Going blonde - inform me!

[krysalyss]

i am thinking of going blonde. I was blonde until I was around 10 years old when I went darker. I have died my hair red-brown since I was 15 with the occasional chocolate thrown in.

I think I can pull off a blonde and want a shade that is pretty natural looking, not platinum/white/silver. My skin is on the pale side with freckles and my eyes are blue. My arm hair etc is pretty light. I think it wouldn't look weird on me if I went a blonde/brown etc. But I am not sure how to go about it. About half of my hair probably has colour in although I can't really tell where the natural and dye meet. The dye I put in was permanent.

And I am also not sure how much maintenance it requires. I am a low-maintenance kind of person and that makes me hesitate on changing the colour.

Any experienced blondes or hairdressers out there that can advise me on how to take the plunge?

[LuluHB]

I went blonde once when I lost a bet. My colouring sounds much the same as yours and I tend to stick with copper/red streaks through brown as my hair colour of choice. I didn't think blonde really suited me, but then that may be my bias towards being blonde shining through ;-)

It was an enormous amount of effort for me - my hair grows quickly and so the regrowth was starting to get pretty unattractive after about 6 weeks. My bet was that I had to stay blonde for six months and to keep it looking good I was having to go back to have the roots done every 6 weeks and I found it went quite brassy looking. It also killed my hair (its quite fine) so I went from shoulder blade length to a pixie cut to get rid of all the yuck - I usually do radical cuts like that so it wasn't something that upset me. I would definitely recommend regular treatments to minimise the damage

[Jellyfish]

It is a lot of maintenance for most people. My hair sounds similar to yours - I was blonde till around 15 when it started to darken and I began dyeing it. Every 6 weeks it would need the roots done. After I had my first DD at 21 (so 6 years of blonde), I gave up and went my natural colour which is quite a dark brunette now. I don't miss the work at all haha.

[TaRhLi.]

I get my hair lightened blonde, my real colour is more strawberry blonde to auburn in winter. Although now the greys are coming through. I have a base colour of a more 'darker blonde' and the foils along my part line of a lighter blonde which blends it all in together. Now as my regrowth along my part line is grey - but a light grey that blondes get, not that steel grey darker haired people get - when it grows it all blends together. I generally only have to get the roots done every 6-8mths. My skin colour is fair with freckles and blue eyes and for about 5yrs or so I was a platinum blonde, I've thought about going darker but I just don't see it suiting me so chose to go darker blonde from platinum which works much better for me.

[forshelby]

I'm a natural blonde, however it went very ashy as I got older. I've been dying my hair all kinds of colours since the age of about 15. I decided to go back to blonde a few years back, and having a sister for a hairdresser helped!

My number one tip is SLOWLY does it. Do not attempt to do it yourself. Ever. You'll end up with white roots and orange ends. What you need is for a qualified professional to very slowly lighten your hair over a few processes, depending on how resistant the colour in your hair is. The ends will be the toughest. If you can, have some length trimmed off to make it easier.

I went from a 5 shade to a 10 (the lower the number the darker the colour) over the course of about 8 months. It takes commitment. But looks spectacular and natural if you do it right. By right, I mean SLOWLY. LOL, can I say that again? slowly. Bombarding your hair with harsh 12% peroxide treatments is a bad idea, and will leave you with frizz, breakage and general straw-like texture.

I had a series of treatments, each time going a little lighter. Realistically my hair was orange for a long time, but we used a 'filler' colour to cover that in the meantime. I quite liked the in-between shades. Honey and caramel etc, looked really nice. You might even find a shade you like and stick with it instead. Each treatment was a little easier as the more my hair grew, the less of it had resistant dye to overcome.

Having reds in your hair makes it quite challenging, as the red reflect is one of the hardest to remove. Patience and a good hairdresser are all you need. You will need to have your regrowth done more often than someone who isn't blonde to avoid that 'dirty' look, and you can't apply a peroxide based hairdye yourself... because you'll end up overlapping and having a bright stripe where the colour is overlapping. You can't do 'all over' applications, hence no at-home jobs. Unless you have a hairdresser for a friend. To avoid frequent touch ups, try to have a shade close to your natural colour. If you're an ashy shade for example, stick to ashy blondes.

So to sum up - slowly - fillers - and patience!

Can you tell I studied my first year of hairdressing?? lol

[*Efjay*]

My natural hair colour is like TaRhLi. For years I would go lighter, assuming being fair skinned, blue eyes, freckles & very pale eye brows & lashes that it would look weird if I went dark.

But I took the plunge about 6 years ago to go dark & now I wont go back to light. I have to keep up with tinting my brows & lashes though but thats simple enough.

However a few weeks back I thought I would strip the colour from my hair & put something a bit lighter then the darkest brown I had in it. I put 2 lots of bleach through it & then a red. It looks ok now but my hair is horrid. Im tempted to shave it off to be honest LOL. Which I have done before.

I would try getting lighter foils first for a lighter look before you go blonde

[forshelby]

Efjay nooooo!!!!!

I prescribe argan oil and deep treatments STAT. And a drastic haircut to help with the fried ends. bleach mishaps are the worst. I too learned the hard way!

[Floweryfields]

You can't really go blonde successfully with a pack - it takes quite a bit of hairdresser work (numerous visits) to go lighter and have it look nice. What are your eyebrows like? Are they dark or light because blonde hair with dark eyebrows is a bit obvious.

[volcomkitty]

I've been blonde for all of this year. After much umming and ahhing I decided to take the plunge. My natural hair colour is a medium brown, but I think I might have had a few highlights in still before I went complete blonde. My hairdresser didnt't want to give me a total bleach job straight up, so she gave me a full head of blonde foils first. When they started to grow out I went in and got the rest of my hair done.

My hair isn't really that high maintenance - I'm too lazy for that! Yes, my hair is a bit drier, but I chuck a bit of argan oil in the ends after a wash and it softens up. I use PPS Classic Blonde shampoo and conditioner to keep it toned and a Goldwell mousse toner every 2nd or so wash.

As for regrowth, I tend to get black dots appearing on my scalp about a week after I have it done, but I can usually leave it up to 6 weeks before I go in again. Just depends on your own skanky regrowth tolerance!

[Sopdet]

I've got dark hair and when I was blonde I was re-bleaching the roots every 1-2 weeks (3 weeks was too obvious). I was lucky that one of my girlfriends was a hairdresser so was doing it for me on the weekends. I had to start off with short hair because I needed to get rid of any hair that had previously had colour. Then we bleached it (from memory 3 or 4 goes to get to the blonde I wanted), treated it (I think it was something like a primer), had regular moisturising treatments. I also used blonde shampoo & conditioner.

Now if I'm going a drastic colour change, I have it on the underneath layers of my hair, currently I have the top layer dark brown and underneath is a red colour (so you can't see the regrowth)

[Mother Goose]

Apparently I do blonde well. But I can't justify the time or money to maintain a full head of blonde. So I have highlights put through my hair. The more highlights, the blonder I am if that makes sense?

The highlights work well because they grow out nicely. I usually go 3 months before needing it done again. It also looks natural and, if I wanted to go completely blonde down the track, is a great way to build up to it. Same going reverse, I I wanted to go darker, it's a great way to do it without a huge shock.

[krysalyss]

Hmmmm. Thanks everyone - you have given me a good start.

You can't really go blonde successfully with a pack - it takes quite a bit of hairdresser work (numerous visits) to go lighter and have it look nice. What are your eyebrows like? Are they dark or light because blonde hair with dark eyebrows is a bit obvious.

Oh, I definitely won't be going with a pack. The thought makes me shudder My eyebrows are pretty light.

[krysalyss]

Well I did it. It went a bit lighter than I (or the hairdresser) expected. I got a half head of foils. It's pretty blonde around my face and top but the underneath is still auburn/brown. I don't mind it but I don't love it. I might need time to adjust I think! Next time I think I might get some put in that are a bit more caramel or honey. The problem with doing it this time is the hairdresser wasn't sure it would come out much different to my normal colour. Oh well, if I don't get used to it I guess I can either re-dye it or cut it all off.