The Blonde Journey
The journey from dark to light can be a long one. With a lot of factors playing a role in the results. Let me explain.
Before we start, here are a few quick questions you can ask yourself that might help determine if you're ready to embark on the blonde journey:
1 - Is your hair your natural color or have you colored it in the past?
If you have color in your hair from the past 3 years, the chances are (unless you’ve cut off a significant amount of hair recently) that color still exists in your hair. Artificially colored hair will not lighten as quickly or cleanly as natural hair. This is one of the biggest factors for timing and how soon your goal can be achieved.
2 - Does your budget allow for an appointment every 4-6 weeks?
For the quickest, safest results you’ll need frequent, separate appointments all working toward your goal. If you go too long in between, your grow out will be significant and therefore will become the main priority of the appointment. Blending the grow out into your last color to look fresh rather than the focus being the overall look.
3 - Are you ok with warm tones in your hair?
Warmth is inevitable when it comes to going blonde. The darker your hair is the more warmth will come through during the lightening process.
The Facts.
The chart above is what a stylist uses to determine your color level. The darkest color being 1 with the lightest at 10. The warm tones underneath are the underlying tones that make up that level of color. If your current color is at a 3 and you want to be a level 10, your have to go through all the stages of the colors in between. This is why it isn’t as simple as slapping on some bleach and calling it a day. Especially if your goal isn’t a dark orange-red.
You can typically expect 1 - 2 levels of lift in one appointment. so if your hair is at a 3, and you want it to be a 10, it could potentially take 7 appointments to reach your goal. If that’s the case, and you come in for an appointment every 4 weeks, that’s 7 months.
We’ll get a bit science-y here but I'll keep it simple.
Why multiple appointments rather than one looonnggg appointment to achieve results faster?
The blonde journey is different for everyone. Not only the color affecting the results but also your hair type, and the health of your hair. Finer hair textures tend to lift and lighten faster than someone with a more coarse texture.
Fine hair is smaller in diameter with less structure to the cuticle, allowing for the lightener to get in faster to do its job. Which also makes the hair more susceptible to being damaged during the process. This requires a lower, slower lifting technique. Using a high volume developer and blasting out the cuticle layer of your hair for quick results is what causes breakage, and hair that is “melting off”.
Spacing out your blonding sessions allows for recovery time. For your moisture levels to be replenished, your bond builders like Olaplex/k-18 to do their job in rebuilding your disulfide bonds, and lets the cuticle layer of your hair settle and stabilize.
Multiple seasons also means a controlled, predictable lift.
Trying to go too light, too quickly can often lead to issues that can only be solved by more lightening. Multiple appointments means your stylist can assess the health and tone of your hair before each appointment making sure it’s in a place to continue moving forward. If it’s still in really good shape after that first appointment, your stylist might even be able to push your hair a little further this time to achieve results faster.
The bottom line is that going blonde is a journey for a reason. Is it always pretty at every step? No, which is why there are so many things to consider before you decide to go from dark to light. Trusting the process and your blonde specialist is going to give you the best, quickest results while maintaining the health of your hair. What do you think? Worth it?