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View Full Version : How can I achieve the lighter hair I had as a child?



markay23
December 15th, 2015, 01:06 PM
When I was younger (I am 20 now) I had light brown hair that had blondish highlights in the summer. I started dying my hair when I was 15 and I stopped at 18 to grow my natural again. However, it's not the same! It's not too dark, but not the same it used to be. My thoughts about why this is happening is 1) Hair just changes with age 2)I dont nearly spend as time in the sun as I did as a kid 3)My hair has grown back just lately so it didnt have enough time with the environment to lighten
What do you think? When I compare my hair with others it's lighter than just brown but if you see it on it's own it seems to be just brown. My baby hair is blondish though, as some front strands of my hair are lighter as they were when I was younger
peace <3

markay23
December 15th, 2015, 01:08 PM
Something I forgot to ask, would chamomile or other natural sprays lighten the hair in a subtle natural way or would they make this artificial uneven bleached effect?

Ve
December 15th, 2015, 01:18 PM
I have the same hair. I was a white blonde and it just got darker as I grow up. I have Polish, Ukraine, Irish background and that is usually just the way it goes with a lot of blondes.

You could try lightening with honey there are forums here that talk about it if you search but if you look at some of the long hair women here with similar hair color to you it does lighten up over the years.

TR
December 15th, 2015, 01:53 PM
There are ways to lighten your hair but even the natural methods (lemon juice, honey, etc) are permanent and all result in some damage. Plenty of people here on LHC manage to lighten their hair with minimum damage...there's even a whole thread here for people who use bleach. Search up the honey, bleach, and lemon threads and you'll find a lot of good help. Also consider the upkeep and growout; full-head lightening will be more damaging and require more upkeep than highlights or ombré, so you'll have to decide which application method works best for you.

Anje
December 15th, 2015, 02:06 PM
Hair does just change with age. Mine waited til my mid-20s to darken, but it went from bright red to auburny brown on me.

Chamomile and some of the other things you can spray in will add some yellow tones. It might make it come across as looking a bit brighter, it might just look brassy to you. Depends what you like on yourself, I think.

You'll hear a bunch about honey lightening around here. This takes advantage of the peroxide found in honey. A nice aspect of it is that it's slow and subtle, but really it's no different than just spritzing your hair with some Sun-in peroxide and letting it lighten. There's a risk of damage if you go too heavy on any of those sorts of things. If it were me, I'd probably drench my hair in coconut oil for a few hours (we've got lots of anecdotal evidence that this massively reduces or eliminates bleaching/peroxide damage), then I'd spray Sun-In or a similar product over my oily hair. Follow the directions on the box and don't try to do anything too fast.

Hope that helps!

Deborah
December 15th, 2015, 04:18 PM
It's pretty normal for many people who have lighter colored hair to find that it gets darker as they get older. If you want your hair to be it's healthiest, then just accept and embrace the new color. If you don't mind damaging the hair, then you can lighten it. Just keep in mind that you will damage your hair if you lighten it.

Nellon
December 15th, 2015, 08:11 PM
I personally found that spraying some lemon mixed with chamomile tea (when cooled down) over my hair and then being in the sun helped on my medium ash blonde hair get slightly lighter. Lemon is drying though, so be aware of that! (And too much sun is also not good for you!!)

Bergelmir
December 15th, 2015, 08:36 PM
I think it may be a good idea using black cummin oil mixed together with the juice of lemon zest and some lemon juice, remove leftovers so it will be juice only and then let the sun do some bleaching. Basically essential oils and acids, both got the potential for bleaching effects. Dryness should be not a issue when a fatty oil is included. You may also try ginger juice in the recipe as it can contain lot of essential oil able to improve bleaching. Always try it out subtle, nobody knows how your hair or scalp may react.

chen bao jun
December 16th, 2015, 06:18 AM
there's a thread on here called 'bottle blonde goes long' or something like that. Lots of hints and advice on how to keep your hair as healthy as possible while lightening it.

Its a thing coded into your genes. the vast majority of blond kids are coded to get darker hair as they get older--blond kids are not rare in certain backgrounds; but people who stay blond past puberty are a much narrower set; people who stay blond into their twenties rarer still, if they are still blond when they get pregnant, women's hair darkens then; and then of the tiny remainder, most will get have their hair get dark as they start to grey and have brown and grey mingled. EVerybody's hair get somewhat lighter with a lot of sun (but then you have to consider skin damage as well as sun damage); people who have lighter hair (dark blond or light brown) have hair that is easier to lighten and are generally accepted as 'blonds' in our society if they have light skin and blue eyes (and the dye job is not too clumsy or an off color for their complexion).

Since you had dyed darker, it comes as more of a shock to see your hair color change than it would have if you had seen it happening gradually and of course takes some getting used to. Lighten now if you really can't stand it, but its not a disaster. There's another thread on here,( actually I think are several) showcasing the beauty of dark blonde/light brown hair kept natural which usually in my opinion, suits a person better if they have changed (since the complexion changes somewhat too in the people who are not genetically keyed to be 'forever blonde'.) But its a matter of taste, of course.

LoneStarfruit
December 16th, 2015, 08:19 AM
When I was younger (I am 20 now) I had light brown hair that had blondish highlights in the summer. I started dying my hair when I was 15 and I stopped at 18 to grow my natural again. However, it's not the same! It's not too dark, but not the same it used to be. My thoughts about why this is happening is 1) Hair just changes with age 2)I dont nearly spend as time in the sun as I did as a kid 3)My hair has grown back just lately so it didnt have enough time with the environment to lighten
What do you think? When I compare my hair with others it's lighter than just brown but if you see it on it's own it seems to be just brown. My baby hair is blondish though, as some front strands of my hair are lighter as they were when I was younger
peace <3

I can commiserate. I'm Polish, and my hair was white-blonde as a child (I looked like I had no eyebrows lol), golden blonde through my adolescence, dark blonde into my 20s, and now (30s) I'm light brown (stylists insist it's dark blonde, but it really, really isn't) with a smattering of white hair (apparently I'm skipping the silver stage and going straight to white).

I've tried honey + cinnamon et al (didn't budge my colour more than maaaybe 1/2 tone after 6 weekly applications that I left on for 5 hours each... so I wasted 30 hours of my life but at least it smelled good :rolleyes:) and then went the highlight option. This is where I wanted to give you a big warning, because I know it's not common, but for me? My hair now goes red. Yes, I know all hair has to go through a stage of bleaching that goes brown, reddish, ginger, yellow, white but I've been through 7 professional salons and they all manage to make my hair orange, can't seem to budge it past that stage, and all the toner in the world doesn't get the warm out. I might be cursed (or 7 senior colourists might be incompetent; either is possible) but I wish I hadn't touched it at all now. :/

I can't attest to the sun route + lemon juice as I have very very pale skin and had several bad sunburns as a child, so my skin cancer risk is sky high. Which is a shame, because I've seen the best 'natural' results of people who've put their hair up in a ponytail or twist, 'wiped' lemon juice over the exposed parts, and then sat in the sun--seems to give you lightening right where the sun hits, so gives you a nice subtle sun-glimmer effect. With me, it'd probably go tangerine anyway... :(