How I bleach my hair!

This has been very long awaited and I apologise!  I only do my roots once a month so I had to wait till I was next in need of a top up before I could take some pictures!

I always, always get questions asking what I use to bleach my hair, how I do it, who does it for me etc, so I hope this helps every body who is thinking about taking the leap and turning blonde!

Here is what I use – Jerome Russell’s Bblonde powder and cream peroxide bleach!

You can get this from any local chemist, as well as Boots and Superdrug.  The pack of four sachets of powder bleach normally retails at around £5 and the individual cream peroxides retail at around £1.40

I used to use the 30% Vol Cream peroxide, but it went off the market for ages so I had to keep buying 40%, which is obviously stronger, but it makes my roots a tad whiter so I now generally use this more!

I have been peroxide blonde since the age of 16.  My friend and I went to a chemist and decided to ‘try something different’ and she transformed my mousy blonde hair into a blonde bombshell worthy barnet that evening in her bathroom!  She very kindly kept bleaching my roots every month until she moved to Spain two years ago, and ever since then my lovely Mother has taken on the dreaded role of bleaching my roots (Thanks Mummy!).  My mum is not a hair dresser, and I don’t believe you need to be to do this at home, you just need general knowledge and bravery to go for it and cover all the roots.

Here is my step by step guide!

YOU WILL NEED -

• -3 latex or rubber gloves (two for the hands of your hair dresser, one for you for the itchy bleach!)
• An old unused bowl
• A hair bleach applicator (can usually be found in chemists for 50p!)
• A hair clip
• An old unused towel
• Jerome Russel Bleach!

As I have the underneath layer of my hair brown (I decided to let my natural colour grow through as I haven't seen it in 5 years), I need to firstly separate the brown from the blonde.  So I use cling film and a hair band!

 

My kind Mother separates the blonde from the brown, plaits it, then curls it up and wraps it in cling film so that the bleach can’t get to it.

HOW TO -

1) Mix powder sachet with cream peroxide bottle and stir until frothy and smooth.

2) Slap it on the roots! (or whole hair if you are starting from scratch!)

 

3) Keep going.  Lift sections of hair and paint the bleach on, and keep at it until the whole head of roots is covered!

4) Once the whole head of hair is covered, clip up on the top of your head!

Okay, now for doing this for so long, I don’t really need to look at the time.  I know that it take approx 20-30 minutes for the product to be put on, and then I normally wait another excruciating 15-25minutes before I wash it off.  I will tell you now that this whole process SUCKS, because it itches like hell!!! The bleach is so aggravating, it feels like a hundred thousand tiny ants are moving around in your hair, itching and stinging you.  This is why I always wear a glove, so that I can itch when I need to.

I wash it off with an intense shampoo and conditioner for dry hair, normally something like Aussie.  I leave the conditioner in for at least 3 minutes after bleaching just to make my hair feel soft again. 

AND VOILA – I now have nice, bright white blond hair!

I am very lucky to have strong, healthy, thick hair naturally.  As long as I use a good conditioner every time I wash my hair, then it looks and feels healthy and soft.  However I know many people who have dry, brittle hair from bleaching, so I really suggest trying the bleach on a small patch of hair before you go right in and bleach your whole head.

When you first bleach your hair, you will probably need to use a toner.  Jerome Russell also has a hair toner in its range, which basically takes the ‘orange/yellow’ tint out of the bleached hair so that your blonde locks don’t look ginger in certain lights.  I don’t have to use this as my natural hair colour is blonde anyway, and holds onto the bleach pretty well, but I did use it when first going blonde.

I hope this helps any one who needs some advice on going blonde!  I adore being blonde and can’t imagine myself with any other hair colour.  I love how I can play around with exaggerated make-up looks because my hair colour allows it and it certainly gets a lot of attention. 

Has this helped anyone at all? If anyone needs any more advice or has any more questions then just let me know, send me a comment on this post!

P.S Sorry for the very unattractive, un-glamorous pictures in this post, keeping up the glamorous blonde locks unfortunately isn’t as pretty as it may seem!