Lightening Your Hair With Believe

Now that the warmer weather is here, everyone’s hair is no longer hidden under hats and what that means to us at Believe is that we are seeing an awful lot of very bad hair color applications—many are do-it-yourself at-home jobs.

The reason we see none of our clients among those who look like refugees from tin foil and paintbrushes over the kitchen sink or (men, are you reading this?) the ones who look like someone applied shoe polish to their heads is because we are lucky enough at Believe to have a Master Colorist. Lisa, the owner of Believe, spent years learning her craft and consulting on every hair coloring session we do here at Believe.

And while we can’t condense all her training into one article, here is the first of a series of articles revealing some things you should know about hair coloring (even if you insist on doing it yourself—and again, we beg…please don’t!).

Lightening the hair

This is a preparatory process for the application of a single-action, penetrating tint or toner and a lightening product used to lighten the hair to the desired shade.

Professional hair color lighteners were created to lift dark hair to light by diffusing natural melanin present in the hair's cortex. Experts like us at Believe know, they can’t always guarantee that you’ll walk in with black hair and can walk out a platinum blonde. (The underlying pigment might not allow that.) We may be able to take your very dark hair and make it much lighter—but that might take more than one application of lighteners and (do-it-yourselfers take note) you could be playing with fire.

Each application may damage hair due to the level of lightening and chemicals required to achieve it. The stylists at Believe are looking out for the long-term health of your hair. Listen to us!

The over-the-counter lighteners may contain a lower level of potentially harsh chemicals (and may not lighten your hair properly either) but don’t be fooled. They can still severely damage your hair. If you must lighten your hair at home—do a strand test in some inconspicuous place. Remember…Hair lighteners actually remove color—to just minimize the color, but remove it completely.  We really do recommend you step away from the box and make an appointment at Believe. We can assess your hair and tell you if it’s even a good time to consider lightening your hair. If we find it so, we will use one of the following hair lighteners: Oil, Cream or Power of Paste.

Oil Hair Lighteners

Oil Lighteners usually consist of the mixture of hydrogen peroxide with a sulfonated oil. 

Oil based lighteners are usually mixed with 20 volume developer and one or more lightening activators. Many of the lightening activators do contain ammonium persulfate.  It is the ammonium persulfate working in harmony with the hydrogen peroxide and the lightener to remove any unwanted red, orange or yellow tones in the hair.

Oil lighteners can provide maximum control when lightening naturally dark hair, which may take an hour or more.

Neutral oil lighteners can be used without adding color to soften the hair to better take a tint later or Colored oil lighteners add temporary color and highlight hair while they lighten. Gold lightens the hair while adding red highlights.
Silver lightens the hair while adding silvery highlights to gray or white hair.  It also minimizes red and gold tones on other types of hair. Red lightens the hair and adds red highlights.
Drab lightens and adds ash highlights, toning down or reducing red and gold tones.

Cream Hair Lighteners

Cream hair lighteners are the most popular types of lighteners.  They're easy to apply and will not run, drip or dry out, making them easy to control. With conditioning, bluing and thickening agents, they can protect the hair from harsh chemicals, “drab” or dull red, orange or gold tones, and make sure the lightener stays even and doesn't run (you don’t want streaks).

Powder Or Paste Hair Lighteners

Powder or paste lighteners are the fastest type of hair lighteners. These types of hair lighters contain oxygen-releasing boosters for quicker and stronger action in lightening. Your Believe stylist will mix these lighteners that hold really well and prevent overlapping with previously colored hair. You really need a professional to properly use these lighteners so they don’t dry out too fast, drying out the hair shaft and irritating your scalp.

Make an appointment with us at Believe to assess the condition of your hair prior to lightening it. We are happy to take a look, give our honest opinion, and recommend some next actions to get your hair ready to go lighter, Next week, check this space for some other things to consider if you taking bold action and Going Blonde.