach it further if you end up with orange hair.

I have used sun in before, and it works, with much less damage than bleach (only if used sparsely). But it also only lightens your hair a fraction of what normal bleach does. In addition, it's difficult to control. Finer strands will become much lighter than thicker strands for example. The darker the hair is, the higher the risk of a patchy result.

My hair lightens easily in the sun and with bleach, and it lightens without brassy undertones. That's why sun in worked for me. The result is similar to what you would get if you spent a loooot of time in the sun, so don't expect the same results that you'd get from regular bleach.

I agree with this. You're going to have to lighten several shades to get to where you want and Sun In is going to get you to orange and not past it

**lapushka** · May 30th, 2018, 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I agree with this. You're going to have to lighten several shades to get to where you want and Sun In is going to get you to orange and not past it

I have darker hair than the OP; back when I was 17, I used sun-in on my hair; kept using it, one application over the other until I got a very light brown/dark blonde, without the orange, but I used up practically the entire bottle.

Would *not* recommend this to anybody!

**_twiggy** · June 2nd, 2018, 09:12 AM

So after reading all your comments and advice i decided not to Sun-In my hair, ironicly im scared of using a blow dryer because of the heat damage

After a panicked 20 minute phonecall with my mum (while i was at the beauty supply store) i decided to try it, YOLO rigth. Since i started my transition (im trans btw) i have not done ANYTHING to my hair, just been growing, oiling and caring for it. So actually doing a chemical process was a big deal for me.

I litterally soaked my hair in coconut oil and let it sit for a while, then i put bleach on some super tiny sections of my midlength, and brougth them all together at the ends, creating a little ombre effect. After 10 minutes i chickend out, envisioning snapping breaking dry awful hair, so i quickly jumped in the shower and rinsed it out.

Hair was a bit rough, elasticisty was OK a bit to stretchy for my liking, but AVC rinse fixed that, then i moistured with Aussie 3 minute miracle (my hair loves silicone)
The hair now feels much the same as it did before, nothing really noticable damagewise so far

If it should start splitting and breaking in a year or so , i will have grown enough hair to trim away the parts that are bleached the most and still maintain the length i have now. My hair is happiest at waistlength so i keep it there

The end result was almost exactly what i wanted, its a soft sunbleached look with lots of different shades of brass and copper in the ends that softly blends into my brown .

In a way doing this has reinvigorate my interrest to care properly for my hair, been it a bit of slump and not keeping up on my S&D sessions, not detangeling morning and night and so on. Now im looking into ordering hydrolized protein so i can make som lovely fragrance free potions for my hair <3

**Milady_DeWinter** · June 2nd, 2018, 09:31 AM

Originally Posted by _twiggy

So after reading all your comments and advice i decided not to Sun-In my hair, ironicly im scared of using a blow dryer because of the heat damage

After a panicked 20 minute phonecall with my mum (while i was at the beauty supply store) i decided to try it, YOLO rigth. Since i started my transition (im trans btw) i have not done ANYTHING to my hair, just been growing, oiling and caring for it. So actually doing a chemical process was a big deal for me.

I litterally soaked my hair in coconut oil and let it sit for a while, then i put bleach on some super tiny sections of my midlength, and brougth them all together at the ends, creating a little ombre effect. After 10 minutes i chickend out, envisioning snapping breaking dry awful hair, so i quickly jumped in the shower and rinsed it out.

Hair was a bit rough, elasticisty was OK a bit to stretchy for my liking, but AVC rinse fixed that, then i moistured with Aussie 3 minute miracle (my hair loves silicone)
The hair now feels much the same as it did before, nothing really noticable damagewise so far

If it should start splitting and breaking in a year or so , i will have grown enough hair to trim away the parts that are bleached the most and still maintain the length i have now. My hair is happiest at waistlength so i keep it there

The end result was almost exactly what i wanted, its a soft sunbleached look with lots of different shades of brass and copper in the ends that softly blends into my brown .

In a way doing this has reinvigorate my interrest to care properly for my hair, been it a bit of slump and not keeping up on my S&D sessions, not detangeling morning and night and so on. Now im looking into ordering hydrolized protein so i can make som lovely fragrance free potions for my hair <3

Sounds so nice! I'm so happy that it worked for you so well

Just, remember that those things are damaging even doing it with care, I've got some friends that were so happy with sun-in and similar "soft" lighteners that they started applying it every week... At first the hair looked super nice, at the end I can say that it looked like very dry straws!

If you moisturize so well and take good care of your hair, this will continue looking great

It's nice to experiment, if you know what you're doing!