Bleaching your hair white to hurry it along

[feralnature]

Ok, my hair is very slowy turning white and I would love for it to just go ahead and be all white. Has anyone here bleached their hair white to help it along and hurry up the process? How did you do it? Was it horribly damaging? I am pretty sure it would be but would still like to hear about it. Also, what about maybe dyeing the tips black and the crown white. Ideas? Thanks :)

[FrannyG]

Well, I bleached my hair once many years ago for a different reason, and it was so damaged that I couldn't bear it so I cut all of my hair off. So the moral of that story is don't bleach at home.

Now, I can tell you that there are people here who have bleached highlights who have very long hair.

However, they go to salons with hair colourists who really know what they're doing, and they really baby their hair.

I would never suggest that you do a whole head bleach, even at the best of salons.

You might want to consider highlights (others have done so while blending in the silvers), but make sure that the colourist is very experienced with caring for long hair. Also know that you will really have to treat your hair like fine lace.

It's not something to jump into lightly. Please give it not only the 2 week rule, but check out colourists and find someone who is on the same page as you regarding long hair care.

Best of luck to you, whatever you decide. :blossom:

[*thecatsmeow*]

Has your hair been dyed brown? If it has I think it might be too hard to make it white. Also gray hair is more fragile and the bleaching could really do some damage to the grays causing them to break off in large amounts while the rest remains more healthy. To do the least amount of damage you would want to do several bleaching sessions with low volume peroxide(20 volume) with a week or 2 between each session. I think the end result will be more yellow than white though and I don't think that is what you are aiming for. I hope this will help you out a little. I have bleached parts of my hair a few times and even when it doesn't seem too damaged at first it will get damaged really easily until it grows out.

[Cholera]

I bleached my hair from bright red to white, and it was terrible. My hair when it was wet was positively slimy, and when it was dry it felt like doll hair. But, I did it in one go. So, you could do it in several rounds, and just really baby it in between with protein treatments followed by moisture treatments.

[Kathie]

To get you're hair white you're going to need to do some serious bleaching... the best bet is not to do it all at once.

Oh, of course get a professional to do it, lightening you hair yourself can be tricky especially when your hair is more than one color! And maybe try foils? I'm a foil fan.

Using foils I've got the canopy of my hair really light... not white but a very light ashy blond. This was done over a 4-month period.
One more thing... if you chose to go down this road try a silver shampoo. It takes some of the brassy tones out of your hair that can occur as you lighten moving it towards a more silvery white color :cool:

[loralie]

Getting to white will totally ruin your hair. Seriously... nature doesn't turn you all white at once, it's a journey, embrace it! It'll come. I think your colour now is gorgeous, I love the lighter ends! :D

[GlassEyes]

Getting to white will totally ruin your hair. Seriously... nature doesn't turn you all white at once, it's a journey, embrace it! It'll come. I think your colour now is gorgeous, I love the lighter ends! :D
Yes, it is damaging, but honestly--if we all cared about what nature intended for our hair, half of us wouldn't dye.

It IS damaging though--REALLY damaging. HOWEVER, it is possible to do it and not have it be terrible -if- you use a toner to get it white after bleaching to yellow.

I've had white highlights as a side effect to dyeing my hair purple. My hair is, naturally, a dark off-black. It was lightened prior to dyeing (this was the third color I did on my highlights) to a pale yellow with...I think a total of 90 vol. bleach.

A toner is essentially a weak purple dye that pulls out a the yellow left behind. Damaging, yes, but nothing that can't be resolved with a little protein and trim. However, without babying, your hair will -hate- you, and possibly not grow anymore--but it IS possible to do.

My hair was fine after. :Shrug: And I used a ton of hairspray and stuff--it wasn't until I bleached it twice more that it was a problem. :D

[manderly]

Uh, but I'm guessing you're not completely grey yet, so if you were to bleach your hair white, you'd have to deal with your brown roots, right? That seems like an awful lot of work and damage to me :)

[annie09]

Maybe not much help but my mam used to have white hair (from starting med brown) and she used to use a streaking kit to dye hers,. She also used to wrap it in saran wrap it helped to get it whiter. Her hair was damaged but was only shoulder length, she kept the color up for 2 or 3 years and then dyed it brown while it grew out.

[Brat]

I agree with the roots issue. Why turn it all white when you're still going to have to bleach roots several times? I'd get tired of it and end up coloring it!

The other day, I saw the coolest coloring on a lady that was going grey. She had dark dark ends, probably about 3 or 4 inches, then above that was a lighter brown-almost blond for another 3-4 inches, and her roots were going grey. They were also 3-4 inches long. It was totally cool, each color was in a perfect straight line.

[rchorr]

The root problem would be enough to make me think twice. However, if you are totally gray, and then bleach? I don't know. It sounds really damaging to me.

RCHORR'

[lilravendark]

the bleach wont make it go white but a good toner will purple coloured as emntioned in a post before I got my hair to white from black with out that much damage I'd suggest L'oreal perfect blonde as that got my hair to a pale yellow after disasters with bleach leaving my hair orange, one box of perfect blonde later and tube of schwarzkopf blonde toner (which is purple) and voila white hair! I'd love to go back to white again but I think with my skin colour I always got the wow did you do that to look like storm comments lol

[Honestwitness]

Don't do it, feralnature.

[alwayssmiling]

I went from a mid brown colour to white blonde - although the colour was nice and I managed to get make it look reasonably healthy using lots of lovely products, it wasn't long before it broke off really badly and at an alarming rate. My hair was different lengths all over and it was always shorter on on side than the other so all the levelling up eventually gave me a very short bob. Thats when I decided to give up with the bleach. I now really regret bleaching. Some people seem to have very resilient hair, but mine just snaps very easily.

[Sarahmoon]

I think it would be better to just let it turn white by itself. That way all the hair will stay healthy instead of bleached and vulnerable. Besides, white streaks in darker hair can actually look real nice.

[LoveMyMutt]

I don't think I'd recommend bleaching all of it white...you'd need some seriously strong bleach, for one thing, to get you past the orange stage, plus you'd have to keep up with the roots and toning it to keep it from getting yellow. It would be a lot of work and probably pretty damaging.

[Curlsgirl]

I did have a friend who died her hair dark for years and realized all her natural hair was silver so she bleached it all out and cut it pretty short until the bleach was all cut off. It worked great for her although was still sort of ugly growing out since bleach doesn't really silver it unless you use a toner and then it is almost impossible to get it the same color as natural silver! It looks like you don't have much silver though so you would have roots to deal with for a long time, would NOT do that.

[kwaniesiam]

My hair is currently bleached and toned white, there is a picture in my album. If you want to keep your hair long, I highly recommend not doing it. Even super short my hair is very damaged and I'm having severe breakage. It took a lot to get it here, 3 all over bleachings and 4-5 root bleaches plus two toners. I only use 20 volume, never anything higher because it is safer to do multiple slow bleaches rather than one strong one.

[serious]

A few years ago I let my hairstylist use bleach to make some highlights to my graying hair cos I thought that would help my grays blend in better. It was a BAD idea!

It looked totally unnatural and the bleach completely ruined my hair, so I had to cut it all off.

Don't do it!

[Kristina713]

Careful with bleaching. Years ago, I dyed my hair black (box dye), and then later, when frustrated with roots, I had an expensive hairstylist bleach it out in an effort to get back to brown. What a disaster. The color was really bizarre, a mixture of orange and black. But also, my hair was just destroyed. It tangled to the point of almost turning into dreadlocks sometimes. It broke off all over the place. And it looked and felt like straw. It took years to grow out the damage. And this despite really babying it. Maybe people with stronger hair can handle bleach better, but I'll never go there again.

[May]

Have you thought about how your brown regrowth will look in a few weeks if you bleach your hair white? Are you planning on bleaching the roots until or IF your hair goes completely white?
I think this is an all around unwise idea...
I think using a semi colour gloss once in a while is a way less damaging, lower maintenance compromise.

[dropinthebucket]

Coming back from Italy, there was a woman on the plane with waist-length bleached white hair. Her hair was definitely quite damaged looking - i felt bad noticing this, and i think it's great she keeps it how she likes it, it's certainly none of my business - but it did look more like wool than hair. I don't think it's possible to bleach it white without noticeable damage and also keep it long, unless you start with very light hair to begin with.

[spidermom]

I've seen people in their 80s who still had salt and pepper rather than all white, so if you did this, you might have to deal with roots for a long-long time.

[x0h_bother]

I found this: http://www.wikihow.com/Get-White-Hair
I didn't know people used purple toner and shampoo to counteract the yellow.

[beachlover]

I really like the color it is in the pic, really pretty with the lighter ends on the bottom! If anything, maybe a few frace framing foils in a golden color like your ends just to frame your face and give some lighter strands. This is best done at the salon. I really like your hair just the way it is though!!!:)

[-simply Venus-]

I think it would be awesome, do it! I've bleached my hair twice, (separate times, but I still have those lengths that were bleached in my hair, only like the first inch and a half of roots aren't bleached/dyed, even though my hair is one color since I dyed it back XD ) And my hair is the softest that it's ever been in my life! It's all about how you take care of your hair, and bleached hair can still be healthy.

Remember, don't bleach to white. Bleach to pale yellow and then tone it with a purple toner to get it to white.

goodluck!