My Hair needs Healing

[Vapunzel91]

I love my artificial hair colors, but in order to do them I need to bleach somewhere to a level nine or ten--the lightest hair can get with melanin. Yesterday, I had an appointment for my rainbow colors at the salon since I wanted to use Illumen. I'm happy so far with the Illumen, but the problem was my bleach.

The last six times I bleached at home there were no problems. Two days ago I remembered my salon appointment and that I needed to lighten it. Dumb thing--I put on the bleach when I was tired and I fell asleep sitting on the couch for five hours with the bleach on it. Thankfully, I didn't do my roots so the bleach never touched my scalp. Thankfully, there was a towel draped over the couch were my head landed so I still have an all-blue couch.

When I woke up I immediately washed out the bleach, but I needed to wash it six times--once with the deactivator and the rest with Pantene shampoo. Twelve hours later I was at the salon. I had to get my hair trimmed and layered since the edges were fried the most and would've caused more damage in the future to the rest of my hair.

The colors came out great, but I don't love it like the other rainbows I've done. The reason is because of the five-hour sleep bleach I did the night before. The hair is so damaged that it looks like someone ran a straightener and it will never return to it's wavy form. The other rainbows didn't have this bad of bleach damage so the hair could remain more natural in shape.

Now, which is why I'm writing to all of you is if anyone has tips for to give it more shape (that's not gel)? Right now, my stylist has me using RedKen Extreme Conditionner mixed with the RedKen Exteme CAT, and RedKen Extreme Shampoo.

[Mesmerise]

Ouch! I honestly think the best thing you can do is baby your hair as much as possible, give it the recommended protein treatments (I'd say it would need that after the damage it's been through) and don't bleach it again! (At least...not the bits you damaged).

I really don't think damage like that can be healed. The best you can do is minimise further damage/breakage. I don't think you'll get your good hair structure back again until the damage has grown out. However, I would loved to be proven wrong on this point (honestly, my experience is that bad bleach damage just won't go away and the hair won't return to normal... but I am NOT an expert).

I have some damage in my hair too, caused by heat straightening and dye. I haven't used ANY high heat on my hair, or chemical dye for almost a full year, and my hair structure is still not normal. And honestly, I really didn't think it was THAT damaged (it doesn't break or split)... but the structure of the hair just isn't right. It's quite frizzy and the wave structure is just... weird. No amount of gentle care or treatment has "fixed" this problem.

[lolabird]

Oh ouch! Sorry to hear about the damage. I don't have advice, just reading along.

[Mayflower]

I think the Redken Extreme line is a good idea, especially the CAT Treatment is full of proteins and that's exactly what your hair needs after 5 hours of bleach:p. However, I'm with Mesmerise; that kind of damage will never be repared completely, but in order to keep the hair looking okay I would use the CAT once a week or bi-weekly, and always follow it up with a deep moisturizing treatment.
Good luck!