by KimmyAKALady_Luna, modified by Faux Blondes

What is ‘virgin hair’? This part is the most important because this focuses on a group of people who have never done this (dyeing and hair coloring) before. Virgin hair technically means that hair that has never been colored or dyed at all. I mean, nada or zippo. If you never have dyed your hair, not even with a semi or demi-permanent color, you actually have a virgin hair. Hence, the instructions for those with virgin hair!

You will find instructions on how to double process your “virgin” dark hair below.

First make sure you have all these items:

• An old t-shirt you don’t mind getting messed up
• the choice of 20, 30, or 40 vol. creme developer and on the scalp liquid oil creme lightener (bleach)
• 2 or 3 activator packs (Wellite comes with 2, 7th Stage 3)
• The choice of a shade of toner after the bleaching process
• A good moisturizing conditioner
• A plastic bowl to mix the bleach
• A brush-on applicator or brush and bowl method
• Pair of latex or plastic gloves (sometimes comes with the bleach kit)
• Small hair claws and at least 6 of them for all your hair (very nice to have, esp. for retouches).
• One big claw for long hair to pin up on your head.
• An old towel
• A friend to help you or many mirrors all around
• Petroleum jelly (for when you are dyeing your hair, so it won’t stain your skin)
• A watch or timer clock

It’s very important to strand test the volume you want to get, depending on the color of your hair and how light you want to bleach.  40 volume developer with bleach is usually best used for very thick, coarse, dark brown to black hair if you want to bleach it to a really pale yellow color. It’s not recommended on other types of hair because of potential damage and breakage. Do this with extreme care. Otherwise, stick to 20 volume for LEAST breakage but may warrant repeated bleachings (more than twice). 20 volume is also good if your hair is somewhat really damaged (like performing after color stripping/removal service).

Here’s the procedure. Make sure you are wearing the old T-shirt, and you should make sure you are in your bathroom, with a big mirror!  This is when the clips come in-if your hair is long, it’s much easier to use, if your hair is really short, you don’t really have to use them.  You will want to part your hair into small sections and clip the hair about 1-1 1/2 inches from your scalp, so you do not get it on the hair closer to your head (where roots are), since it will bleach much faster from the rest of your hair!  This technique works really well, but might be a little hard to get the clips out when you are about to wash your hair.

Put on the gloves on to protect your skin.  Mix the liquid bleach, activator packettes, and developer together in the plastic bowl with the brush applicator.  Oh, and definitely make sure that if you have hair longer than shoulder-length, you will want two packages or bottles of the stuff plus double the amount of activator packettes.  The brushing-on process must be quick, especially with the 40 vol. bleach, since it starts processing really quickly (if it’s too quick, use 20 vol. for longer processing).  Start brushing it on only on the hair below the clips, until it is fully saturated.  Most of the time, the bleach will make your skin start itching and irritating if it gets on your skin, so try really hard not to get it on there!  Use the big claw to pin back your hair from your skin.

Approximate processing times:

• For dark brown to black hair: about 60-90 minutes to get to either banana yellow or pale yellow
• For medium brown: 40-90 minutes
• Light brown: 20-90 minutes
• Dark Blonde: 20-60 minutes

This is not to mean that you should not keep on checking your hair at least every 10 minutes after you have put it on, because if you do not want it really light, you won’t notice it.  If you want to be a blonde, wait until your hair gets to a banana yellow (outside the banana peel yellow) or pale yellow (inside the banana peel yellow), and then apply the bleach to the hair close to your scalp where roots are.  Using 40 vol. developer with bleach, it will probably take 10 to 15 minutes, while 20 vol. it may take about 30 minutes (on very dark hair) or longer, entail the roots to match the ends.  Wash out your hair thoroughly for 5 minutes or more to prevent further processing.  Wella Regenal Instant pH Normalizing Lotion is a good one to remove any residue of bleach.

If you think the bleach wasn’t strong enough and it didn’t bleach to the desired shade of banana yellow, only to gold stage, you can bleach your hair again over the span of a couple of days.  You do not want to bleach your hair more than twice in one day!  So, to keep your hair healthy and strong, use the good moisturizing conditioner after you are done, and then you could do the process tomorrow and leave it till it’s light. See Hair Pigment Levels to compare the level you are at and where you want to achieve.

If you are satisfied with the shade of blonde it came out as, you can use the toner you got after you let your hair dry completely.  Toner is basically hair dye of the desired shade you want and to make hair less yellowy, which is natural result from bleaching.

This is an all-over application of the hair dye to your head and is much easier than bleaching it!  Most boxes will say that if you are a bleached blonde, you will want to keep the dye on your head for 45 minutes.  It helps to set the color in better.  Use the petroleum jelly, if you have it, and apply it to all the way around your hair line (forehead, nape of the neck, and ears).

Hopefully, the color came out bright and vibrant just the way you wanted it!  Oh, and don’t forget to try using color-enhancing shampoos, especially if you are a blonde now!

By Hair By Design

The active ingredients of the vast majority of hair treatment chemicals raises the pH of the hair so that the structure of the hair can be altered by other ingredients of the treatment. PH is a scale of how acid or alkaline something is. A neutral pH on this scale is “7″. A value of “0″ pH would be very acid, and a value of “14″ would be extremely alkaline.

In other words, chemicals applied to hair are designed to make it very alkaline, which allows the hair to be permanently colored or curled or straightened, depending on the other ingredients in the solution.

Simple heat alone does not alter the structure. I watch my best friend curl her hair with a blow dryer and curling wand every 2.5 days; I don’t think we have to belabor the point on this.

Temporary colors are temporary because they do not significantly alter the structure of the hair. If you’ve used any temporary color, you can see it wash down the drain over the next few times you wash your hair. The color solution does not penetrate the cortex of the hair but stays on the cuticle.

Where permanents do not work, where hair color does not last, it is because

What is that necessary ingredient?

Protein!

Your natural hair is composed of (x) amount of protein. That amount did not change until you chemically altered your hair. So, what the heck happened?

When you dyed, permed or relaxed your hair, the chemical, in order to make the desired change in the structure, destroyed protein in the
process.

If you looked at hair under a microscope while it is being exposed to hair treatment chemicals, you would see actual explosions on and in the hair as the chemical destroys the protein! The alkaline chemical burns through some of the protein of the cuticle, lifts the cuticle, and goes to work on the protein cortex of the hair.

Depending on the strength of the chemical, the length of time the hair is exposed to it, and other factors relating to the hair itself, part of the protein is literally burned up in the process.

Each time you use the chemical treatment, it actually destroys up to 50% of the protein of your hair! In other words, the first treatment you lost 50% of the protein of your hair. The next time you treated your hair, you lost 50% of the remainder, and so on, until eventually you have lost virtually all the protein of your hair and the structure of the hair itself has been significantly compromised.

This magnified photo shows a strand of hair that has not been chemically processed.

The image on right shows a strand of hair that has been damaged due to chemical processing.

Known as “frosting” in hey days, highlighting mainly can be done with either highlight cap or foils. Both are different but have similar results. Most salons choose highlighting method for better distribution of color or bleach, add dimension to one color hair and less prone to breakage. Highlight cap is a plastic cap that has pre-defined holes all over it where you can pull strand through each hole to highlight. You can determine the size of each strand depending if you want fewer or more highlights. If you opt for more highlights, then you’ll have “all over color” look, while if you choose fewer highlights, then it will add some dimension to your hair. The more highlights, then almost all of the holes are used up, while the fewer highlights, then use every second hole of the cap. It’s suggested to use at least 1/4″ of strand to highlight but more can be used.

Foils are different from highlight caps, they are somewhat more technically advanced and they’re not same thing as aluminum foil you use in the kitchen. Most salons prefer foils to highlight cap because they’re better controlled and trap in moisture from bleach while adding heat. Foiling can be done in different ways such as weaving and slicing. You can obtain more information by going to SalonFoiltoGo and Robert Craig’s websites. They have detailed information on highlighting.

On the other hand, lowlighting is the opposite of highlighting. While most highlighting is mainly for lightening up strands of hair, lowlighting is for darkening hair strands in overly light hair. It can be done on any shade of blonde. For this reason, some people prefer to demontrate dimension in their hair, so lowlights are used, to prevent all over color and blandness. Lowlighting is used with a demi- or semi-permanent color that would coat the hair without “lift” and tend to last longer than permanent color. Lowlighting can be done on
red or brunette shades, such as darker brown lowlights on light brown hair or darker red on light brown or light red hair. Lowlights do bring out depth and illusion having shiny hair, just like highlights.

Contributing Pigment is the underlying warmth found under every Natural Level. It is exposed during lightening and effects the final color result. It can be either enhanced or neutralized. [ Clairol Pro Website ]

If you want to be the lightest blonde, look at the right column to achieve that level: Level 10 blonde = bleach to Pale Yellow, or you just want to go a dark blonde: Level 6 = bleach to Orange/Gold. This can be applied to either natural hair color or hair that’s already bleached. For bleached hair, use your bleached hair (without ANY color put in) as your “starting” hair color level, eg: if you lightened to orange, use this orange as your “starting color”.

	LEVEL:	CONTRIBUTING PIGMENT:
	10 – Lightest Blonde	Pale Yellow
	9 – Extra Light Blonde	Yellow
	8 – Light Blonde	Yellow – Gold
	7 – Medium Blonde	Gold
	6 – Dark Blonde	Orange – Gold
	5 – Lightest Brown	Orange
	4 – Light Brown	Orange – Red
	3 – Medium Brown	Red
	2 – Dark Brown	Red – Brown
	1 – Black	Dark Red – Brown

Courtesy of Clairol Professional