Learn how to bleach and tone your hair at home step by step, to achieve the hair of your dreams, and avoid common mistakes.
Watching tons of Bleach fail videos on YouTube taught me that most of those mishaps could have been avoided with a little more know-how on home Hair bleaching and toning.
If you love hair and grasp the basics (which this step-by-step guide provides), you can achieve stunning results at home. However, it’s a hands-on skill (learning by doing), so you won’t match hairstylists even with all the theory.
Though I’d recommend a salon visit, I get that many want to try it at home. So, why not share some tips to increase your chances of nailing your desired hairstyle? After all, avoiding ending up in Brad Mondo’s bleach-fail videos is a win (though any publicity is good, right?).
Let’s dive into it!
1. Can your hair tolerate the bleach?
Consider your hair’s ability to handle the bleach—it’s crucial.
Starting a harsh chemical process on severely damaged hair can lead to two outcomes:
- It might leave your hair extremely brittle, unmanageable, and resembling gum—brushing it becomes impossible.
- You might experience what we call a “chemical cut,” where either all or parts of your hair break off. Definitely not a good outcome.
If you’re unsure how damaged your hair is – visit a hair salon and ask!
Choosing reliable, scientifically proven hair repair products is crucial. They not only prep your hair for bleaching but also work wonders in fixing it afterward.
Basically, hair repair products are either moisture or protein. And, this might surprise you, but choosing the wrong type of product for your hair results in dry, brittle, and straw-like hair, and it can even break off!
It’s very common to have protein-overloaded hair, especially for low-porosity hair. And it’s a myth that bleached hair always needs protein.
To figure out if your hair needs moisture or protein, take a strand test: Remove a hair strand from your head, and then pull it until it breaks. If it breaks easily you need moisture, and if it breaks slowly and has a “gummy” texture, you need protein.
Since I work in the hair care industry – I’ve tried A LOT of products on my very difficult hair. These are my absolute favorites:
Protein: For “pure” protein products, Redken Extreme is fantastic, but if you’d rather have a mix of both moisture and protein, the Redken Acidic Bonding-series is great. On the pricier side, you have k18 and Olaplex which both are superior, but it’s not in everyone’s budget, unfortunately. The most budget-friendly option is the Loreal Bond-concentrate.
Moisture: Well, nothing compares to the Redken All Soft. And their mask is fabulous! Realizing there are a lot of Redken products mentioned – we are not sponsored by Redken or any other brand, they’re just excellent! Like the All Soft, KMS Moist Repair is also great at giving moisture to even the least absorbing hair types.
No matter what product, do a shampoo, conditioner, and a mask. Leave-ins are also great, and hair oils!
2. You need BLEACH!
Of course, you’re gonna need bleach! But please, please don’t use box bleach – it’s SO much more damaging on your hair than mixing the bleach yourself as hairdressers do.
You need two things: Gentle bleach powder and a developer (hydrogen peroxide). These are commonly used by hair salons. You’re gonna need a lot of it, so pick the biggest size – but don’t worry, it’s very affordable!
When you mix the developer and bleach, the chemical process that lightens your hair starts, so obviously you need both (I’ve seen many people on YT trying with just a developer, so I felt I had to emphasize it).
As you see, developers come with different strengths (volumes).
Volume 40 (12%) is the strongest. Should be avoided unless you have dark, strong, and super thick hair strands.
Volume 30 (9%) is also very strong, mainly used on brown hair going blonde. Use once, maybe twice if your hair can tolerate it, then volume 20 if you want to go even lighter.
Volume 20 (6%) is usually used on lighter hair colors or weaker hairs (since it’s gentler). You can go very light with this one as well, but since it’s the weakest you might have to use it several times.
You also need gloves, a mixing bowl (not metal), an application brush, and a plastic cap to lock in the heat! You’re also going to need a toner, to correct the blond which is going to be orange or yellow – but we’ll get back to that.
How many parts developer and bleach are mixed depends on the brand. But most products, and the products I have recommended above have the ratio 1:2, which means one part bleach and two parts developer. If you use one scoop of bleach powder, you need two scoops of developer. You want the consistency to be like a satisfying soft pudding. Use the mixture immediately.
So, now that you have all the equipment you need for bleaching and repairing your hair –
Let’s start the bleaching process!
3. How to apply the bleach to get beachy highlights
You have three options when doing highlights.
- Foils.
- Cap. (Not a shower cap, but a highlight cap w/hook like this one)
- Freestyle.
Foils are usually what’s done at hair salons – however, since you have to work fast it’s really difficult and I wouldn’t recommend it.
Cap is the easiest. You put a highlight cap on, and pull out hair through the little holes in the cap with a hook.
The post How to Bleach Beachy Highlights At Home Like a Hairdresser appeared first on Filippa Approves.com.
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