Questions for bleached hair.

[shoosie]

Hi, for those who bleached your hair before... how much breakage do you usually get a day?
And how long did it take for the breakage to decrease with TLC?

[Rebeccalaurenxx]

I really have no idea how much breakage I was getting but it was enough that my hair did not look like it was growing for a long long while.
It took about a year before my hair got better and it was because I cut out all the bleach.

[pili]

At the end, enough for me to resort to cutting it all out. I had showers of broken ends all over my clothes and sink. I'm done with bleach forever.

[shoosie]

I really have no idea how much breakage I was getting but it was enough that my hair did not look like it was growing for a long long while.
It took about a year before my hair got better and it was because I cut out all the bleach.

How long is your hair? One year to get rid of the bleach is quite a short time!

I'm getting about 20 strands of breakage per day from the bleach. Is that normal? I might mix up some shedding for breakage because my hair and breakage are of different lengths but most of them have no bulbs at the roots.

[shoosie]

At the end, enough for me to resort to cutting it all out. I had showers of broken ends all over my clothes and sink. I'm done with bleach forever.

Yes I know what you mean. Bleach is so damaging and hard to grow them out. But happy for you though. Your hair must be in good condition now that the bleach is gotten rid of!

[pili]

Yes I know what you mean. Bleach is so damaging and hard to grow them out. But happy for you though. Your hair must be in good condition now that the bleach is gotten rid of!
Yes, but I have not regained my length yet. There is still a bit of damage left, but I've already lost all I'm willing to cut out. TLC only takes you so far. And depending on your hair, you may be able to slow it down some, but the only way to stop it is to stop bleaching.

[Rebeccalaurenxx]

How long is your hair? One year to get rid of the bleach is quite a short time!

I'm getting about 20 strands of breakage per day from the bleach. Is that normal? I might mix up some shedding for breakage because my hair and breakage are of different lengths but most of them have no bulbs at the roots.
It was a year of growing, cutting everything out, then growing another 1.5 years to get to the length I'm at now -BSL. So technically it took me about 2.5 years to get to the length I'm at now.

[Adorkable One]

I don't feel like I got much breakage from bleaching necessarily....it was everything ELSE that would cause the breakage. When done correctly, It's not the act of bleaching that causes the biggest damage. Yes it does weaken your hair of course, and that's definitly an issue. How I look at it though, is all the other things that normally damage hair, like styling and what not, all those factors are greatly magnified because your hair structure has been compromised at one point. That's how it feels to me at least. So in theory, you can still have nice hair that's been bleached, it's just going to be more difficult to keep it healthy and looking nice.

When done incorrectly, like if your hair is bleached multiple times, or you use too high a volume, that's when I feel bleach gets especially damaging. I have the perfect example of that in my own hair. You can see an actual mark in my hair, where my hair was bleached on natural, healthy hair, and where my hair had been bleached multiple times, trying to remove years of old color. The parts of my hair that were bleached poorly, have significant breakage, dryness, dullness, and loss of any natural texture. However, the portion of my hair that was bleached well, more or less looks pretty normal for my hair type. I don't have this problem anymore, but for a while, I would get these bits of hair all over my shirt when I'd brush it. It would just be inch long piece of hair, sprinkled everywhere. It must have been piece of hair snapping off, and in my picture, you can see how sparse the ends of my hair were.

http://i.imgur.com/vxci4jL.png

[mellsss91]

Coconut oil helps for damaged hair. Also olaplex! It works Amazing

[maborosi]

The bottom couple of feet of my hair have been bleached, once, back in November of 2015. (see my sigpic)
I did notice an initial increase in dryness at first, however, my hair has had no real issues beyond that.
It isn't thin, dry, scraggly, or splitting at the ends, and I feel I've given it ample time to see if those issues develop.

I used the strongest % of developer left on for about 45 minutes

[Mrstran]

I had a ton of breakage and not only did my hair "stop growing" but also gradually got shorter. No matter what was done or how much TLC I gave it, nothing was helping. It didn't quit breaking until I gave up and did a big chop.

I now baby the crap out of it and it has been growing again.
though, my case was extreme. For some reason I doubt you are at the point of chopping if you are just having breakage alone.
When your hair is losing a significant amount of length in a short time. That is when a good cut is needed.

So I'd have to say that only after my cut did my hair get better. Since yours isn't as bad, maybe if you trim every so often, you'll recover.

[Youandmejin]

My hair currently attached to my head has been bleached seven times and dyed and/or toned more times than I care to remember.
My hair is drier and more prone to splits and breakage but it's honestly not awful. My ends feel a little thinner but I also got layers and it's been quite a while since I've gotten a haircut. My hair is naturally very thick and healthy so even with thinner ends, my hair is on the thick side and I didn't start feeling any negative effects on my hair until about the fourth time I bleached it but that's pretty uncommon I guess.

[BexArt1994]

I had my hair bleached about 9 months ago and I'm still getting a fair bit of breakage even with TLC it hasn't changed (maybe 20/30 small broken hairs a day). I sincerely regret having it bleached and can confidently say I will never have it bleached again. Dying it red/black from dark brown did damage it in making it dryer and having more splits but it never broke off as much as it did after bleaching.
As others have said the only way it will probably get better is by cutting off the bleached parts but I'm doing that by making small trims every few months so it will take me a long time.

[Hay_jules]

Adorkable One, wow! What a difference between your hair! I always say that it's possible but your picture illustrates that beautifully.

I did two full bleachings and several bleach, shampoo, oil applications...turning my level 2 brown hair into level 7-8 blonde. My ends were like velcro and i went to the salon to get it cut. The hairdresser (questionable) was so rough combing/brushing my hair breakage was flying everywhere. She also did a crappy job but once the velcro ends were gone and i started implementing things ive learned here, the integrity of my hair has improved drastically, in just a few months. My hair is damaged, and it looks frizzy because of the broken hairs, but i get no breakage now. Not at all. And my fall out is minimal, maybe 20 hairs a day max. My growth had slowed to a crawl during and after the bleaching but again, that's improved and seems back to normal. My last bleaching was nov 2016 (after i had already joined here) and somewhere in jan it started growing again. Maybe not quite my normal rate but about .75" month. And to my surprise my curl pattern is returning too.