Thursday, August 23, 2012

TUTORIAL ☆ White hair, step by step

I was planning to finish this and post it yesterday, but things got in the way (things like lying on my floor screaming at my stomach to stop torturing me. I ate something bad). So I'm posting it now instead! It's time for...

Iro's white hair tutorial


★ INTRO ★

Each part of this tutorial will consist of a longer more detailed text, then I will make a shorter summary at the end. So you can choose how much you want to know ~

I've had white hair on and off since I was around thirteen. Apart from white I've also had every other color and hairstyle possible, but I've always gone back to white, grey or silver. It's been hell for my hair but I least I know my stuff when it comes to going through that hell and come out of it with a lovely color. Time for me to share this knowledge with you!

★ STEP ONE ★
Bleaching.

The key to any shade of silver, white or grey is proper bleaching. But you can not just bleach your hair five times in the same day and expect it to be done. This will severely harm your hair, and the color result won't even be that good.

The science behind it goes like this; when you bleach your hair every straw ”opens up” and lets go of the amount of color it can until the straw is closed again. This is what's harming the hair, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. The thing is, it takes around 1-2 weeks for the straws to close again.

So how do you bleach your hair to get the best result?
Simple, wait 1-2 weeks between every bleach.

(This comes with a silver conditioner. Do not use this if you want white, not silver/greyish hair)

Apply the bleach, then wrap your head in aluminum foil for best result, follow the instructions on the package.

I suggest you bleach your hair at least twice, even if your hair is very bright. The white dye will stick better if the hair is newly bleached. If your hair is darker, you need to keep bleaching every two weeks until your hair sort of looks like on the picture below.



Apply a good hair remedy after every bleach. There are recepies online if you don't want to buy one. Use a good conditioner with keratine in. Avoid all hairproducts with silicone, as silicone also has a bad effect on the color result.

★ STEP TWO ★
The last bleach.

When you only need to bleach your hair one more time to be done with the bleaching step, it's time to purchase some good toner. The Silver Blonde Platinum bleach comes with a conditioner with purple pigment in that will (eventually) give you silver hair. So you can use this if you want to, but if you want white hair, I suggest you stay away from this.

The white toner I use is Directions White toner.

Bleach your hair the last time, wash your hair with shampoo, not conditioner, and blow dry your hair. Directly apply the dye. Here, don't care what the instructions tell you, leave the hair dye in for as long as you possibly can. I usually set a whole day aside just to dye my hair.

When you wash it, don't panic. Your hair will be purple.

★ STEP THREE ★
Purple pain.

Now, when your hair is purple, you have two choices (depending on how damaged your hair is and how much more it can take before falling off):

Wait for the purple to fade, which it will after a few showers, or bleach your hair one last time.
Mine was way too damaged to be bleached again, so this is how I looked for weeks. Like a sunburned, purple mushroom. With temporarily terrible skin. But I powered through, dammit.


★ STEP FOUR ★
 Voilà.

Once you've bleached or tortured yourself through step three,
your hair will hopefully be white as snow! I've been living with purple hair for weeks, and this is my end result;



If I were to say something to sum this up, it would be that white/silver hair takes patience. A lot of patience. It's hard on the hair so you have to take it slow. But it's a kind of awesome haircolor, so it's worth all those weeks right?

★ STEP FIVE ★
Making it last.

Simple! Mix in some white toner with your conditioner each time you wash your hair and leave it in for a few minutes. This makes it last a lot longer. After a few weeks you'll have to re-dye it though (and possibly bleach it again).

★ SUMMARY ★

Bleach: Wrap your hair in tinfoil while bleaching. Wait 1-2 weeks between each bleach, keep bleaching until your hair is as bright blonde as it can be (see picture). I use Schwarzkopf's L101 silver blonde platinum bleach. Do not use the silver conditioner that comes with it if you don't want greyish hair.

Dye: Right after the last bleach, wash your hair. Do not use conditioner. Blowdry, apply hairdye. I use Directions white toner. Leave in for as long as you can, the longer the better.

Kill the purple: Either wait for the purple to fade, or bleach another time. Depends on how your poor hair is feeling.

Done: yes, you're at the end of your journey!

After work: Mix your conditioner with some white toner every time you wash your hair to make it last longer.

★ THE END ★

That's it! Now, I have to say this is what I do. I can't guarantee it will work for anyone, of course. But a few tips, tricks and guidelines are better than none, correct?

I'm going to make a video about hair too, when I figure out how to use the webcam on my new MacBook ( ´∙ ω ∙) 'til then, have a good weekend! Hugs and kisses ♥

23 comments:

  1. you still looked amazing in your 'purple mushroom' phase haha, nice tutorial :3
    It could take a lot longer to go white if you have black hair to begin with (it took me 6 bleaches...) but very helpful ^^

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! Aw ( ∙ω∙ ) Well I had black parts in my hair before the summer as well, heh. It took me... 4 bleaches! It depends on what products and type of hair you have too I suppose!

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  2. You probably get this a lot, but I'm curious, what your original hair colour? I'm just wondering if it takes a lot of time for you to bleach your roots and make it even with the rest of your white hair. :) x

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    Replies
    1. I don't get that a lot actually! It's... "scandinavian blonde", sort of light-brown, ash-blonde-ish. And actually I don't really bleach the roots on their own... whenever I need to fill in the roots I just do the whole hair, hehe ( ^ ^)

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  3. Goood so, so good , but will it work if my hair is dark brown :( *getting sick*

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    Replies
    1. Well I dyed my hair to this color from black! (^_-)-☆ It's a long process, but if I can go from BLACK to white, you can surely go from brown to white! It's the bleaching that'll take long~

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  4. really great and interesting tutorial! You have some amazing patience but it really works for you! :D x

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    Replies
    1. Haha, thank you! Well lucky I have wigs, then I can hide my hair when it looks all yellow and crappy XD

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  5. When you were doing this, had your hair been previously bleached or was it your natural, virgin hair because I really really want to do this but I have already bleached my hair a couple of times and I don't want it to fall out!

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  6. This is the color I had when I started bleaching: https://twitter.com/irodohieru/status/217589334667300864
    You can relax, my hair has been bleached or colored at least once a month since I was twelve. If you let the bleaching process take time, it shouldn't be an issue! Especially if your hair is already bleached, then you don't have to bleach it as many times~

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  7. thankyou soo much for this!! sadly I will have to wait a couple of years before I can do anything cool to my hair as my school has strict rules... But it makes me happy to see a tutorial which isn't just 'follow the instructions on the packet' your tutorial is really detailed!

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    Replies
    1. Oh no, that sucks! But well, school is important so if that's the case then that's the case. Good luck when you do get to do what you want with your hair! And thank you for this positiveness~ makes me really happy you like my tutorial! ♥

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  8. just wondering, can you do tutorials of your headbands? UuU;;

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    Replies
    1. Since I'm selling them, I won't make a tutorial on how to make them. However, if you want to make one yourself because you have another design/color combo in mind, I do take all requests seriously! So if you have an idea and tell me about it I will most likely make one ( ∙ ω ∙ )

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  9. Hello,
    I`m trying hard to get white hair too and wanted to ask if the directions toner really works?
    I used Manic Panic and Stargazer and let them in my hair for about 5-6hours and nothing really happend.
    You can see a picture of my hair on my blog... or is my hair still too dark?
    And if directions works, did you also tested to remove the purple shade with bleaching again? Because i can`t go to work with purple hair :(
    Sorry for the questions but your result looks really amazing and I hope you can help me :)
    Thank you
    Kind Regards

    ReplyDelete
  10. 1. It is a bit too dark I'm afraid!
    2. I can see your natural color has grown out quite a bit, so I take it you haven't bleached it in a while? Your hair needs to be FRESHLY bleached for the color to attach properly ~
    3. I did try to bleach away the purple once, and it worked just fine! Just wait a day or two, so your hair won't fall out haha. Maybe dye it on a friday and bleach away the purple on a sunday before a working monday ( ^ ^)

    I hope this helped! And ask away, I'm happy to answer so don't worry ♥

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  11. First, thank you very much :)
    I will buy me a white directions toner and 2 bleach sets and try it when i have a free weekend in the next time
    Should the hair be completly dry after the first bleach or a little bit wet when i put the toner in my hair?
    Have you any good stuff to keep your hair healthy?
    Sorry for my many questions but i`m trying to get them white since years and went back to black and whatever and now I`m blond again but everything i get is ashblond or grey and i just want it really white :]
    Thank you very much
    Kind Regards

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't apologize for the questions, I'm a happy helper ( ^ ^)⎠
      It doesn't matter if your hair is wet or not, just as long as it's right after a bleach. The first time it should probably be dry. Then you can make a hairmask; just mix a HUGE amount of conditioner and hairdye together and apply after a light towel dry (instead of just conditioning after shampooing).
      That mask is also something you can do to keep it healthy! And... this is going to sound weird. But. Eat a lot of eggs.
      Trust me, eggs is like the hair remedy of gods.

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  12. wow you really had the patience to do it...I would have freaked out to see my hair getting purple when i want it to be white ! hahaha~!!
    I so want to have white/grey hair, so one day, when im more patient that i am now, i will follow what you just said~ :D !! haha

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  13. Hello, I would like to ask you something about the bleaching part.
    I'm trying to get my hair white so I can have a trully pastel pink hair but the problem is that my hair has two colors now. I bleached it at two different times in the pink part so one is lighter than the other that is still kinda yellow.
    And, as I saw from your picture, you had two colours in your hair so I would like to know if you bleached the black part more times than the silver one or it was the same.
    Other than that, since you said that you bleach all your hair when you do it to your roots I wondered if you applied the white toner again after that or just when you are trying to get it white from other colour.
    Sorry for so many questions, but I think you're the right person to ask them to. (:

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  14. Just how many weeks does it takes for the violet to fade? (your hairstyle is amazing in the white hair pic btw!) because my hair is naturally dark brown, so when it will grow back, it will be very visible. And the time for the violet to go, my roots will probably be showing by then :( then I'll have to bleach again the roots, and my hair will be white with violet roots??

    ReplyDelete