How to Ombre Hair

[legendya]

My hair is dark brown (my natural color) and unprocessed. I want to ombre my ends light brown. I want to use baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to ombre my hair. I'll be using the method on this site: http://sadiaayn.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/lightening-hair-with-hydrogen-peroxide-baking-soda/ I have never ombred my hair or used hydrogen peroxide and baking soda to lighten my hair before. So, I'm looking for some tips on DIY natural hair dyeing. Have any of you ombred your own hair before? If so, are there any tricks to making the gradation look better? Has anyone used hydrogen peroxide and baking soda to lighten hair before? If so, how was your experience? Can I add honey to the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda? Do you rinse with water only or wash with shampoo after lightening? If shampoo isn't needed, can I use an ACV rinse? Is it better to dye with damp hair or dry hair? Can I oil my hair with coconut oil a day before I lighten it? Will it help to protect my hair while lightening? What else can I do to lessen damage from lightening? How should I take care of my ombred hair? Curlies, should I stretch my hair before dyeing? Any other tips for dyeing curly hair? Thanks!


**Update!**
Today, I decided to do a strand test with clean, dry shed hair. I mixed baking soda and hydrogen peroxide in a foam cup until I got a pasty consistency. I dropped the shed hair in the cup and stirred it with a plastic spoon. I checked the hair every 10 minutes and noticed that it started to lighten at around 30 minutes. I also noticed that the mixture was starting to foam. At around 57-58 minutes, I rinsed the hair with warm water. The hair is drying right now, but it looks like a medium brown color. It seems a little brassy, though. Is there anything I can add to the mixture that will tone down the brassiness? Will adding honey brighten the hair more?

[hairpleasegrow]

If you are going to try ombre suggest to try on a strand first. Practice your technique, applying ombre can be very fussy…. Strongly suggest you watch you tube videos with how they applied the product first. Application and technique is hard with ombre. Honestly this looks a little risky, you might want to do this at a salon. Good luck

[TrapperCreekD]

*raises hand* I did this and I love it (you can see the results in my sig pic). Definitely do a strand test, or several! I did it on virgin but tired ends and the damage was minimal; directly after, my ends were drier and slightly tangly so I babied them with protein-y leave in and some deep conditioning and now you can hardly tell the difference. Personally, I think the baking soda would be unnecessarily drying... I actually used this method (http://kittywittyy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ombrelightenhighlight-hair-hydrogen.html), which is hydrogen peroxide mixed with conditioner. As it happened, I didn't actually end up using coconut oil, but I would recommend it, especially if you're a curly.

Honestly, I have practically zilch experience dying/coloring so I don't know on wet vs. dry - I think I did it on dry hair. As for the demarcation line, I just combed it out and tied it off with a hair tie where I wanted the transition to be, and dipped the ends in the bowl of solution (I was out of spray bottles at the time).

HTH! :flower:

[legendya]

If you are going to try ombre suggest to try on a strand first. Practice your technique, applying ombre can be very fussy…. Strongly suggest you watch you tube videos with how they applied the product first. Application and technique is hard with ombre. Honestly this looks a little risky, you might want to do this at a salon. Good luck I looked at a few videos and I'm getting a good idea of how to do it.

[legendya]

*raises hand* I did this and I love it (you can see the results in my sig pic). Definitely do a strand test, or several! I did it on virgin but tired ends and the damage was minimal; directly after, my ends were drier and slightly tangly so I babied them with protein-y leave in and some deep conditioning and now you can hardly tell the difference. Personally, I think the baking soda would be unnecessarily drying... I actually used this method (http://kittywittyy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ombrelightenhighlight-hair-hydrogen.html), which is hydrogen peroxide mixed with conditioner. As it happened, I didn't actually end up using coconut oil, but I would recommend it, especially if you're a curly. Honestly, I have practically zilch experience dying/coloring so I don't know on wet vs. dry - I think I did it on dry hair. As for the demarcation line, I just combed it out and tied it off with a hair tie where I wanted the transition to be, and dipped the ends in the bowl of solution (I was out of spray bottles at the time). HTH! :flower: Wow, thanks for your reply! This helped alot! Your hair looks great!! :) So, it worked well even with the conditioner? I thought the baking soda would lighten the hair quicker than just peroxide alone. How long you kept it on? Did you washed with shampoo or just rinsed with water afterwards? How many times did it take for your results?

[Firefox7275]

Baking soda is not innately gentler than a box dye, both are aiming to get the pH of the mix to be alkaline: how strongly basic depends on how much baking soda you use. I wonder if a more acidic mix such as in conditioner would be too weak to eat through coconut oil. Research suggests hydrolysed wheat and soy protein have a modest protective effect, being water soluble they would be more compatible with the conditioner method (if it works) than coconut oil. The alkalinity of baking soda might denature the enzymes (proteins) in raw honey.

Peroxide only box dyes damage hair in various ways. Firstly the alkalinity destroying the fatty f-layer, but that is gone anyway from the older ends of long hair. Secondly destroying the melanin pigment thus blowing holes in the cortex: that is the same with any type of lightening process. Some relevant links here
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=120288&page=7&p=2779927&viewfull=1#post2779927

Whatever you do run strand tests on shed plughole hair, don't use your whole head as a laboratory.

[legendya]

Any other tips on DIY lightening?

[vulgarshudder]

I just used peroxide and developer. Saturating the ends first, with a hair dye brush worked it up sections to where I wanted it to start, and wrapped sections in foil to develop.

http://i59.tinypic.com/34959nd.jpg

The ends are super light cos I bleached twice over the space of two years.

[MINAKO]

I never did an ombre, but i have seen one of my friends whos a hairdresser posting pictures of a method she did to a friend. The girl was laying on the floor with her hair spread out like sunrays, and the hairdresser painted further towards her head every few minutes. She had a green dye over that later, but it looked very even and i think that method would give you great control, or better said, the person who assists you. The floor can be protected with a large plastic wrap or cut open garbage bag.

[legendya]

I just used peroxide and developer. Saturating the ends first, with a hair dye brush worked it up sections to where I wanted it to start, and wrapped sections in foil to develop. http://i59.tinypic.com/34959nd.jpg The ends are super light cos I bleached twice over the space of two years. It looks really nice! I'm going to use foil too.