You might be tempted to bleach your own hair, which is when you strip the hair of your color to make it lighter.
This article will give you advice on how to bleach your hair at home, including how long you should leave it on your hair, and how to avoid irreversible damage.
How long you leave it on the hair depends on a number of factors, such as your hair color and texture.
It dyes the hair by opening the hair cuticle and dissolving the color (melanin). The longer you leave it on, the more the protein bonds (keratin) are destroyed.
The two most widely used bleaches are ammonia and hydrogen peroxide. Unfortunately, there aren’t many alternative products to help avoid damage.
For instance, Nikki Goddard, a certified hairstylist and makeup artist, says to not be fooled by products with a “peroxide-free” label.
All this means is that another oxidizing agent was used — one that could be even more harmful to the hair.
The maximum amount of time you should leave bleach on your hair is 30 minutes. Any longer than that and you run the risk of serious damage, including brittle strands.
Other dangers of bleaching
In addition to leaving bleach on your hair for too long, there are other dangers related to using this type of dye.
Your hair could turn white from the oxidation process, de-coloring the pigment.
One study found that the hair was significantly weaker after bleaching. Even skin that the bleach had touched was affected.
Bleach has also been known to turn the hair highly porous. This is when the hair cuticles are too widely spaced, making it difficult for the strands to retain moisture.
“Moderate porosity makes the mane look more voluminous and easier to hold curls,” explains Goddard. “However, excessive porosity and dehydration leads to the destruction of the hair shaft and might cause irreversible damage.”
One of the last — and most serious — dangers of bleaching is the hair’s loss of keratin, which is a type of protein that makes up the hair.
Without keratin, the hair structure is compromised, making it brittle and difficult to style. Unfortunately, keratin loss is hard to avoid when bleaching.
Before you go the DIY route of bleaching your hair at home, there are three important things to keep in mind:
How to do a patch test
Patch tests let you see how your skin reacts to a topically-applied substance, such as hair dye, before you use it in a full application.
Here’s how to do a patch test:
- Wash your forearm with a gentle, unscented soap and pat dry
- Rub a couple drops of the hair dye into a small area on your inner forearm.
- Wait 24 hours.
- If the skin patch is red, itchy, blistering, or swollen, you’ve had an adverse reaction to the dye and shouldn’t use it.
NOTE: If the test area on your forearm becomes red and irritated before the 24-hour period ends, immediately wash the area with soap and warm water, and don’t use the dye on your head or hair.
Bleaching Hair with Quick Blue
FAQ
How long should I leave quick blue bleach in my hair?
How many levels does quick blue bleach lift?
Is Quick blue a good bleach?
What is the ratio of developer to quick blue?
How long should you let Blue shampoo sit on your hair?
You can also pump up the effect of blue shampoo by letting it sit on the hair for anywhere from three to seven minutes before rinsing, says Fleming.
How can I keep my hair from becoming white?
In most cases, the only way to prevent your hair from becoming white is to dye it. There’s not much you can do about your genetic makeup and your genes play a large role in when or if you’ll have white hair. However, there some exceptions: white hair can be due to reversible or preventable factors, including: • vitamin or nutrient deficiency – examples include vitamin B12 or copper deficiency • thyroid disease – timely diagnosis and treatment may prevent changes in hair color • smoking – the connection between greying of hair and smoking suggests that quitting could be preventive • stress reduction – there appears to be a correlation between stress and greying of hair, though it isn’t clear that stress reduction measures can prevent or reverse it.
How long does a hair color stay fresh?
Thus, a color stays looking its freshest for up to 3 weeks, and you can expect to see warm tones coming back through towards this time. Of course, that depends on how often you shampoo your hair, how much you are exposed to the sun, and the quality of your water.
Can you leave Blue shampoo on too long?
If this is the case, Grand suggests allowing the shampoo to sit on the hair for a little less time than suggested. If you leave blue shampoo on for too long (whether you have damaged or healthy hair), you run the risk of leaving a noticeable blue tint on your hair instead of only neutralizing the brassy tones.