is highlighting your roots every six months ok?

[grecianmermaid]

Hi there!

I feel like i've said my story in every thread i've made, but i'll just give a quick run down in case any of you don't know me :')

I started bleaching my hair blonde four years ago and after 1 and a half years I suffered from over processing and had to cut my bellybutton length hair to collar bone length. after just over two years, my hair is now 1-2 inches away from waist length (i'm 5ft2), which i'm excited with but my dream goal would be tail bone length!

Anyway, even though I had to cut a lot of my hair off due to over processing, I stayed blonde because it's the hair colour which suits me best. last school year (sept - jun) I dyed my hair once in dec and then again in june. This school year, I was thinking to not bleach my hair for the whole year as length is something very important to me. However the regrowth is bothering me so much that i'm itching to dye it. is there anyone here who bleaches their hair regularly whilst still being able to grow their hair out?

any advice would be great!
btw - I don't do any heat styling what so ever.

[MidnightMoon]

Well, it all comes down to
1. your hair type/quality. Not everyone's hair is equally resistant to damage.
2. how you care for it. Do you also use heat? do you style? do you use oils? do you wear protective updos?

only you are actually able to tell how damaged is your hair... in my case, my hair is very fine and while it doesn't really break off despite having heavily bleached parts, it does get more tangles, and sometimes after wearing it down for a long while it sort of looks different from my virgin hair, you know?
it's not direct damage from having those bleached "ends" (more like from the shoulders down), but having it tangle more does lead to more vigorous brushing and ripping some hair, it feels more fragile
Another thing I'd keep in mind is if you're willing to maintain at that length or not. Sometimes when bleaching hair seems fine for the first months, maybe year, but with time damage will still be there, the hair you would now bleach would be hanging around for years and years to come, exposed to the elements, more fragile, perhaps will be bleached over at least once or twice since one can't completely avoid overlapping when in the salon, etc.
I think this was one of the threads for people who bleach and grow
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=21256

[lapushka]

Anyway, even though I had to cut a lot of my hair off due to over processing, I stayed blonde because it's the hair colour which suits me best. last school year (sept - jun) I dyed my hair once in dec and then again in june. This school year, I was thinking to not bleach my hair for the whole year as length is something very important to me. However the regrowth is bothering me so much that i'm itching to dye it. is there anyone here who bleaches their hair regularly whilst still being able to grow their hair out?

any advice would be great!
btw - I don't do any heat styling what so ever.

It all depends on how dark your natural hair is. If you are within a blonde/light brown range the amount of bleach they are going to have to put on your hair is going to be milder than when you come from darker hair. So, take that into account.

You suffered from over-processing once, so I don't know why you'd want to keep doing this. But oh well, I kept damaging my hair with dye & bleach as well until I suffered a chemical cut & burn and changed my ways (grew it out virgin). I know that's something you don't want to do.

Yes, you can grow long with bleach, but it all depends on what your starting color is, and how resilient your hair is.

If you feel you can't live without the blonde, go for it! :)

[sumidha]

There is a thread for people growing long, bleached hair, so it can be done, but I'll be darned if I can find it now. It might be this one: http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=21256

I think if your hair has tolerated bleach well in the past there's no reason to think your roots wont tolerate it well now, the problem is keeping it just on the roots... It seems like people start off wanting just the roots bleached and then somehow end up with highlights and lowlights and bleach baths to 'even out the color' and ombres etc etc etc and then before you know it their hair is breaking off from too much processing. I would say definitely go to a salon to have it done, and explain to the colorist that you want to grow it out more, so you don't want more bleach on the length... Then it just depends on the skill of the colorist what you'll end up with.

ETA: Whoops, I see MidnightMoon already linked to the thread I was thinking of. :o

[spidermom]

Sure - it's your hair. Do what you want. You may eventually learn that you have to choose one or the other because you can't have both. On the other hand, you may not. Only you can determine that.

I recently learned that I can't have extra-long hair (I'm talking beyond tailbone length) without lots of split ends. I don't like that and have gone shorter than waist length for the time being. It often happens that you can't have everything.

[kidari]

You're gotten a lot of really good advice so far on this thread!

I think that you shouldn't have bleach overlapping on previously bleached parts as much as you can help it. Doing a balayage and only getting it done twice a year should do the trick, but going to a really talented colorist who uses good products and cares about the health of your hair is more important. I would imagine that they would already have a professional lightener that is both extremely effective yet gentle on the hair and they would blend the regrowth into your already lightened ends (preferably not re-lightening the very ends and even the mid-lengths). During the 6 months when you don't see your colorist you can take really good care of your hair (avoiding heat, gentle handling, deep treatments, etc). One thing to point out is that you shouldn't have a color that is too drastically lighter than your natural color- not only will the maintenance or growing out period be effortless but you won't have such a stark contrast and feel the need to touch up. Also, the colorist won't have to lighten your hair as much which will help maintain the integrity a bit better. Also, in order to avoid brassiness and that really faded out bleached look you should use things like purple shampoos etc to look after the color at home. In the past I made the mistake of toning my hair with traditional toners that are mixed with peroxide. It gave me great results but over time my ends got trashed. Now I use semi-permanent dyes mixed in with conditioner- be careful you only need a drop or even less of the dye and a ton of conditioner. Start off slow, because you don't want to turn your hair purple, green, or grey on accident. Don't do it too often either because this method darkens your hair and slowly washes out (but it will eventually stain it, ironically lasting longer than a permanent dye).