I want white hair. Help?!

[Luna12345]

Hi everyone.
I have been coloring my hair blue black for approximately 2 years now and need a change. I wanted to try something I've never done before so I thought of white. My natural hair is dark brown. It is currently colored black. I have a light olive complexion and dark brown eyes. Do you think it's possible to achieve this at home? And do you think it could look good with my dark eyes?
Has anyone here colored their hair white or close enough?

[AnqeIicDemise]

I do know that it takes a lot of bleaching to get it to get it light enough to tone white properly. I've seen it be done both on accident and on purpose. There's a lot of damage that happens in the process... and that's with short, virgin hair. If your hair is longer than collar bone and it has been dyed (especially in such a dark color as blue black) I strongly recommend that you go to a professional for a consult and having it done. DIYing something like this can be extremely tricky and the potential for a horrendous mistake to happen is much too high. At least in my opinion.

I've made the mistake of trying to dye my hair blue on my own and the bleaching process, itself, was my undoing. Turns out I have a light of red undertones and my hair goes quite brassy super fast... I wasn't applying the bleach evenly so I got patchy.

I'll dye my hair any color at home, but I refuse to bleach it.

Ps: the only reason my room mate gets her hair bleached that white at home is because our other roomie is a licensed cosmetologist and he does it for her. And even then, I've seen it go a little wrong too. (Too much purple shampoo toned it grey.)

[cathair]

My hair is dark brown and I couldn't even get it to blonde. A weird honey comb orange was about the best I could manage, which broke and snapped off. I would imagine it would be even hair if you hair is dark brown and then coloured black. You'd probably have to try to remove the black with a colour remover, then bleach many times over a long period of time and then use purple toner, I would imagine. I'm sorry that isn't very helpful for what you are trying to achieve, it's just fair warning really. It would probably be easier to wait until you naturally go white!

[AnqeIicDemise]

My hair is dark brown and I couldn't even get it to blonde. A weird honey comb orange was about the best I could manage, which broke and snapped off. I would imagine it would be even hair if you hair is dark brown and then coloured black. You'd probably have to try to remove the black with a colour remover, then bleach many times over a long period of time and then use purple toner, I would imagine. I'm sorry that isn't very helpful for what you are trying to achieve, it's just fair warning really. It would probably be easier to wait until you naturally go white!

Yeah, I forgot to mention that sometimes, you just can't go white all at once. You'll have to take it in steps if you want to keep your length.

The only person I saw who managed it white in one go also destroyed his hair. But he didn't care because his hair was like... three inches all over. He rocked the white look for about two weeks then shaved his hair. Lucky dude. (He said he fell asleep with the bleach on and woke up when it was burning a bit... about two hours later.)

[biogirl87]

Luna12345, I have not colored my hair any color (unless the sun lightening the ends naturally counts), but I think most people here say that it's not really possible to go from black to white without quite a bit of damage to your hair. About whether it could look good with your dark eyes, it really depends. I think most people who have light olive complexion have cool skin undertone (and therefore look best in cool colors), but even then you have to be careful. In general, if you look best in clear, warm or muted, cool colors, I don't think you would look good with white hair if you have dark brown eyes as there would not be harmony in your face (I have a hard time imaging someone with light olive complexion and dark brown eyes coloring their hair white and looking harmoniously if they look best when they wear clear and warm colors or when they wear muted and cool colors). Usually only people who are winter seasons and people who are light springs or light summers look good with white hair, but I don't know of any people who are light seasons' who have light olive green complexion. What colors do you tend to get compliments when you wear them?

[Luna12345]

I get compliments when i wear lavendar, black, royal blue and red.

[Firefox7275]

I'd be amazed if you can achieve white from black without completely frying your hair first. White is hugely damaging, it means getting rid of all melanin pigment which means bleach can start eating away at the structural proteins. And that is assuming you can even shift all the black, it's notorious for hanging around and can cause cuticle staining which won't ever bleach out.

[Wavelength]

Also worth considering -- the upkeep would be horrendous.

[jillosity]

I agree with everyone here that it would be quite difficult to get your hair white and add a hair coloring story of my own. When I was a gothy teen back in the 80's (yes I'm pretty old) I of course started out with black hair, and kept it black for about a year and a half and I was at about APL, maybe a bit longer in places due to awesome 80's angled cuts. My friend Tammy had very short hair that she bleached and dyed amazing colors, or she'd just bleach it and dye just the tips of her bangs bright turquoise or fuchsia, then she'd crimp and hair spray her whole head. I was very envious, I was bored with my boring black hair and we decided that we'd bleach my hair and dye it purple. We got the bleach and she mixed it up and we waited, she tested some strands and we waited some more, we finally washed it out because my scalp was feeling tingly.

Because I had dyed my hair black for so long, the ends only lightened to a very deep blackish purple. Then up the length the color changed to brown, then red, then orange, then yellow and finally, right near my scalp, to pure white. I had sunset hair. It was really something and looked pretty cool in a french braid at work that night, luckily I wore a hat as part of the uniform. I did end up with purple hair though, eventually.

[Jenny31557]

If you don't know if you would look good with white hair, then I would suggest you try on a white wig and see what you think.