Hii, I have just bleached my hair and only the back and some of the roots have taken. The front is still very dark and the rest is orange. I have been dying my hair black for nearly a year. My hair is in quite bad condition after bleaching it yesterday so will I be able to bleach it any time soon? I eventually want to go light ash brown.

Thanks

If you are trying to go light ash-brown, bleaching is not the right way to get there. You need to first remove the existing color, then add a clear gloss to cling to the hair shaft and create a viable hair strand that can accept color. The bleach is simply burning through the hair making it unusable. You need to stop with the bleach, take two weeks for the hair to recover from this, use a daily conditioner - in your case you need to repair your hair so I would suggest panthenol products, like Patene for dry/chem hair. You can apply a lot of conditioner, but don't put it closer than 1" to the scalp as it will just look oily.

I would suggest a hot oil treatment (can buy and apply yourself from Sally Beauty or another similar supply store open to the public.) Apply immed, then 2 days after, then 4 days after then 1 week after. Make sure it's hot and leave it on two times longer than the direction time. (It can't damage your hair.) Make sur it's the oil (like VO1) and not a creame rinse (which can have alcohol, leaving your bleached hair looking and feelig like hay.)

After two weeks of this treatment, then you can try to go back to this color process. I would really suggest going to a long-practicing stylist/colorist who has a lot of clientel with your type of hair. If you are set on doing it yourself, then you need to do a clear color remover first (again find at Sally Beauty or similar). Then apply a clear color two days later. Then find the color that you want - L'Oreal Excellence Creame might be your best bet for a formula.) Pick a medium dark brown that is neutral and start there. Use a 20 level developer. Highly suggest strand test first. Wait 2 days after the clear color to apply.

If all of this is too confusing, or you want another option, you can also apply a clear henna then find a brown rinse that will last about 2-4 weeks.

As a rule of thumb, the darker the hair, the more it will go orange with bleach (and then break off.)

Hope this helps.

Thanks, is all very confusing. What would you recommend I do with my hair for now. Will I have to dye it a dark colour again and leave it for a while to recover? At the moment I am house bound because it looks that bad, I need to do something done within the next few days so I can get out and about and back to my normal routine.

Thanks

Go to a professional to get your hair repaired & colored, or go to the grocery or drug store and buy a dark brown rinse (not copper, not anything but a simple dark brown). A rinse won't further damage your hair and you can use while you are trying to get it back to one color. It will cling longer to certain strands (the more damaged) than others, so you may want to be prepared to apply again. Also, Fanci-ful makes a temp and perm mousse you can put onto your dry hair. All of these temp solutions will wash out quickly, so have more than one application. Meanwhile, work on getting your hair back into the condition it needs to be in for a safe color. Hope that helps.

It will definitely have to be a grocery store dye, I have spent far too much on dye this week. What would happen if I were to bleach my hair again in afew days to even it out and lighten it and then put a brown over that?

Bleach is only damaging your hair. When you use bleach to lighten your hair, you are really killing the pigment in the hair shaft. There is no logic to using bleach to color your hair if you are not a hair professional with a clear understanding of how bleaching works.

You never said what your actual color is, but if it's black only a professional can get this right. If it's a very dark brown, then you should consider highlighting just the frame of the face so you leave the rest healthy, but you get the lightened effect you want.

My natural hair colour is a light ash brown, I want to get it back to that colour so I won't have to dye it anymore. I am willing to have dry hair for a while if I bleach it but am scared about the risk of losing my hair altogether.

Let it grow out and use a lighter rinse on it as it does. Hair never repairs from bleach, it's just gets drier and needs to be cut off.

Ok, I am just going to buy another dark then and save up money to have it done professionally. Thank you for your help : )

If you tried to lighten dyed hair, you've only made the problem worse. Bleach can lighten some dark hair dyes, but not all. It's much better to use color remover on the hair, and then to bleach if required. Unfortunately, using bleach on the hair has over-oxidized the artificial pigment now. Color remover will be of no use. You could try to go brown or dark brown rather than black, but you'll really have to let it grow out now.

Letting it "rest" for a couple of weeks, as is common to recommend, does absolutely nothing. Hair doesn't "heal". It doesn't get better over time. There is no blood supply to the hair shaft and the chemical reactions required to repair the hair simply do not happen.