Should I bleach my hair?

[Pigfarts]

I currently have bleached highlights throughout my naturally dark brown waist length hair. They have Special Effects semi permanent blue dye on it. I did that maybe six months ago? When I did, my hair became super damaged and bits started falling out, and I had to cut 4 inches. It was awful. I think that happened because I had my tips bleached before that and it overlapped....

But now I REALLY want to bleach my hair again and do this:
http://media-cache-lt0.pinterest.com/upload/197102921161739746_qdGMwcLz_b.jpg

Is there anyway I can do this without damaging my hair completely? Will the already bleached sections fall out if I bleach over it? I heard coconut oil helps?

Opinions please! <3

[Pigfarts]

I should add that my hair is relatively healthy now, I moisturize it with a lot of oils now.

[Petrichos]

Are you wanting to bleach it so that it has the ombre effect instead of your highlights?

[Pigfarts]

Yes. I want to bleach like the bottom 3/4 of my hair so that I can do the ombre...

[spookyghost]

I want to say that I think you should do whatever makes you happy. Because thats all that matters!:)

Now that being said-I wish I would have never-ever put bleach highlights in my hair. My hair is so damaged right now. I also use to straighten it so that made it even worse. Bleach and a hair straightener-if I could only go back in time!:magic:
Now I know everyones hair is different. I have fine hair which may damage more easily than other types of hair. And other people bleach their hair and keep it healthy-that just blows my mind! Haha. But for me personaly, I wish I would have never done it and I will never do it again. Its going to take years for my damage to grow out:cry: Plus instead of just highlights all your hair will be bleached.

[spidermom]

Can you wait a bit? Bleach over bleached hair never turns out well.

[akilina]

So your hair suffered that much damage, but you want to do it again?
I don't see how much would be different in the outcome. The bleach damage is possibly still there on some parts and bleaching over whats already bleached will cause a whole new phase of breakage. 6 months is not that long over in hair land.
Is it possible you could go to a professional and have them slice in more and more bleach foils here and there, carefully selecting the hair that is brown still?
Coconut oil will help ease damage but not always completely. Its mostly about what your hair has already been thru. :]

[Petrichos]

I bet if you wait a bit and let the highlights grow out you will eventually have that ombre effect, well, eventually as in it might take a long time. If you bleach the ends you will just have to cut it like the last time, and you said that was horrible.

[pepperminttea]

How dark is your current blue? Could you dye everything but the ends a darker blue, so the ends look ombre by comparison without incurring any more processing? :) If not, coconut oil is said to help - there's more details in this thread (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=10495).


So your hair suffered that much damage, but you want to do it again?

I'm a bit allergic to dairy. I still eat cheese everyday. Some things are worth the problems they cause. ;)

[lapushka]

Let me get this straight. You have bleached highlights and you had to cut 4 inches off because of it. You say it was because it overlapped some previous bleach. You regret having to cut, so you regret the damage. And still... you want to do it all over again, but worse. Bleaching that much of your length is worse than highlights and some tips overlapping.


Is there anyway I can do this without damaging my hair completely?

No. Coconut oil won't stop you from damaging your hair, it might make the initial process feel like it leaves a less brittle aftermath.

[bunnylake]

I LOOOVE pastel colored hair. Rainbow hair, ombre my-little-pony hair, all of that. It's gorgeous. It also will wreck your hair. I used to dye my hair fun colors all the time. My last was bright pink. I ended up having to cut off all my hair... up to my ears. That was a few years ago. I'm now at waist-length again, having only used natural colored dyes and most recently henna. While I wish I could have fun colored hair once in a while, I tell myself to just get over it, because I'd much rather have long healthy hair! And unfortunately, bleached hair cannot be healthy, in my opinion.
If I were you, I'd look into the least damaging type of extensions, or just work on accepting less damaging color changes.
You may otherwise end up with short damaged hair, and I doubt you want that.
Just my two cents. Really, it is up to you!

[anastasiya]

i wouldnt bleach if i were you. its to damaging

[Ashlbee]

I think the style you are looking at looks fantastic!

Bleach is a funny thing and all hair reacts differently. I was a platinum blonde for years before I had sever damage. I am naturally a dirty blonde and back when I had my shag cut, I had my hair bleached with level 40! (I later learned this was way way way overkill for my hair! The stylist was not the best, though she was a family friend, and I was ignorant and knew nothing about hair) and had it re-bleached every few weeks. This was after 2 perms and a relaxer treatment within that same year. So many layers of bleach reapplication! My hair stayed strong and silky for so long before the inevitable mushy near chemical hair cut occurred. I feel blessed and lucky my hair survived the ordeal and now I have sworn off chemical treatments.

However, others have their hair ruined with the first application. It sounds like your hair is affected fairly strongly by bleach, plus you mentioned it's darker in color so that means more damage to get it lighter. My advice would be not to do it if you know your hair reacts badly. If just the highlights are showing damage, imagine what 3/4 of your hair will look like.

However, if you are determined I've heard coconut oiling treatments before bleaching helps, then after do deep conditioning and get shampoos and leave in products/natural alternatives that promote hair health.

I think the style would look very cool! Good luck!

[juliaxena]

To be honest, coconut oil didn't prevent any damage at all for me. But if you are young and have time and energy for a lot of treatments or are willing to cut it severly, why not, bleach it to death (though I woudn't).

[katfemme89]

How about instead of bleach just do some honey-lightening? Less damaging from what I've heard, but I've never tried it.

OR, you can get some henna mixture (henna mixed with other herbs that have a lightening effect). I got a henna mixture one time that was strawberry blonde and it came out to a very nice, light auburn.

Consider EVERY option available before bleach. I bleached my hair four years ago, and I'm STILL growing out the damage.

[blondie9912]

I wouldn't do it, personally. Bleach is awful on hair, and more of it is never a good idea.

[Avital88]

I bleached mine,my hair was healthy ,now its dead and falls different,my bouncy shiny hair is now à stringy tangled frizz that no oils or masks can repair..so i vote No,especially since you had à bad experience before

[Mya]

I had blue hair too.

My advice: don't do it!

Blue hair is a pain in the a** to maintain. It looks good just after you dye it, then fades quickly to a blah gray. You have to bleach the life out of your hair (plus take out the yellow tones) to make it look decent, otherwise the blue dye won't stick to your hair or will turn out greenish.
Plus dark roots look horrible with unnatural colors, so you have to do all of that frequently. Before you know it, your hair will be totally fried, good only for being cut off and flushed down the toilet.

I love blue hair, I really do. But... no.

[sarelis]

Personally, after having suffered some horrendous damage from bleach in the hands of a particularly inept hairdresser, I would never go near it again! However there is a member here (Justgreen, I think) who has beautiful, long, healthy looking bleached hair. I will just double check that is the right member, but it might be worth messaging her for advice :)
BTW, your username cracks me up! :D

E2A, yes I checked & it is Justgreen. If you can't PM yet maybe you could drop her a visitor message on her profile :)

[palaeoqueen]

It doesn't seem like a good idea to me especially if you've already had bleach damage. If you're willing to take the risk of needing to chop it off then go for it but just be prepared!

[pink.sara]

If your hair broke from over-lapping some highlights once, the bleaching needed to ombre will definitely result in breakage. Major breakage.

Coconut oil may stop some of the metal particles in hair oxidising and damaging keratin fibres too badly, but there will still already be damage, and any kind of bleaching will cause more.

If you aren't comfortable with the idea of losing any part you bleach. Don't go there.

[Chanie]

If i could take all the bleach back ive used over the years i would!

[bunnylake]

Just FYI: henna cannot lighten hair, and damaged hair cannot be made healthy again. Damage needs to be cut out, otherwise the other option is to mask it with a lot of silicones. Unfortunately from what I understand about honey is that it either doesn't work or only lightens slightly.

[Arakazi]

I have very damaged hair and I blame it on the bleaching I did about 10months ago, weakening my hair. I wouldn't to it if I were you. Even though the blue looks really cool!! :p

[tiny_teesha]

Ok, let me first mention that that image is actually photoshopped (you can see a stripe of blue extending out of the hair on the far right)

I suggest use the coconut oil, but i do and still i get splits and lots of damage.

Also, if you bleach an area, be accepting if it falls out. A semi permanent over tips should NOT make your hair snap off, perhaps you got a reaction to it and your hair fell out, or you were stressed. Did the hair SNAP off (splits) or FALL out (from the root)?

If your hair is bleached as you say, why don't you just dye the ends with blue?? Plus your ends, odds are, are a bit lighter anyway. If you wannnnt to use bleach a lot, try just a little bit, leave it on for a short while and see how your hair handles it. Then swap your conditioner for a deep conditioning mask, every shower.

Or be like me, dye one section, like your fringe, and deal with the consequences. I tell ya, there are so many splits and it's all crunchy, but i don't mind. I also have it ombre. And ombre fringe, and before i decide to chop my hair off i'll do ombre ends for a while and see how much i can handle that. But just bleach the very tips, slightly. As much hair as you are willing to loose, if you really want to. And baby it a lot, oil it heaps, etc... Keep up with the S&Ds too.

[spidermom]

After-thought: Maybe just bleach the amount of ends that you would willing to cut off if it goes bad, and use coconut oil before bleaching.

[MeowScat]

I have to agree with the other posters.

I've done the bleaching thing many times (I'm a brunette, like you) and the breakage and dryness eventually catches up to you no matter how much you try to undo it. :(

If you want that (awesome) blue color, you should try blue extension pieces. You, not only, won't have to deal with the bleach damage, but you also won't have to deal with the fading of color and growing out your roots (which are tedious and can take several years to undo).

Do it if you REALLY want to, but I'd hate to see you unhappy in the long-run. It can take YEARS to undo damage from a color change.

Think about it for a few weeks or months before you finally decide. It looks great, but for how long?

[MeowScat]

Spidermom just gave an awesome suggestion if you're willing to possibly lose some length.

[Loviatar]

After-thought: Maybe just bleach the amount of ends that you would willing to cut off if it goes bad, and use coconut oil before bleaching.

This. Try the dip dye look with the blue.

Slap on coconut oil at least an hour beforehand, and I mean til it's almost saturated, and then use the lowest possible volume or % of peroxide developer you need. Don't just whack on 40vol because it's the strongest. I've just had this done in a salon, and my hair is a mess.

Be careful of bleaching over the sections which are already blue, which may turn greenish.

note: If your hair was falling out, I'd say that was a scalp issue, and therefore never use bleach near your scalp again. I've had a lot of damage and breakage from bleach, but never had my hair fall out. Was it more a case of your hair breaking off or did the damage come from the roots? If it's just breakage, you can minimise (but not totally avoid) damage with coconut pre-oiling and gentle handling/care afterwards.

[akilina]

Ok, let me first mention that that image is actually photoshopped (you can see a stripe of blue extending out of the hair on the far right)

OMG totally true! I never noticed that.
Not only does it extend to the right, if you look at the shirt and all around the hair, the tint of the fake photo shop blue extends quite a bit down the shirt in the outline of the hair.

[jojo89]

I didn't click on the pic cuz I'm at work and don't want to chance a virus. I had blue in my hair once. It was awesome BUT not worth the damage and I got tired of it. I would let your idea sit on your brain for at least 2 weeks and then decide if it's what you really want. It's your hair, but you asked for advice and my advice is don't do it. It is NOT worth it trust me. I have ruined my hair multiple times and had to chop it all off a few times. Not because I wanted to either. I think I have finally learned my lesson to stick with one natural color for at least 6 months at a time and only retouch the roots.

A tip about blue hair- you don't have to bleach to white if you just mix purple into the blue, that way green is not an issue. That's the method I did and it turned out great and faded pretty instead of gray or whatever else.

[jojo89]

Whatever you do, use good judgement. If you have to think about it, chances are it's not a good idea. If in doubt....
If you want healthy hair, bleach is not the way to go.

[spidermom]

Ok, let me first mention that that image is actually photoshopped (you can see a stripe of blue extending out of the hair on the far right)
.

There's your answer! Take a picture of the back of your head and photoshop it! Then look at it whenever you want.

[Denebi]

I wanted to have blue hair for years... but, as you, I have rather dark hair, and it's fine and fragile and breaks when it gets just a sharp look on it.

So, I never bleached. But several years ago I did a semi permanent dye of black with a lot of blue in it, and it turned out a beautiful black, shimmering brilliantly blue in the light. The color faded within a few month but I had no problems with growing out a different color and my hair still was in a rather good and healthy condition.

The problem is, there is NO cure to damaged hair. You hair suffered already quite some damage from bleaching and you had to cut several inches... if you do it again, go figure what happens. No oil or other treatment can entirely prevent damage. If it was like that, we all could change colors like the rainbow and still have long healthy hair. Look around you - how many members do you see who reached really long hair and bleached repeatedly over and over again?

If you don't mind cutting, go ahead, but be aware that it will take a long time to grow it all back.

And even if you don't have that much damage in the beginning, the longer your hair grows the longer you have that damaged hair. And you will get more damage just because it suffered from bleaching and therefore is a lot more fragile then. So, sooner or later the damage will be that bad that you have to cut.

I think, dip dyeing or photoshopping are both really good ideas. Try these first and if you then still desperately need blue hair, then go for it and enjoy it. It will most probably ruin your hair, but when you think it's worth it, you should do it no matter what others tell you. It is your hair, your head, and your decision after all. :)

[jen5972]

You should do whatever makes you happy, but I will say that bleaching is super damaging. I started off highlighting my hair about 15 years ago, and then lightened all of it. The damage was so bad that I had to grow it out then chop it. Thankfully it was a long time ago, but it has discouraged me from doing it again. No amount of deep conditioning and oil will help your hair repair if the damage is already done. So weigh your options carefully before you do it.

Jen
Long hair updo videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/JenniferS42394/videos
Long hair albums: http://public.fotki.com/jen5972/

[MORE]

I think that life is too short not to do whatever you want to do, so if you really want this: I'd say go for it. Just so you know that I don't mean to rain on your parade, but I would really want to share my story with you... I really wish I'd myself known about this before this happened to me years ago.

I used to bleach my poor hair into platinum blonde. Not even with highlights, as I started off with, but with bleach applied straight to my scalp. Bleach is not to play around with, I learned. After each time I'd been to the hairdresser I would get these big sores on my scalp. They would bleed and were hurtful. I really don't know what I was thinking doing this every four weeks...

Anyway, after a couple of months my hair suddenly just broke and I was left with big parts that were only about 2 inches (to my APL hair). I ran to the hairdresser, I didn't understand it was the bleach (:rolleyes:) - I thought someone had cut it off! She said "Oh, that's just a chemical cut". Chemical cut?! That's when the bleach messed up the hair so badly it just cuts itself right off. It looked like crap and has taken me years to grow out.

Just wanted to warn you about bleaching alreadly bleached hair, it can really backfire... But as I said, life is too short not to try things you really wanna do. Please just be aware of the risks, I would hate for the same thing that happened to me to happen to someone else.:blossom:

[Mischamiu]

I put (a bit) of bleach on my hair when I was younger it took me two years to grow it... The ends were dry frizzy, just horrible. I think you should wait a little bit and I read on the forum that argan oil was a great treatment before bleaching :blossom:

[CurlyCurves]

If you don't want the same thing to happen again, I suggest not risking it.