I will attest that I don’t have blonde hair and I probably won’t ever. With blonde eyelashes and eyebrows, if I decided to take the icy plunge, it’d probably get “50 Shade of Beige” up in here, if you know what I’m saying. But I do have some near and dear gal pals who’ve rocked bleached looks and beyond, delving into bright colors and the like.
Some of them had gorgeous silky strands in standout shades, and some of them had something that resembled onion straws growing out of their follicles. The difference, darling readers, is how you go about dying. If you take good care of your hair, it will love you back in long, flowing locks. If you take poor care of your hair, it will bite back by feeling like hay and breaking off much like it.
Recently, I skimmed an article about the best ways to go blonde, and I wondered what exactly goes into a good maintainence routine if you’re channeling Marilyn Monroe. So, I decided to give you the science on what’s the best way to do it.
Reconsider if You’re Going from Very Dark to Very Light
Your hair color comes from melanin. When you bleach your hair, it oxidizes the melanin so that it appears colorless. But when you bleach hair, it’s not just the melanin that oxidizes, it’s also other important parts of your hair. And the more you bleach your hair, the more damage you subject it to. In fact, celebrity stylist Danny Jelaca told FutureDerm that he recommends going only two shades lighter than your natural color to prevent too much damage.
When you bleach you hair, you break or weaken the disulfide bonds in your hair, decrease levels of cystine, and increase the levels of cysteine (Journal for the Society of Cosmetic Chemists). Uh, what? So, your hair is made of protein called keratin. That keratin is made up of polypeptide chains of amino acids, the building blocks of protein, which are connected by different types of bonds. Think of this like a piece of yarn, where individual strands or wisps are all spun together to make on strong length.
The bonds between the sulfur atoms of cysteine residues are called disulfide bonds, and these strengthen those polypetide chains and form cystine. Disulfide bonds are what help to hold polypeptide chains together and give hair its grit or toughness, as well as its shape (Biology: Concepts and Connections). When you get a perm, the disulfide bonds are chemically broken, the hair is manipulated into a particular style, and then the chemical bonds are reformed in the shape you desire. Since these bonds become softened in water and heat, it’s also what allows you to temporarily straighten or curl your hair.
When you bleach your hair, it cleaves or breaks some of these disulfide bonds. Not only does this create openings in the hair, it also exposes parts of hair (i.e. cysteic acid residues) that are hydrophilic or water loving. If this sounds like a good thing, it’s not. It takes your smooth, soft hair and makes it brittle, drier, and more tangled (Newton).
If You Decide to Go from Dark to Light, Do it in Stages
If, my sweet butterfly, you’re determined to metamorphosize from black hair to bright blonde no matter how hard it will be on your hair regardless of my advice otherwise, then do it in stages. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that you will almost certain not become the beauty blonde your little heart so desires if you try to do it in one fell swoop, because if you have very dark hair, it will almost certainly turn orange if you do it all at once.
Here’s the thing: There are two kinds of melanin in your hair, eumelanin and pheomelanin, and they play a big role in how it reacts to bleach. Eumelanin is the brown color of hair and the more you have the darker your hair will be. Pheomelanin creates gold and red hues in hair and we all have some. But if you have blonde or red hair, you have little eumelanin and more pheomelanin (Popular Science). Eumelanin is actually easier to bleach and once it’s colorless, you’re left with the pheomelanin, which tends to take on a yellowish or even orange hue.
So, do it in stages, going lighter and lighter slowly. This gives you and your stylist more control over the color. It also means that if you decide that honey blonde is better than suicide blonde, then you can stop anytime you want with the color you’re at.
Go to a Professional, Especially If You’re a Newbie
There are a lot of Do-It-Yourself projects that I am a fan of: knitting scarves, sanding and restaining old wood, and upcycling cute tchotchkes; however, I’m remiss to tell most people to do nearly anything beauty related in a DIY fashion. While I know a few cosmetic mavens who can bleach and dye their own hair, no sweat, I know quite a few more who had disastrous results.
To illustrate this point as well as the one about going from dark to light, let me tell you a cautionary tale. A very good friend of mine, let’s call her Jane, put peroxide to follical in an at-home kit once. She decided she’d go from a relatively dark brown to platinum blonde, and came out with orange hair. We’re talking very orange, Zoe from “The Muppets” orange, circus clown orange. She was so mortified that she couldn’t bring herself to go to a professional salon. She snipped a bit off — proof or it didn’t happen, right? — and swiftly went boxed chocolate brown.
A professional colorist is going to have a better idea of the time and dye you need to make sure your hair is the right color. And, as aforementioned, a colorist will know how to take you to blonde in a way that doesn’t result in muppet orange. But make sure you go to someone you can trust. A good colorist is worth a splurge, particularly if you’re doing something tough like going blonde. And maintain that relationship, lady. Jen and I have the same stylist and I’m pretty sure we’d trust that man with our lives.
Bottom Line
If you want to look like a blonde bombshell, then be sure to go about it in the right way. It’ll be tough to go from very dark to very light, so think seriously if you’re debating bleaching your hair. If you decide to go for it anyway, then be sure to do it in stages to avoid a mane that’s Zoe muppet orange. I’d highly recommend going to a professional, particularly if you’ve never bleached your own hair before. Finally, maintenance is crucial. Be sure to take care of your dyed hair to keep it in tip-top shape.