How to Get Silver Blonde Hair

Mon, 26 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Silver hair never goes out of style. It's chic, it's fresh, and it's sure to turn heads. Unfortunately, attaining true platinum blonde hair is also a long, difficult process, and you will need all the help you can get.

Edit Steps

Edit Preparing Your Hair

1. Stop dyeing your hair. Ideally you should not have dyed your hair for a year, but 6 months will do if you are feeling impatient. If your hair was dyed less than a year ago, you may find it has an orange tinge at the ends after bleaching.[1]

2. Condition your hair. For best results, you should get a professional deep conditioning treatment. If this is out of your price range, use a couple deep conditioning hair masks in the weeks leading up to bleaching.[2]

3. Stop washing your hair. Your body’s natural oils will help protect it from the bleach. Your hair will inevitably be damaged by the bleaching process, but going into it with freshly washed hair can make it a lot worse.[3][4]

Edit Getting Your Hair Professionally Bleached

1. Find a good salon. Attempting to dye your hair platinum blonde by yourself is a bad idea.[5] The process tends to be very long, and involves a lot of chemicals that can seriously damage your hair if you don’t know what you’re doing. You may be able to go blonde out of a box, but to achieve truly silver hair you should enlist a stylist’s help. This can get expensive, but it’s not something you want to skimp on unless you want to risk ending up with fried, orange hair, and a burning scalp.[6]

If you have very light blonde hair to begin with, you may be an exception to this rule. In this case, a quality toner applied to your hair may be enough to get silver hair. Even so, if you have never used toner before, it is highly recommended that you go to a stylist the first time around, so they can show you the ropes.[7]

2. Bring a photo. You might be surprised at how many shades of white and silver there are. Bringing in a photograph to show your stylist will help ensure you get exactly what you want.[8]

3. Have realistic expectations. It will probably take a few sessions to get your hair truly silver. This is especially true if you have dark hair to begin with. You should also be prepared for the process to be painful, as the bleach often creates a burning sensation on the scalp.[9][10]

4. Set aside a decent chunk of time. Don’t expect to be in and out of the salon in an hour. Keep your schedule free on the day of your appointment, and be prepared for it to take a while.[11]

Edit Doing It Yourself

1. Consider carefully. If your hair is short, straight, light in color, undamaged, and neither very thick nor very fine, you may be able to successfully bleach it at home. If your hair does not meet all these criteria, you can certainly attempt to bleach it yourself, but you should be aware that the odds are significantly against you, particularly if you have never bleached hair before. Whatever kind of hair you have, if you decide to bleach it at home, you should be prepared for the possibility that it will go very wrong. If having fried, yellow hair for a while would make you feel awful, it’s best not to attempt this.

2. Get your supplies. You will need a powder bleach (like L’oreal Quickblue), developer (ideally the same brand as the bleach), toner (Manic Panic is a popular brand), a plastic mixing bowl, a plastic spatula, a plastic rat tail end brush, deep conditioner, a few pairs of rubber gloves, some old towels, and a friend to help you.[12]

3. Mix the bleach. There is no universal rule for how to do this. You will need to follow the instructions on the bleach you purchased.

4. Apply the bleach with your rat tail end brush. Use the tail end to section off very thin segments of hair, and the brush end to spread bleach onto both sides of your hair. Start at the crown and work down through the sides and back.[13]

Begin applying bleach at the tips of the hair rather than the roots.

The parts of your hair that already have bleach on them will begin to lighten as you work. If you notice any spots you missed, reapply bleach to those areas.

5. Let the bleach do its thing. Consult the instructions that came with the bleach to determine how long you need to wait. Check your hair as you go. It will not be platinum blonde yet, as you have not yet applied toner. The important thing to look for is lightness. You don’t want orange hair, but yellow is fine. If you do wind up with orange hair, it’s time for an appointment at a salon. When your hair is very light (and likely very yellow), hop in the shower, rinse out the bleach, and deep condition your hair.

You will feel itching and burning on your scalp. This is natural, but if you are in serious pain you should rinse it out and make an appointment at a salon, rather than burning your scalp.

6. Apply toner. There are many brands you can buy, and the application will vary based on which one you select. The broad strokes are that you will comb it into your hair and let it sit for a while. When the right amount of time has elapsed, hop back into the shower and deep condition again.[14]

Edit Taking Care of Bleached Hair

1. Use purple shampoo and conditioner. These often smell a little funky, and the color can be scary at first, but purple shampoo and conditioner will help keep your hair that striking white color, without developing brassy tones. The concept is similar to when people with blotchy skin use green face powder to reduce the redness of their complexion; because purple is the opposite of yellow, it counteracts those unwanted hues, and keeps your hair looking silver.[15][16][17]

2. Touch it up with toner. This will help keep your hair that pristine white color. Some toners are also purple, like shampoos and conditioners designed for bleached hairs. The application process will be different for different toners, so follow the instructions on the box.

Consider having this done professionally the first time around if you have never done it before. Your stylist can teach you some tricks to make sure you are comfortable doing it on your own.[18]

3. Baby your hair. Bleaching does an incredible amount of damage. It will need to be treated with extra care.

Only wash it a 3 or 4 times a week, and apply a hair mask every time you do.[19]

Blow dry and curl it as infrequently as possible, and use products designed to protect hair from heat when you do.

Use only sulfite-free products, to avoid damaging and yellowing your hair.[20][21]

Once or twice a month, apply liquid coconut oil to the ends of your hair, wrap it in a towel, and let it sit for a few hours.[22]

Edit Video

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