How to dye black hair blonde

how-to-dye-black-hair-blonde

Sometimes the urban myths are true – If you want to dye black hair blonde it is a nightmare. Here are some hair damage limitation tips for when it all goes wrong. We’ve all been there…

Every girl’s been there – the desire to dye your hair blonde, red or all the colours of the rainbow is a powerful one that cannot be denied. At some point in your life you may dye your hair black and decide to go to the opposite extreme, only to discover that getting black hair to go blonde is by no means easy and has horror stories of crisping your hair or going orange/green attached.

How to dye my black hair white blonde?

If you want to dye your hair white blonde, that’s different – check out our tutorial on how to dye hair white blonde for tips galore!

Is my hair going to fry?

Let’s put it this way – getting your black hair to go blonde is going to be really, really hard. There are a couple of ways you can go about damage limitation:

1) Use semi-permanent black hair dye

If you’re experimenting with black hair, use a semi-permanent black when you dye it in the first place. Then you won’t need to strip your hair at all, just wait a few weeks until the black washes out and you can start again.

2) Have your black hair stripped at a hairdresser

Be warned – when you go from black to blonde in one fell swoop, it will involve stripping the black out of your hair before applying a blonde shade. This stripping process is what makes the hair go crispy, and it’s damn hard to get a good clean blonde in one go.

Lots of people have horror stories of going to a hairdresser to dye their black hair blonde and ending up with crispy/orange hair. Obviously a bad hair day like this will make you cry, but it’s not really the hairdresser’s fault – your request is their biggest nightmare because it’s so risky, and if they agree to do a one-session strip and dye, it’s probably because you bullied them into it. They will probably go to bed in tears as well as you.

3) Go from black to brown before you go blonde

If you have a really good hairdresser they’ll probably refuse to strip your hair. They might suggest you grow the black hair out and chop the ends every 3-4 weeks. When your roots come through they can put a medium semi-permanent brown on your hair to blend in with the black. They can also cut layers into your hair to get the majority of the black out. This takes a while but will leave your hair in great condition. Also, you can see if you like how you look with brown hair! When you end up with brown hair with just a bit of black at the ends you can start playing again, and think about having hi-lites put in (or indeed just bleaching the semi-permanent brown and going blonde – at least the effect won’t be as radical on your hair as if you were starting from black)

4) Strip black hair dye out and dye your hair blonde in one go

Okay – we hear you – you’re desperate! Life as a blackhead is over, and you’re determined to be a blonde!

The first thing you have to do is deep-condition your hair to prepare for stripping.

We suggest buying a jar of cholesterol cream (an Afro-Carribean hair beauty product) or, failing that, your choice of seriously hardcore deep conditioner.

Put the deep conditioner on your hair after you’ve washed your hair (don’t bother shampooing, anything in your hair will be stripped out and shampoo is just yet more unnecessary product in this situation) and dabbed it with a towel. Drench your hair in the stuff. Now blow dry it into your hair. When you blow dry, make sure to concentrate on one area of your hair at a time rather than moving the hair dryer around too much. This is because the heat from the blow dryer opens up your hair follicles and lets the conditioner’s moisture in. Once a section of your conditioned hair is dry, let it cool off for five or ten minutes. This locks the moisture into the hair.

Once the hair is dry and cool, you’re ready to begin stripping it (if you’re stripping black hair dye out we recommend going for a stripper that says it uses conditioner while stripping).

Mookychick recommends the following bleaches:

You’re now ready to stick the bleach in your hair. Be prepared for your hair to go a lovely orange pumpkin. Enjoy it. Because we lied – you’re not going to go blonde today. It’s just not fair to your gorgeous hair, so don’t do it.

Be a pumpkin for one day, then the next day (or about three days if you can wait that long) use a beige blonde mixed with platinum blonde to get a real, natural-looking blonde that has no pumpkin in it at all.

Do try to deep-condition between products (so that’s before stripping out the black hair dye, and before adding the blonde hair dye). It’s the only way you stand a chance of avoiding going crispy…

Mookychick recommends the following toner-based shampoos / shampoos for blondes:

5) Fried hair – damage limitation

Let’s say you wanted to go from black hair to blonde hair and did it before reading this article. How to rescue your hair at this point?

* Use a deep conditioner (like cholesterol cream or the deep conditioner of your choice). Use the blow dry method above to really lock that conditioner into your hair. Drench your hair in the stuff and leave it on twice as long as you’re meant to. Your roots are naturally more oily so they won’t need to be conditioned for as long – but really concentrate on the ends and middle of your hair.

* A long-term solution is to use apple cider vinegar to condition your hair instead of any normal product conditioner. If you’ve fried your hair through over-bleaching it’s probably sick of product. Cider vinegar makes a great conditioner – it leaves your hair shiny and soft and does a lot to combat frizz, and it smells nice and clean, it really does! Just dip your hair in half a glass of cider vinegar after you’ve shampooed it, then gently pour the cider vinegar around the crown of your head so it reaches the rest of your hair. Leave it on your hair for a minute or two then rinse it out. Try it – you may be surprised by the effect!

* Another long-term solution for minimising hair damage from over-bleaching is to be sparing with shampoo. Only shampoo your roots, and let the shampoo from the roots head down to the rest of the hair naturally as you’re rinsing it out. This will still clean your hair but it minimises the amount of product your poor fried blonde hair has to suffer.

That’s all we got, folks. Good luck in your mission…

Photo: Pixabay