So this is my journey in going from red to blonde.  Later I’ll let you all in on how I got my hair so red, but this is all about the blonde.  If you read my previous entry in my blonde blog you know what a bitch it is to go from red to blonde, but I did it anyway. 

So I started out like this:

It was really red!  I love that colour…maybe I should go back…haha just kidding.  So I let it grow out a lot and then bleached for over an hour.  I used Clariol Born Blonde Maxi.  That stuff will work if you have black hair, so I figured it had to work on my red hair.  Wishful thinking.  Didn’t work!  Well…I had about an inch of roots at the time, so I had blonde roots and orange ends.  I forgot to take a picture right after I dyed it but this is what it looked like after the first bleach had grown out about an inch:

So you can see my roots look almost black in this picture…that is an unfortunate problem with blonde hair.  My natural hair colour is somewhere between a light brown and a dark blonde, but against the LIGHT blonde it doesn’t a shade lighter than coal.  :( 

So I ended up letting it grow out like that because I was pregnant and I wanted to wait until after the baby was born to sit in bleach again.  So a few weeks later when I felt up to it, I got blonde hair dye.  Dye.  Now I want you to remember there is a big difference between dye and bleach.  Previously, I had bleached my hair.  Bleach gives you the super light, unnatural, platinum results.  So I figured the dye would take to the bleached portion and just dye my roots since my hair is on the lighter side.  I used Clariol Balsom Colour #603G: Golden Blonde.  It worked beautifully on my roots.  It was a nice natural golden blonde…my ends on the other hand were still platinum and orange like before.  No dye took to the ends.  Bleach is funny like that…light colours don’t stick to it.  It’s odd.  Now if you were to put a dark or bright colour on there, as long as you’re using quality dye it would stick.  Bleaching and then dying is only necessary if you naturally have VERY dark hair, you want to get rid of a previous dye job, or you want super bright colour (especially the unnatural ones).  My previous red was not previously bleached it was just dye.  Course, reds fade like none other, so they aren’t easy either.  Plus you end up looking like a bad horror movie extra the first few showers after colouring. 

So after the dye (not bleach!) my hair looked like this:

It looked worse from far away

See how my roots still look dark?  They are actually a pretty natural golden blonde like I said, you just can’t tell up against that light blonde.  So I used Clariol again (I don’t normally use their dye but I am a fan of their bleach) this time it was Born Blonde Ultra Blue (as opposed to Maxi).  This one is still a heavy bleach but designed for medium to light hair, which seemed more appropriate for my situation this time since I have light hair and was really only doing the roots.  I actually dyed all of it just because I’ve cut it so short lately, I wasn’t worried about long term damage.  If you have long hair and want it to stay that way DON’T rebleach.  You’ll end up with something that resembles worn out elastic, but it’s your hair.  :(  Or sometimes it’ll just dry out and break off all the time…either way it’s no bueno.

It’s important to keep in mind that when you bleach or dye…get the hairline really well.  Thats the most noticable flub.  Don’t do it.  My head looks a little funny during dye, but it’s worth it for a clean hairline

It came out really good, although my previous dye/bleach jobs are still evident.  My roots are somewhat more golden/yellow blonde because of the blonde dye I used.  Also, my ends are still yellow/orange because of the previous red - it’s still there, although it did fade.  Like I said, it’s a pain to get red out…in fact you probably can’t.  You may be able to cover it up, but it’s still there.  Personally I like the look of my hair right now…it’s more than the one diminsional bleach color most people get.