Yes, it was my first dye job. Just follow the directions on the box... The lighter you want it the longer it should sit. As I remember blond burns the most on your scalp... :(

i did a few times, bleach first, it's worth it, then pick a pretty box blonde to make it look all fancy.

yeeeah. : ( i'm just concerned about the potential orangeness, and unevenness. any tips?

DON'T DO IT ALONE! have back up.

@beck...that's what i did. i got a bleach, and a dark ash blond. my hair is naturally black so i don't know if i can even get close to pulling this off.

you will, i have dark charcoal brown. i had to bleach just to go to red but bleach TAKES ALL COLOR. .... plus it's fun to be bright white for a bit.

Obligatory Mikkoman Comment.

like three people on this site have that i know off the top of my head...

alright. i'm going to get a move on here. maybe i'll post a pic...provided this doesn't turn into some scary shit. wish me lucks!

The at-home developing kits stop developing after 45 minutes. I wouldn't try to dye your hair blonde by yourself after my experience. But good luck, let us know how it works out.

you gotta bleach it, then you have to wait like a day or two... because that bleach is still active and will just bleach and orangify anything else you put in... once you're hidden away for two days, TONE that shit. well if you want granny white... if not, I guess a blonde dye would do...

but HEED MY WARNINGS, I do know what I do yes to saying!

you do what what and what? i don't think i'm understanding that last part there, jesse

rut roh - http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r104/rjgibson/bjork.jpg

whoah, advice from non-hairstylists.

is there any color in your hair right now besides your natural? what kind of bleach/toner are you using?

well....all has been done already, unfortunately. BUT....i'm sure there will be many a repair needed.

my hair was already about 3 shades lighter from a few months ago. so, a medium brown.

i used a boxed "make your hair blond" kit. and along with that purchased an ash blond.
so basically my hair is going to be orangy-green and falling out my head, right? such is life.

oh, honey. next time you want to be blonde, please, do yourself a big giant favor and do it at a salon. i've gotten so good at corrective color mostly by fixing at-home blonding.

i just hope that you didn't put the bleach all over right away, that you did the midshafts and ends first and waited for the roots, so you don't have white roots and orange ends with black tips.

yeah i waited for the roots.

oh good good good.

before: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3659/3546419253_75d77c766a.jpg?v=0

after: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3603/3546419255_ec3d39ee12.jpg?v=0

it's actually about 2 shades later than what it appears in my sweet camera phone picture.

i love how i'm posting about my hair color like anyone gives a poop. yay!

Blonder! Must go blonder!

haha! maybe. thats going to take time though. my hair is all dry and shit right now.

see? I used the word tone and stylest used the word toner. I knew what I was talking about.

i was still totally confused by what you said....but i understood
"tone"

you didn't quite get the concept of toner though, honey.

hahahaha oh man.

that actually looks pretty nice, you should get some highlights to brighten it up some more, and do some serious deep conditioning. what did you use?

I only understand "tone" in the context of Tone Loc.

Maybe the funky cold medina would work for hair care?

alright, honey.

@ethan - it would work for LIFE CARE.

Why is Betty being such an annoying bitch?

ANYWAY.

I bleach my hair every month. If you ever have any questions from someone who has already made the awful mistakes and learned how to do it effectively at home, alone, lemme know.

If the salon industry was that great, they wouldn't have so many people jacking up other people's hair and end up stripping or something, because they can't hack it at their regular job. I've splurged on getting my roots bleached at salons about four different times now, out of laziness, only to end up having to redo their brassy mess at home later.

Why is Tiff being such an annoying bitch?

CENTRO, why did you talk about sex in my thread about astronauts? Is it because you have no qualities other than being a nasty ass creep, so you just run with it?

Oh Tiff only poked the bear because I sent her a link and was like I'M OVERCOME WITH THE SCENT OF CONDESCENDING VAGINA.

Which, I was. So, you know.

haha....amazing!

@tiff, everything turned out fine. just not light enough...i'm pretty sure that's because you cant go from "black" to "white" in a day. not because I didn't get it professionally done, or didn't understand the meaning of toner. what color did you start out with? how long was the process?

clearly, tiff isn't splurging enough, or just can't find anyone to do a proper bleach and tone, one of my specialties. thanks for calling giving advice in my field of expertise being an "annoying bitch". i've never quite understood why you don't like me, but now i'm quite certain that i don't like you very much. oh well.

it's true, you can't go from black to white in a day. highlights will help a lot though.

Betty why are you so mean and abusive to Tiff? She is a blameless innocent! She is blonde!

GASOLINE ON THE FLLAAAAMMMMEEESSSS

Hay twigz. *wink*

lmo.

o_o

oh jeez. i'm just going to assume you're being sarcastic up there.

Mike is never sarcastic. The truth lies in the exclamation points.

Hey, I think your hair looks very nice! It's actually very similar to my weird natural haircolor, Though that's more copper than blonde.

tiff, if you don't like me, ignore me. that's what i've been doing to you. please go away now, i was here first. haha!

@cat, I started originally with dyed black hair. An ill advised trip to Vidal Sassoon resulted in calico hair, which honestly was kind of expected, but fixing it was going to cost me even MORE, so I decided to experiment myself, which resulted in brilliant white hair... just a lot less of it. LESSON LEARNED. After that I went to a friend in beauty school and asked her opinion and basically I got the hang of bleaching only my roots and using various volumes of activators to achieve the desired effect, with minimal damage.

Now I do it myself, because I find that when I go to a salon, they only bleach the roots, which are a kind of light chestnut color, turning them a brassy, non-platinum. Which isn't what I want. They never do anything to blend the colors, to make it look decent though, which is key, imo. I think a lot of them are just so afraid of like, burning me or I don't know what it is, to just dig it and get the job done.

While I'm sure Betty had the best intentions, I suppose, let's face it, she was coming off as REALLY condescending and RUDE annnd annoying enough to warrant an IM to me, pointing it out. Being condescending and rude is something you should only do if you are willing to be considering that by others, as well as annoying. Obviously, I'm ok with that. WINK. ALSO, keep in mind, if you wanna be skinny like Kate Moss, are you gonna take weight loss advice from Beth Ditto?

btw, cat, what shade of blonde are you wanting to do? Mine is easier because, basically, I like my hair to be as white as can be.

( I sorta wish people would fight it out in my innocuous threads more often)

It's pretty easy, just send me a link to something you'd like me to challenge on a day that I don't have much to do at work. That's what everyone else does.

whoa.
alright. i'm all down for advice. i was pretty much just asking who has done this before and for them to share their experience.
@betty- i appreciate the input, but your tone (get it, tone!?) is bordering on just straight up telling me i'm an idiot. i'm not too interested in that.

now back to the subject at hand: my gorgeous penny-colored locks...

@tiff- how many time did you have to go through the process to get it where it's at now?
@stellaluna - thanks! yeah..i'd say this isn't really blond as much as it's some color on the road to blond land. needs more work!

Originally, I got it white in two tries, but I left it in waaay too long, and lost a lot of hair. If I were to go back in time, I'd wait on the roots and do it in batches of 30 minutes with 40 volume until I reached desired lightness, probably over the course of a day or two and THEN I'd go over it briefly with ash blonde and a few drops of violet toner.

Also, to combat brassiness on the daily, I'll spritz in some of that old lady violet wash in there.

i read about that. i'll likely try to get that. my hair has a shit ton of redness in it.

They sell violet shampoos for that purpose, but it doesn't really seem to do me a lot of good, besides, I only wash my hair every so often anyway.

As for shampoo, I like Redken's All Soft and when I have the money, I go Pureology and occasionally use schwarzkopf toning mousse, but still, I see more results from the old lady washes.

I'm taking notes here. I've wanted to make my hair silvery tinkerbell blonde for a loooong time, but have been way too chicken and worried that it'll cramp my low-maintenance style. This is all very helpful.

I just wanted to talk about Tone Loc...

Is that not appropriate here?

Ethan you're such a troublemaker.

i went from dark brown to like, bleached, but it was professionally done for a hair show. the biggest thing is to BUY SPECIAL SHAMPOO or your head will look like a FLASHLIGHT.

I'm a WONNK... WONNK WONNK WONK-WONK WILD THING.

Also please remember that it'll be fifty dollaz to make you holla.

costs more than fiddy to make me do that!

OOOOOH!!!

Yeah but do you regularly get paid to do the wild thing?

oh. OH.

i'm sorry if my tone came across as condescending, i've just seen a lot of crazy disasters online that could have been fixed with some timely advice from a seasoned professional. you're not an idiot, it's just that hair is chemistry, and it's pretty tough to learn to color perfectly. i was just trying to be helpful.