Have you ever tried to change your hair color at home but ended up looking like a clown? If so, you’re not alone. Many hair-lightening projects have wreaked havoc and damaged the hair.
One of the major reasons is that you failed to consider the time of bleaching or took it through back-to-back multiple chemical processes such as bleaching, dyeing, and more.
Hydrogen peroxide is the main component in bleaching creams.
The bleach powder or liquid strains your hair structure and drains moisture and nutrients. Therefore you should wait between bleach sessions in order to nourish your hair, thus giving it the necessary nutrients, restoring moisture, and encouraging new hair growth.
How often can I bleach my hair is a popular question among women who want to lighten their hair tone. So then, let’s review how you can go about bleaching, dyeing, and toning your hair.
The ultimate goal is to protect damaged hair or previously bleached hair from harsh hair bleaching agents.
Hair Bleaching Guidelines
Bleaching your hair is an incredibly in-depth process. Many factors influence the bleaching process, such as the overall hair condition, the pattern of the highlights, processing time, and more.
Lightening your hair can lower the health of your scalp. It’s also hard to anticipate the results of bleaching hair. This guideline offers tips but not hard and fast rules on bleaching your hair. Here is our approach to lightening your hair.
Test the Strand
Begin by checking the feel of your hair strands by rubbing them up and down. Touching your hair is a quick assessment that can help you determine how healthy it is.
Dry and brittle hair is not healthy because it lacks nutrients. Such hair is not ready for another bleach session and is likely to fall out or break after applying the dye or chemical with hydrogen peroxide.
Another strand test that you can do to ascertain the health of your hair is bleaching a few strands before discoloring the whole head. In fact, it’s recommended that you should carry out an actual natural hair regimen before doing it on your entire hair.
This will help you see the final results. For instance, it enables you to determine whether you like the color or a darker version, the feel of your hair like whether it is soft or smooth, dry or brittle, as well as whether the chemical can damage your hair, among others.
The information will help you decide whether to bleach your hair now or wait for the recommended 8-10 weeks after each bleach treatment.
The Products for the Bleaching Exercise
There is a myriad of bleaching products that you can use to complete the process. Picking the best will be easy if you’re doing the bleaching in a salon, but some prefer to do it at home. Therefore, you should know what to buy for the task.
The following are the product that you need for your lightening exercise.
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Lightener and Developer:
The developer has different hydrogen peroxide volumes such as 20-, 30-, or 40-. Darker hair requires higher peroxide volume, which is more risky and damaging to the hair. For instance, extremely dark hair needs 40-volume, which is very high.
So it shouldn’t stay with it too long; otherwise, you will have chunks of broken hair. In fact, it’s recommended not to use 40-volume at home. You can also use an all-in-one kit to keep it simple.
Toner: You need to tone your hair after the bleaching project.
Shampoo and Conditioner:
You will need to use regular shampoo and conditioner during the procedure. Toning shampoo and conditioner will help to tone the hair days and weeks after the project. The sulfate-free shampoo will help to hydrate your hair once or twice every week after the process.
Love Beauty and Planet and Bounty Thickening Shampoo is ideal for chemically treated and bleached hair.
Tools: You will need a tint brush, bowl, gloves, and plastic cap: Today, there is an all-in-one kit.
Comb: You will need a tail comb and a large comb.Gown: To cover and protect your clothing.
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How to Bleach Your Hair at Home
All the featured products have instructions on how you should use them. It’s best to remember that there is no universal advice on how these bleaching products work for everyone.
However, the following are general steps to bleaching your hair.
- Mix the products. These are lightener and developer.
- Divide your hair into sections using the tail comb, especially if it is medium or long.
Hold these sections with clips as you apply the bleach mixture to your hair and comb it thoroughly to distribute the chemical. - Wear a shower cap and wait as the instructions say.
- Wash the hair at the end of the duration and condition it.
- Tone it in order to achieve an even color and desired brightness. It will also neutralize any brassier tones. Use the toning shampoo and conditioner weeks after the process to get everything back, such as when the color gets too brassy. However, don’t overdo it.
- Regularly nourish your hair using sulfate-free shampoo. Also, avoid using the toning or standard conditioner for this purpose because they will compromise the process.
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Mistakes to Avoid
The following are the hurdles that you will face when you bleach your hair at home and how you can avoid them.
Wrong products: Each hair is different, so you need to use the right product for the type and strength of your hair. Actually, the product that worked well on your neighbor’s hair might fail on yours.
Incorrect Timing: You won’t get the desired results when you keep the bleaching chemical shorter or longer time. You should view the lightening process like boiling rice. Each extreme side has an effect.
Uneven Application: You need an extra set of hands when bleaching your hair; otherwise, you will work extra hard to get that uniform application.
Also, taking too long when applying the bleach on one position will cause a patchy look. Therefore it’s best to be balanced to achieve the desired results.
How often can I Bleach My Hair?
Frequent bleach treatments can lead to chemically damaged hair because the material used during this process is very harsh. In fact, the lightening agent has harsh chemicals, and your hair may not endure frequent discoloration below 8 – 10 weeks.
Trying to correct a failed bleaching job can contribute to issues such as.
- Breakage
- Split ends
- Damaged hair strands
- Hair loss
How often can I bleach my hair? While it’s advisable to repeat the bleaching job after 8-10 weeks, colorists think using less frequent bleach treatments is best. You should also avoid correcting a failed bleaching job the same day.
In fact, you shouldn’t bleach hair that was previously damaged by the dyeing treatment. Instead, leave it as it is for several months in order to give it adequate time to recover and mitigate further damages.
Actually, whether to bleach or not should be based on your hair type and the regimen because women have different situations.
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How Many Times Can I Bleach My Hair?
Aside from how often can I bleach my hair? women are also interested in learning how many times they can bleach their hair. The reason is that bleaching your hair can be an intimidating process at first, but the experience can change with time and become addictive.
On the other hand, you have to bleach your hair because it keeps on growing. While there is no limit to how many times you can lighten your hair, it’s vital to protect your hair from breakage, which may arise due to over-treating it.
However, you can prevent this by either taking a break from discoloring your hair or cutting it shorter.
Overlapping the application will cause your hair to break near the hairline and crown area because the hair can’t sustain the lightening process.
In case you decide to go ahead with the discoloration process, ensure that the chemical on the roots doesn’t reach the already bleached-out hair.
Further, touch up the roots every 4 weeks to avoid the risk of damaging the hair. Also, don’t wait too long between the touch-ups because this will create uneven color
A well-done bleach job can create a fantastic fashion statement. On the other hand, a bad bleach application can cause broken hair and never wanted hairstyle.
FAQs
How often can I Bleach My Hair without Damaging It?
Bleaching your hair again too soon is considered one of the worst mistakes you can do to your hair. So then, how often should you bleach your hair without damaging it?
Regularly breaching your hair will cause hair loss, breakage, and damage the inner structure. That means you can’t repeat the process even if your think your hair is strong and healthy to withstand another application.
Even when it doesn’t look right now, and you have an important event in the near future, you shouldn’t repeat the process.
Instead, you should give it a short recovery period between processes like perming, coloring, and bleaching because of the harsh chemicals.
It’s important to realize that your hair gets damaged to some extent even the first time you bleach it. So lightening it more than once and within a short period can damage it further.
Therefore, avoid discoloring your hair twice or more in a single day. Some people do it because they’re desperate and want to fix something that went wrong during the bleaching process in the first round.
But the second round is likely to leave your hair in a severely damaged state, such as noticeable hair loss, untamable dryness, sudden breakage, gummy or gooey hair texture, dryness, and more.
How Long Do I have to wait to Bleach My Hair Again?
There are a lot of horror stories of how people’s hair melted off or got damaged after a bleaching exercise. While that can be true, you can get different results if you understand your hair type and take care of it after the lightening process.
So then, how often can I bleach my hair? Due to certain factors, you might not get the desired color the first time you bleach your hair. Probably, your hair is too dark and may take longer to lighten.
However, you might achieve what you want after several attempts to bleach and tone your hair.
These trials are what causes long-term damage, thus leading to the question, how long should you wait before re-bleaching your hair again?
There is no exact period that you should wait before lightening your hair again because every situation is different.
Your hair is different from that of another woman, so it’s best to access it before bleaching it again. For instance, it’s best to wait if your hair is dry and fragile or if, prior to discoloring, it was very brittle when you touch it.
However, you can repair a failed bleach job after two weeks but not the same day, no matter how you feel about the color. The best option is to wait for 8-10 weeks after the touch-up to help prevent hair damage.
You must understand that lightening your hair is an aggressive treatment that can expose it to ongoing breaking. In fact, many women have experienced extensive hair damage and loss due to botched bleach jobs, especially those done at home.
Even with successful hair bleaching, you should choose the appropriate bleach type for your hair, follow the manufacturer’s instructions, and perform regular aftercare to keep it well rehydrated. Indeed your favorite hair color shouldn’t damage the health of your hair.
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How Long Should I Wait Between Bleaching and Dyeing My Hair?
The bleaching and dyeing process exposes your hair to a harsh process. Therefore it is important to let it rest for some days after lightening it.
Waiting for at least 3 days will help you to evaluate your hair and find out if it’s healthy enough to withstand dye
First of all, bleach powder or liquid opens the cuticles that hold your hair’s pigment and moisture and expel them.
That explains why bleached or processed hair feels coarser and doesn’t shine. The extent of this damage depends on how ruined it was before the lightening process.
Checking your hair’s porosity will confirm whether it’s the right time to dye your bleached hair or wait a few weeks in order to strengthen and nourish it. A hair porosity test tells you if your hair has the ability to absorb nutrients and moisture.
A highly porous hair is highly damaged and quickly absorbs more chemicals in the dye, thus ruining it further.
Therefore, it is advisable to wait for 4 – 6 weeks before coloring your hair to give it time to heal before applying dye to it. In the meantime, you can use this time to nourish and strengthen it.
Can I Bleach My Hair After Dyeing It?
It’s right to bleach your hair after dyeing it; however, this is only possible for perfectly healthy hair. Otherwise, bleaching an already damaged or processed hair will ruin it during the lightening procedure.
Women get desperate when they dye their hair, and then it turns out that the color isn’t what they dreamt of.
They may immediately start to look for quick fixes such as discoloring it instead of giving it some time. They forget that bleaching takes their hair through an aggressive chemical process.
Therefore keep in mind that whether to bleach your hair after dyeing it or not depends on factors such as;
- The health of your hair.
- The color of the dye you had applied. Some dyes need several bleach sessions.
- The color you intend to apply after lightening your hair. It’s advisable to use two shades different from what you used earlier.
- The number of bleaching sessions before your hair gets ready for a new color.
Your hair fiber will not go through bleach treatments unaffected because it’s not steel. Otherwise, you will have to put up with damaged ends or burned hair
How Long Should I Leave Bleach in My Hair?
As mentioned above, leaving the bleaching chemical on your hair for a shorter or longer time will lead to disappointment. The rule of the thumb is to leave the bleach on your hair for up to 45 minutes.
Any extra time after that will cause the bleach to dry or start to cook your hair strands instead of lifting the color. At the end of the application, your hair will be brittle, dry, or begin to fall out.
It’s advisable to use the first 30 minutes on applying the lightening chemical an inch away from the scalp and the remaining 15 minutes on applying on the roots. It takes a shorter time for the roots to lose the color because it’s more virgin.
Remember to check your hair every 5-10 minutes during the application process because some people get the desired lift in a shorter time. Wash the bleach off as soon as you achieve the desired level of lift.
Can I Highlight My Hair After Coloring?
Bleaching, dyeing, and coloring are multiple chemical processes that you shouldn’t do back-to-back because they damage the hair.
Imagine what your hair goes through when you darken it and then highlight some segments using a bleaching chemical.
Therefore, it’s recommended that you shouldn’t do more than one process to your hair at any given time because it’s most likely to cause adverse chemical reactions.
For instance, highlighting your hair with a different color than you wanted may cause it to become brittle, start to break off, and fall out.
So then, highlight your hair at least 15 days after dyeing in order to get it enough time to regain the lost moisture. You can also aid that by moisturizing it once a week before highlighting it.
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How to Prepare Hair for Hair Color Bleach
Coloring your hair and later bleaching it can be damaging. It can cause it to be brittle when dry or mushy when it gets in contact with water. On the other hand, preparing the hair before lightening it can minimize the damage.
For instance, it’s advisable to prepare your hair for over 6 months before discoloring it. This gives an already damaged hair enough time to get strong and healthy before applying the chemical.
Here are tips for preparing your hair before a color bleach
Use deep conditioning product every week:
You can use a heat-activating deep conditioner or weekly hot oil treatments to further restore and strengthen the hair before bleaching it. L’ANZA Keratin Healing Hair Treatment is a perfect option for dry damaged hair before bleaching it
Protein treatments: While a deep conditioner can strengthen the hair, it might not do so for severely damaged hair.
However, you can opt for protein treatments to quickly restore it to its previous condition and support new hair growth.
Heat styling tools sparingly: It’s best to avoid tools such as flat iron, blow dryer, and curling iron when you’re trying to heal damaged hair or prepare it for another session of chemical treatment.
Actually, capping the use of heat styling tools to at most once every week can help it recover from previous damages.
Trim split ends: Regularly trim the split ends to stop them from moving up the hair and give the strands time to grow and heal.
Use clarifying shampoo:
Start using the clarifying shampoo a week before the bleaching project. Using it every other day will help remove a lot of residue from the hair, especially if you have been swimming in a pool with chlorine water.
It will also help you achieve the more accurate coloring. Love Beauty and Planet Delight Detox is a daily clarifying shampoo that is sulfate-free, silicone-free, paraben-free and vegan.
Lighter Conditioner: Heavy conditioners are not ideal for your hair a few days to a color bleach session because they leave residue behind that can affect the tone. Instead, apply a lighter conditioner after washing with clarifying shampoo and rinse the hair.
Wash the hair a day before bleaching it: You can wash and shampoo your hair a day before lightening it. However, don’t shampoo it on that bleaching day.
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How Do I Know It’s Safe to Bleach My Hair Again?
Women who lighten their hair each year get varied results because of the state of their hair. In view of that, it’s important to determine how healthy your hair is before applying that at-home bleach.
Here is the procedure for testing the health of your hair.
- Take a piece of your hair and hold it straight.
- Put it in water and check how long it takes to absorb water or whether it will sink or float midway. A compromised hair takes less than ten seconds to absorb water.
- Stretch the hair when still wet. Generally, wet hair shouldn’t stretch more than usual, but a weak one does exactly that and has a gummy texture.
- Consult a good colorist. Getting a professional strand test is the best way to determine whether to bleach or not bleach your hair.
Ignoring these steps can compromise your head.
The Differences between Toning, Bleaching, and Color-Stripping
Toner is a product that neutralizes certain tones on bleached hair, such as brassy yellow and orange. Toner is typically purple-blue tinted and takes an ashy, dusty, or platinum color when you apply it on bleached hair.
So toning gives your hair a shinier and healthier look and can be done using other products such as purple shampoo or hair dye.
Bleaching is a chemical process that removes the natural pigments in your hair, resulting in a light orange or blond hue. It’s a procedure that removes melanin that gives the hair shaft the specific color it has.
Color stripping is a harsh chemical process that returns natural hair color after removing dyes. This application makes your hair more porous after removing the unwanted hair color.
Conclusion
The article has answered how often can I bleach my hair? According to hair experts, the process of discoloring your hair depends on your hair health condition. Frequent bleaching is not a good idea.
So ensure that your hair is in good condition before lightening or dyeing it. Ignoring this will cause more damage to your hair.
You can nourish your hair using a deep conditioning product prior to the chemical process and perform a strand test weeks before bleaching it. Discoloring your hair between 8 and 10 weeks will help you achieve the desired color.
It will also leave your hair healthy and looking shiny. So make it your goal to protect damaged hair from bleach treatments that can ruin it.