Bleaching my hair white? Advice needed!

[TokyoPink]

Hi guys, I'm normally just a bit of a lurker round here but I've come across as few hair problems and you guys are the only people I trust when it comes to hair advice xD

Ok so I've got such a huge itch to have white white hair - think Deanerys from Game of Thrones. I think there was a post on here a couple of weeks ago from someone who found the dyed white hair trend a bit ridiculous - and I agree, it is haha - but I've always loved the look of white/grey hair ever since I was tiny and always wanted it for myself, and neither of my parents went grey early, even my mum who is almost sixty has only one or two grey hairs but nothing substantial, so it's kind of a recurring fantasy of mine. I tried it a couple of times before but I never knew how to take care of it properly (shampoo only, lots of silicones, brushing whilst wet ugh) and also I didn't realise what a toner was so I'd try and bleach all the way to white so my hair would just get into worse and worse condition.

Obviously in order to get white hair I'll have to lift the pigment out and then tone it. The only two products I have in mind for this is the ammonia-free Loreal Platinum bleach paste and Developer (20%) both of which I can easily get on ebay, and Special Effects toner.

Firstly I'm not sure whether to bleach using the product above or use a high-lift colour. With the bleach I'm sure to get my hair light enough to tone it to white, but I've never used a high lift blonde colour on my hair before so I'm not sure whether it will be just as damaging/whether it will lighten it enough. If any of you can reccomend any specific lighteners/toners that would be helpful.

Another thing would be aftercare - I'm planning on purchasing some Aloe Vera, Shea Butter, Argan Oil, Cassia Obavata and Coconut Oil whether I lighten it or not but if any of you guys can reccomend some products or techniques which work well on bleach hair (CO washing, ect) that would be welcome.

Also I won't be going to a hairdresser, they're far too expensive for me and I've applied hairdye to my own and other people heads many times, getting the colour for me is fine but my issue here is damage and product reccomendation and also whether or not it would suit my skintone (I'm very very pale with freckles and green eyes).

My plan overall is to wait until my college results arrive (it's finally over yay!) and if I pass all my exams then I can dye my hair white. For root upkeep I'd probably do half my head every three months then a full head every six months.

Oh and here's a picture of my current hair for reference:

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr214/tokyopink08/th_30thjune2011.jpg (http://s485.photobucket.com/albums/rr214/tokyopink08/?action=view&current=30thjune2011.jpg)

It looks very messy and dry because I had literally just woken up when I took the picture and it needed a wash XD

I'm not planning to bleach my hair straight away but I'm thinking around August, so if I still fancy white hair by then I'll probably go through with it, although to be perfectly honest I'm very uneasy about the whole idea and wondering if maybe it's a case of getting 'hair bored' - either way I would love any advice you guys could give me :D

Also thankyou very much for taking the time to read this ridiculously long message for anyone who got all the way through it xD

[PrincessBlondie]

Read my recent thread, before you think about bleaching your hair. Its a lovely look, but the up keep is huge and touching up your roots without overlapping (breakage alert) is russian roulette. I always go to a salon to get mine done, but distaster has still struck.

Go for it if you don't mind the damage it will do, and the potencial for breakage.

ps. 20% ??? Do yu mean 20 vol? 20 vol is 6% x

[Nightshade]

Cassia may stain your hair yellow. I'd go with Zizyphus spina christi (http://www.mehandi.com/shop/zizyphus/)if you want a true no-color option.

Obviously you're dancing on the knife's edge of disaster with such a high lift, but you seem to understand that :)

[BohoClassic]

I used to bleach my own roots and despite being meticulous with my hair care my hair was still breaking off in handfulls! I ended up having my waistlength hair cut into a bob because of the peroxide damage.Then of course there is the huge amount of upkeep. I agree with the other poster that said its a game of Russian roulette. I would never let bleach near my hair again.

[pink.sara]

Hiya, I have bleached all my hair to White previously and maintain a White streak now < look here!
First you're on the wrong forum for this! Go here: http://www.hairdyeforum.com/index.php
For awesome White bleaching/toning tutorials.

Secondly, you seem to have a lot of red tones in your hair which are hard to eliminate.
In any case White isn't a process you want (or in most cases even can) do in one day.
Be prepared for the possibility you may have to bleach twice, (the second is normally only a bleach bath) several weeks apart then tone weekly to maintain.
It may break your hair off pretty short, it may turn your hair to chewing gum. And bleaching roots only every 3 months will leave you with Horrific roots! I need to bleach my White section every 4 weeks and mine grows really slowly!

If you're still set on it and accept you will have some pretty fragile hair after then stock up on purple shampoo and conditioners, Shwarzkopf are good, as is lush Daddy-O. Roux - White Minx is a leave in you can get from Sallys the helps eliminate the yellow really well without the drying effect of having to shampoo it.

And protein will be your best friend. Invest in some Aphogee, some Redken or some Kerastase Forceintense to rebuild your hair structure. Then oil! Lots. But not with cassia as it will add the yellow back in!

HTH and post pics if you do :)

[TokyoPink]

PrincessBlondie - Ah yes thankyou! 20 vol is what I meant, I got confused. And I shall go to read your thread now! I like to hear from other peoples personal experiences

Nightshade - thankyou very much for the link, I had no idea that zizuphus spina christi existed! I'll look into it but I'm not sure where I could get it in the Uk.

Bohoclassic - Oh no I am sorry about your hair :( I think I need to read more of other peoples experiences to give me a kick in the head as to just how much damage I could get from this.

pink.sara - thankyou very much for the link, I'll take a peek around the boards there. And I'll add those products to my list. But I have never heard of a bleach bath? It sounds like dipping your hair in bleach to me xD


I've just had a thought - perhaps I could bleach just one streak of hair rather than all over and evaluate the damage I get? I think perhaps keeping away from colour for so long has made me forget how badly it can affect hair.

[pink.sara]

Lol! You don't bathe in bleach, you mix up on-scalp powder bleach and peroxide as normal then add an equal volume of shampoo to dilute it a bit ( I actually do this but with conditioner to remove manic panic and other colours without additional damage)

A streak would be a good idea to test your hair resilience, and isn't as much of a commitment as a full head of bleach when you need another person with great skills to get the roots in the back of your head!

[Anje]

Around here, Kwaniesiam is another member to talk to -- she's a trained colorist and bleached her own hair white a while back, and her hair is quite fragile.

Offhand -- I've heard excellent things about saturating hair in coconut oil before bleaching. Supposedly, it binds up copper ions that could otherwise damage hair during the process, reducing damage. Also, I'm pretty sure Kwanie swore that regularly doing the Aphogee 2-step protein treatment saved her hair from completely disintegrating after she had it white.

Finally, I'm seconding Nightshade -- Cassia has a yellow dye to it, which you'll want to avoid.

[TokyoPink]

pink.sara - that seems like an interesting idea. Would it be possible to bleach bath only to get my hair all the way to blonde rather than using straight bleach and peroxide and just gradually lighten that way?

Anje - when you say coconut oil before bleach, do you mean bleaching with the oil still on your hair or doing an oil treatment beforehand? And I'll look into the aphogee thing too

[justgreen]

You've got more guts than I do. I leave my bleaching (12&#37;?) in the hands of my colorist. Once you've gotten the hair white, how do you intend doing roots only, by yourself? Just curious.

[pepperminttea]

You might find this thread interesting (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=70265). :)

[KittyLost]

Don't bleach your hair to white!

Bleach your hair to light yellow and tone, tone, tone until you get to white. I'm a member of the hairdyeforum that pink.sara gave you a link too and there is an amazing tutorial on there to achieve white hair done by a girl who has done it for her friend with minimal damage. This takes a lot of time and patience.

[Anje]

Anje - when you say coconut oil before bleach, do you mean bleaching with the oil still on your hair or doing an oil treatment beforehand? And I'll look into the aphogee thing too
As I understand it, you apply coconut oil heavily several hours before, leave it in, and bleach. Here's the original thread (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=10495), though you'll have to deal with the fact that the OP has edited her original post to the point where you have to read a while to infer what's being talked about.

[oktobergoud]

I have bleached my hair white several times. All I can say: it WILL damage your hair, most likely severe... no matter what you do! Bleach = bleach and will always damage your hair, be prepared for that!!
And achieving white is HARD, trust me! Not all your hair will end up even and the same, some spots will be more yellow, and then you have to tone.. which will make some spots maybe grey or even purple! And the roots.. pfft the roots! After a few DAYS you already have roots! It's insane!

I see you have fine hair as well (and medium) and I can tell you that my fine hair was damaged to the CORE. And I had a pixie! Still have by the way, and I'm finally growing it out now I'm not bleaching anymore.. but I still had to get a big cut a few months ago to get rid of the horrible ends... and I used professional stuff and knew what I was doing!

Everybody's hair will react differently though, but it's just a warning that it will most likely severely damage your hair and that you might lose some length! And it's a LOT of work and upkeep!

That being said, white hair is awesome, and I miss it dearly. But the damage just wasn't worth it in the end (although I did it 3 times so I was tempted every time again :P)

I used 30 vol by the way, 20 wouldn't lighten up my hair good enough (I have dark blonde hair), but only needed one session (with the roots, before that I had henna in my hair = HELL to bleach out! But eventually I got almost all virgin hair again, which I bleached white again, and it was .. well.. velcro again :P)

[TokyoPink]

Justgreen - I can apply bleach/dye on the crown of my head easily by myself, I've done it a good few times before, and I would probably get my mum to do the back for me, I trust her not to overlap the dyes because she's been my go-to hair-fixer for many years. But as I said in the original post, I probably wouldn't do my roots very often. I think I may be the only person in the world who likes the look of dark roots against white or pale blonde hair (I've never grown out of 90's grunge). Ah well, even if people think I'm an eyesore, it's my hair not theirs xD

pepperminttea - thankyou so so much, what a great thread! Her hair looks beautiful and it's pretty much exactly the colour I'm wanting mine.

Kittylost - I've learned from personal experience not to bleach straight to white haha, and I've been reading up on which toners people prefer, so far I've got Wella White Lady and Special Effects Toner on my list. Is the tutorial you're talking about the one by Gothicle? Or is there another I'm missing? I'm just wondering because obviously I want as much information as possible, though the end result picture on that tutorial is absolutely beautiful - I didn't even realise it was real hair at first!

Anje - Thankyou very much, I'll make sure to keep the coconut oil thing in the back of my mind. I'll put some time away later to read that thread over too.

Oktobergoud - I took a peek in your pictures (I hope you don't mind) and I must admit it only made me want the white hair even more xD However, I will take your warnings into account, I really do think I have forgotten just how badly bleach affects hair, it makes me wish I had taken pictures while it was bleached/dyed so I could remind myself how bad the damage was.


I think I've made up my mind to go out and buy some bleach and do a strand test next week, using either the SmartBlonde or Jerome Russell - I figure for a strand test a cheap bleach will do, I don't want to spend lots of money on a professional bleach then decide I don't want the hair anymore. I'll try and lighten it to the pale banana stage and see how much damage I get from that and whether or not it's fixable, I figure if I don't like it or if the damage is too much I can just go over it with henna and have an orange streak instead :pinktongue: I'll update with a picture once the strand test is done. I'll probably have to bleach twice, do you guys think 30 or 40 vol is better for my hair colour rather than 20?

[pink.sara]

pink.sara - that seems like an interesting idea. Would it be possible to bleach bath only to get my hair all the way to blonde rather than using straight bleach and peroxide and just gradually lighten that way?

Anje - when you say coconut oil before bleach, do you mean bleaching with the oil still on your hair or doing an oil treatment beforehand? And I'll look into the aphogee thing too

Hiya, sorry for the late reply. A bleach bath will only lift 1 shade maximum so you would need to bleach to a yellow/very pale orange tone before using it as a final step towards that pale butter yellow you need to tone White.

I forgot to say about the coconut oil too! I use this before I colour everytime, an also before I re-bleach my roots to match (I also dye my friend Tash's hair black and White, she's in my albums and use coconut on her too!)
I pretty much saturate my unwashed dry hair with coconut oil then apply bleach straight over it. It doesn't affect the final colour and does stop some of the damage.

As far as the volume of peroxide goes, always try the lower strengths first.
I know personally I have to use the evil 40 for an hour then bleach bath a week later for 20 mins to get it all evenly yellow to tone. With my streak and root regrowth I can use 30 for an hour then spread down the next inch or so for 3-5 mins to blend any line. But my hair is darker than yours and very thick and resistant. So go gently!!

[TokyoPink]

Ok so I did a strand test, and I decided to do it while my hair was still attached to my head (I know this is not how you generally do strand tests but I thought - what the hell I'll see how it goes)

After about 10 minutes of having the bleach on my hair (I coated the strand with coconut oil beforehand) I had to wash it out because my throat had swollen up to the point where it felt as though I'd had a relapse of tonsillitis :( not pleasant. So obviously I must be allergic to the ingredients in the bleach. For reference I used Jerome Russell 30 vol Bleach and developer.

This is the first time I've ever had a reaction to chemical dye, or perhaps its the first time I've noticed a reaction, le sigh. Luckily the swelling went down within a couple of hours, but I imagine if I had left it on for much longer it would be a lot worse.

So I guess the white hair is a no no! I might purchase a wig so that I can indulge myself on occasion though.

Thankyou all very much for your replies, even though I probably won't be able to use them, I still learned a few new things. I always have faith that the people on this site will teach me something new :D

My hair now has an interesting orangey strand at the back haha - I might henna over it and make it a bright red! :cool:

[Anje]

Well, I'm glad you did a small scale strand/allergy test before putting it on your whole head!

[TokyoPink]

So am I! I'm scared to think of what might have happened if I'd put it all over.

I do feel slightly silly now though - 'white hair? on me? when I spent so long growing it out healthy? really? - but I suppose its a good thing I at least tried something different, if only to knock me into my senses a little.