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Lots of women bleach their hair. There are times when you may need to bleach your hair when it's already highlighted. Maybe your roots are coming in, or it's been a while and you just want to brighten up your highlights a bit. You can even bleach the uncolored sections if you feel like going all blond. Whatever the case, the most important thing is that you get yourself set up right and bleach your hair properly, so you end up with as professional-looking results and as little damage as possible.
1.
Combine the proper amounts of hair bleach and developer creme in a mixing bowl; refer to the instructions on your products to use the exact amounts.
2.
Add some of the bleach mixture onto your hair. If you're just going back over the sections that are already highlighted, place a foil strip under each section, add color with a plastic coloring brush, fold the strip up, and keep going until you've bleached them all. For root touch-up, you only need to add bleach to the tops of each section. Otherwise, use the same method, only add bleach to the non-highlighted sections.
3.
Let the bleach sit on your hair. Whether you're only touching up your roots or coloring over your own natural hair, you have to give the bleach time to activate and work its magic. You'll see there are time instructions offered on your product, but it's better to use that only as a basic guideline and instead do a strand test every 10 minutes or so to check the hue of your hair.
4.
Once your hair reaches the desired stage -- it goes from dark to red, to orange, yellow, then white -- rinse the bleach off your hair until your hair doesn't feel slimy anymore. You definitely don't want to leave any of this stuff in your hair.
5.
Towel dry your hair and style it as desired. Bleached and beautiful. See, you knew you could do it. Good work!
If your hair's a bit too bright or brassy afterward, use a toning product on your hair. This tones down brassy hues and deepens your color a bit, so you get your hair just the right color.
If you're only bleaching at the roots, you don't need to use foil strips. Apply bleach around at the roots and just be careful not to drip any of the stuff on the rest of your hair.
Every girl's hair is different, so you don't know how it's going to react to bleach until you try it. Even if you've bleached before --- and even if you have many, many times before --- always stick to the strand test method to avoid over-processing and seriously --- and unnecessarily --- damaging your hair.
Bleach is serious stuff. Even if you only use it on the roots of your hair, it's good to use a deep conditioning treatment afterward to replenish your hair.
Don't use a metal mixing bowl or coloring brush, only plastic. Metal tools can actually alter the color your hair turns out, so you may end up more green or purple than blond.
