Bleach question

[Jeno86]

So a week ago, I tried to bleach a part of my hair to as close to white as possible. My mom's hairdresser put 40 bleach on my hair and we left it on for an hour. It didn't kill my hair at all but it wouldn't go past lemon yellow. No matter what we did, lemon yellow.

My father has patches of white hair in his naturally black hair. My mom tried to bleach his hair to make it all white. She too left the bleach on for an hour. It did the same thing, lemon yellow.

Now I take after my dad more than my mom. My father is Cherokee. I'm wondering if our Native American "DNA" be the reason our hair won't bleach past lemon yellow?

[allnight avenue]

Did the hairdresser tone your hair? Just bleaching alone will make anyone's hair look yellow. You need to use a toner afterward to get rid of the brassiness. Then after a few days/weeks of recovery, bleach and tone again to lighten it even further. If your hair and your dad's hair is black, it would probably take 3 cycles of bleaching and toning to get it as light as you want ...if not 4 or 5.

Once you're there, you'll need blue shampoo to keep it from getting yellow again anyway.

[ktani]

This may help, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showpost.php?p=459057&postcount=303

ETA: and this http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showpost.php?p=621828&postcount=3823

[ktani]

I do not think the answer to your problem is more bleach, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showpost.php?p=465158&postcount=51

ETA: On the way to her famouse white hair, Marilyn Monroe's hair

http://dariandarlingnyc.blogspot.com/2009/10/schizophrenic-blonde.html
"There are several problems with doing Marilyn's hair; it's very fine and therefore hard to manage. It gets oily if it isn't shampooed every day and her hair is naturally so curly that to build a coiffure for her I have to first give her a straight permanent. The way we got her shade of platinum is with my own secret blend of Sparkling Silver bleach plus 20 volume peroxide and a secret formula of silver platinum rinse to take the yellow out" - Gladys Rasmussen, Marilyn's long time hairdresser"

These days there are products like Manic Panic Virgin Snow
http://www.manicpanic.com/besthaircolor/virginsnow.html

[pink.sara]

Its toning thats the key.

As someone with almost black hair full of red tones that is low porosity and highly chemically resistant I have managed to get it this (look at my avatar <) white.

The key is to bleach to what I call "butter yellow" then use toners, coloured shampoo and conditioner and leave ins to tone the yellow, it will eventually, after a few weeks, be sparkling white.
Here are some useful products you can find in Sallys or on Amazon that are great for white hair:
Toners:
Proclere herbal platinum. Manic Panic Virgin Snow (try to find the Amplified version). Stargazer White. Directions White.
Shampoos/conditioners: Schwarzkopf touch of silver, John Freida Blonde. Lush Daddy'O. Indola Innova Violet.
Leave Ins: Fancifull Roux in Ultra White Minx (this is literally a violet/blue water that you distribute a few spoonfulls through towel dry hair and leave in, it washes out the next time)

It will get you to the white colour you are after but you have to give it time, use a toner every 2 weeks, a shampoo or conditioner in violet once or twice a week and let it build up.
Trying to bleach it to white results in destroying all the pigment and having candyfloss hair as a result, tone it! :)

Oh, and the reason I have superdark thick hair that resists bleach and perms ect is my Navajo Granny.... I inherited her hair type so we're in the same boat there! Luckily it also means you can bleach to almost white and still grow it long as its tough stuff!

Good Luck :)

[Jeno86]

Thank you everyone for all of your answers!

Yeah we tried two kinds of toner and nothing worked. Probably didn't help that she had never tried white before haha....and not wanting to deal with that yellow for another week before trying again.

[pink.sara]

Thank you everyone for all of your answers!

Yeah we tried two kinds of toner and nothing worked. Probably didn't help that she had never tried white before haha....and not wanting to deal with that yellow for another week before trying again.

Sadly it doesn't work instantly when you start so dark and so resistant.
It's a long process and requires building up the violet to keep it white without overdoing it and ending up grey. If you cant stand having the yellow for a few weeks then white probably isn't going to work so well for you :(

[talecon]

I have nearly black hair but its very fine and I managed to get mines white with alot of light bleachings (think 20 developer rather than 40) and wellas white lady toner. most of the time your hair has to be a really pale yellow for a toner to take, almost bleach blonde. so if the toner didnt work try bleaching it again and toning again afterwards.

[FrozenBritannia]

Try a different hairdresser or an at home.. I had one hairdresser give me a white patch (to put purple on) easily, but another took 5 hours to do my ROOTS and even then it was a yellow unlike the rest of my hair, which was done at home with times of bleaching (blondissma or l'oreal 200 are the whitest) with deep conditioning in between..