Helloo lovely people of the interweb today I thought I would put together a little post on how I achieved my blonde  hair including the full story from bleaching, toning and topping up roots. I haven't been on the blonde side for very long, I decided to take the plunge back in November last year after having a 'yolo' moment and always lusting after girls with perfect mermaid coloured hair. 

Naturally I am dark brown and prior bleaching I hadn't dyed my hair for a good couple of years, therefore it was all pretty naturel' which overall I think helped the bleaching process a LOT in the end. I have never had much experience with bleaching my hair before and the two times I have experimented I ended up with half orange / half blonde hair which was supposed to be half a head of highlights. The only other time was back in the day when I attempted some sort of ombre which just looked shite, so from two past experience I knew that if I wanted to go blonde I would have to fork out and go get it done professionally. This way me and my hair were happy (maybe not so much my bank balance) but most importantly there were no tears.

Tips for going blonde ( I'm no professional but since being blonde I have done a LOT of research on how to maintain a healthy head of hair, so I thought I'd put together a post with everything I have learnt a long the way. )

- Seek professional advice or if you can afford to just get a pro to do the job for you. Getting my hair bleached at the salon was the best idea and I am glad I spent the £100 I did to achieve a full head of blonde. Even though doing it at home would of been a lot more purse friendly it would of been 100x worse for my hair and there is no way I would of achieved the lightest blonde under one application. So for anyone wanting to go blonde I recommend just holding out a little longer, save a bit more money and get a professional to take on the job.

- Avoid dying your hair for a good 6 months prior to bleaching. Like I mentioned in the intro I had not coloured my hair for a good year so it was pretty much all my natural colour through re growth by the time it came to bleaching. I hadn't planned previously that I wanted to go blonde therefore I was lucky that I just hadn't dyed my hair in a while, but if you have previously dyed your hair and want to go blonde I would 100% recommend you wait at least 6 months and in those 6 months stripe your hair from any colour as much as possible. This will help the colour lift to a lighter shade when bleaching.

- Look after your hair like you have never before. Now I'm a boo boo at this I never really looked after my hair and never used caring products to help keep it soft etc. I did occasionally use Aussie's 3 Minute Miracle conditioner but that was only when I could remember to buy the product. I would recommend if you can really nourish your hair and get it to a healthy strong stage before bleaching as this will overall help your hair in the aftermath and process of bleaching your hair. Now blonde I use a deep conditioning wax treatment every time I wash my hair, and every time my hair begins to feel dry I will apply leave in conditioner such as an Argan Oil.

- Get a hair cut. When I decided to take the plunge and go blonde I also got a good 4 inches taken off my hair which not only makes the overall bleaching process easier, it also gives your hair an instant health kick. Therefore your new blonde locks look healthy and luscious with not a split end in sight.

- Keep on top of your roots. Ok so this I didn't do this time but trust me will be doing it second time round. The internet saids you should bleach your regrowth every 6 to 8 weeks for a better lift and blend with previous bleached hair. However I waited 4 months before I redid my roots and I also use a home kit so was a little nervous what the result was going to be, surprisingly they didn't turn out to bad there was a shade step between the new blonde and the previous blonde (however I was planning to go purple after so this didn't bother me to much). But from this I won't be leaving it so long next time to touch up my roots as it just makes the process a lot easier and less stressful when there is less to touch up (also if doing it at home).

Bleached blonde hair and the aftermath ( There were few things I was a bit blasé about and didn't realise would happen once you bleached your hair, I probably should of done some research but like I said I just decided to dive straight in and do it. ) So what to expect when bleaching your hair

- Your hair goes into shock leading it to fall out. This is what happened to me but some of you (lucky ones) might be thinking mine didn't fall out, but this is what I discovered and learnt about going blonde, so take note that this may or may not happen to you. I have quite thick hair as it is leading it to shed when brushing and washing all the time, but after washing my newly bleached hair for the first time it fell out drastically. I was in shock at how much hair was in my hand and slightly dying inside watching it all drain down the plug hole. My instant reaction was FUCK what have I done, which was very scary but after a panicked googling apparently this is normal for freshly bleached hair. Your hair can go into a bleach shock which can lead some of it to come away from the roots but don't panic it stops eventually but it can be very scary especially if you wasn't aware it was going to happen. Also I have really thick so luckily it is not that noticeable that it is now thinner, but it definitely feels much thinner when washing and styling. If you have slightly thinner hair maybe ask your salon for advice before going blonde.

- Expect your hair to feel like straw when shampooing, when I first washed my hair I was really surprised at how horrible it felt and I'm not going to lie it did break my heart a little. I touched on this before briefly but I cannot tell you how important it is to look after your hair now it is bleached. To help enrich your hair it is recommend you reduce washing your hair to once/twice a week, deeply conditioning every time you do. I now wash my hair a little as possible (once a week if I can), and when I do I make sure I condition condition condition every time. I find it also really helps to leave your treatment in for a couple of hours before rinsing out, this does wonders for my hair. I also apply a little conditioner or leave in conditioner to the ends of my hair once all clean. Note that your hair feels like straw only when Shampooing as soon as you condition your hair it goes back to feeling normal and smooth.  

- Roots regrow quickly. I did not realise how quickly hair grew until now, within two week roots beginning to appear. In the end I left mine 4 months before redoing my roots, but it is recommend you top up your hair every 6 to 8 weeks as your hair is at a good lifting stage at this time.

- Violet Shampoo is your new best friend. Another thing I was completely unaware of was purple shampoo and the miracle that this product it. It is common that newly bleached hair specially if bleaching dark hair can be left slightly brassy or in my case very yellow. Now I was extremely yellow when my hair was bleached for the first time that I actually went back the next day and asked the 'professional' to fix it for me which she did however there was still a slight brassiness there (note that I had my hair beached in a Thai salon in Thailand, so I don't think they were used to someone coming in and ordering a full head of blonde). So again I hit the web for answers and this is when I learnt that violet shampoo will save your blonde life forever. This wonderful product helps keep all brassiness at a bay and refreshens your blonde between washes, what more could we ask for aye. I now use purple shampoo every other time I wash my hair.

It is not all bad I promise all these things I discovered within the first week or so and once you get over them and learn how to adapt to your newly blonde locks, it is a lot of fun and you can now go all the shades of blonde you like and even better you can be any colour of the rainbow *inserts sassy emoji*

So some products I would recommend ( These are the products I am currently using and have had to order from the UK to Thailand as they could not be found anywhere here. Again hours of research for the best was apparent. )

Firstly Fudge Clean Blonde Violet Toning Shampoo this product saved my hair from the freshly bleached brassiness that is a common side effect to bleaching dark brown hair to blonde. Not only does this shampoo smell delicious it is really thick and has a great application when shampooing your hair. I normally leave this product on my hair for about 10 minutes before rinsing, and you can see a difference to the tone of your hair after one wash. Followed with a deep conditioning treatment which I'll leave in for about 30 minutes. (See below)



For conditioning treatments I have been using this Argan Oil which is really nourishing and I use this both on wet hair and dry hair, normally leaving in my just shampooed hair for about 30 minutes or even longer depending on my time available.



For an even deeper condition I have been most recently using Bleach London's Reincarnation Mask  which works wonders to 'resurrect and hydrate thirsty, bleached or coloured hair and improve elasticity.' This product recommends to leave on for 10 to 20 minutes but I leave it on for about an hour, and it works wonders on my ends. I actually received this with the bleach blonde home kit, but you can also buy it separately, which I will be doing in the future.



More from Bleach London, recently I braved the task of topping up my roots and decided that Bleach London's Total Bleach looked most promising (again I did my research) this product was great and took my re growth to the lightest blonde possible, I left this product on for about an hour as it saids up to 45 minutes however it took me 30 minutes to apply to all my roots so I thought and extra 15 minutes wouldn't cause to much harm and I wanted to make sure the back was going to be as light as the front. Apparently your hair stops lightening once it has reached its max any way so there is more chance it all end up the same in the end. However I'm not a professional this is just from my experience and what I have discovered from researching, so please make sure you research and find what is best for you and your hair type if you are thinking of using a DIY bleach kit.

So after battling with hair loss, straw like hair and brassiness I was left feeling fabulous and chic with blonde locks so it was all worth it in the end. However being blonde is a lot of hard work to maintain but is also a lot of fun if you like to dabble over on the unicorn side and it wasn't long before I converted into a lilac, occasionally pink marshmallow.

I hope some of you found this post helpful, I know it doesn't explain much of the process but I hope it helps in what to expect and maybe some products you were thinking of trying. Do let me know if there is anything you recommend? Speak soon xo