How To Go Brunette To Blonde Without Killing Your Hair

So a lot of people have been asking me how I went from brunette to blonde and still managed to keep my hair in good condition. I’ve had my share of bad DIY jobs. And I mean bad. So this time I knew I had to go see a professional. But going to the salon is only half the journey. You also have to make sure you look after your hair when you go home.

The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth

Full disclosure –  I am not a professional and am only advising based on my personal experience. It took 2 trips to the salon and over 8 hours of sitting in the salon chair to get my hair this current colour. A lot of people will watch a video on You-Tube and think that they can get away with just dying their hair at home and expect it to come out white blonde. But even if you have a lighter natural hair colour, you can’t expect to see the same results when going brunette to blonde.

Even two sittings is quite short, but I used special treatments to speed up the bleaching process without compromising the health of my hair. At my most recent visit, I went to The Chapel hair salon in Islington (look out for a blog post on that soon) and they used a product similar to Olaplex. For those that don’t know, Olaplex is a product that started making it rounds after Kim K swore by it. It was the product that enabled her to go from her naturally dark hair to platinum blonde overnight.

There a few brands producing similar treatments to Olaplex, you may have even seen some home kits featuring it in their products. This is the main reason why I was able to bleach my hair to such a lighter shade without causing too much damage to the state of my hair.

Lift, Lift, Lift

To go brunette to blonde, you have to bleach. You can’t get blonde hair with blonde hair dye, you have to bleach in order to lift the colour to get it lighter. There are newer and clever ways of getting lighter hair, but ultimately it will only be suitable for those with a naturally lighter colour.

For my own hair I managed to lift around 5 shades in the first sitting and then a further 3 in the second. One of the reasons why I wanted to get my hair so light is because I actually want to play around with some pastel colours again. And in order to apply pastel shades you have to lift your hair quite light or else the colour won’t really come through.

Keeping It Cool

The final battle with going brunette to blonde would be how to keep it cool. Blonde colours have a tendency to go warmer (orangey) if you have darker undertones as your natural hair colour. This is where the right products at home can really help.

I use a mixture of purple shampoos and toner at home to keep my blonde cool. I use a silver or ashy blonde toner every 3 weeks and use a purple shampoo every other day. There are loads of products you can get in your local Boots or Superdrug but I also recommend buying the higher end products from the salon too. Your hairdresser can recommend a good brand or product. I have personally been using Pureology shampoo and conditioner as it’s been great at keeping my hair silky and healthy as well as clearing up my dry scalp which used to be a problem for me.

Are you thinking about going blonde? Have you ever gone through a drastic hair change? Any tips to share?