[Sticky] Bleach Bath tutorial - with pictures!

I am thinking of doing this to get the color out of my hair so that I can dye it red.  How damaging is the bleach bath?

Bleach baths are not as damaging as full strength bleachings, but a color remover should always be tried first if you have artificial pigment already on your hair. They shrink and pull out the color molecules, and they aren't damaging at all, they just dry out the hair a bit. Plus, if you have an oxidative dye on your hair already (anything that required a developer), if you bleach right over that without using a color remover first, you will almost always get uneven results. Usually it will be lighter towards the roots and darker towards the ends.

I am thinking of doing this to get the color out of my hair so that I can dye it red.  How damaging is the bleach bath?

Also you only need ginger for a vibrant red =)

Sins, thanks for posting this tutorial with pictures! I learned a lot from this. My hairdresser hadn't heard of bleach baths, so your tutorial enabled me to give her the proper instructions for how to do a BB.

This info may help someone else: My hair was bleached yellow (from natural light to med. brown). I deep-conditioned beforehand. We put a mixture of 20 vol. bleach and 2 parts clarifying shampoo on my already-bleached hair, intending to only leave it on for 5 min. or so. (My hairdresser and I were both scared of potential damage). But the BB mixture was so gentle that we ended up leaving it on my hair for a full 20 min., checking regularly.

The BB took my hair from light yellow to pale yellow. We used a new high-lifting bleach on my roots (Matrix), so we needed to try to get the rest of my hair to match my pale yellow roots. I was scared about putting bleach on already-bleached hair, but there really wasn't any damage to speak of. The BB did a great job of lifting the color in the rest of my hair to pale yellow, in a very gentle way.

Since my hairdresser didn't know about BB's, our only other option would have been to run pure 20 vol. bleach through my hair, which probably would have caused a lot of breakage. So this tutorial helped save my hair! BB's really are the way to go if you want to lighten your hair. Just make sure to do deep conditioning after, and use coconut oil beforehand.

I did my very first bleach bath today. I mainly did it to try and remove some very slight darker yellow areas around the top of my head (like a halo) and also to ligthen the upper half of my head by 1 shade (it's pale yellow but not quite inside of a banana pale yellow). Unfortunately it didn't make any difference at all to either. I thought because it was my first attempt at a bleach bath I did something wrong, like too much shampoo/wrong ratio or something, but I can't have because I accidentally got some of the mixture on my dark brown roots and they went a light ginger colour, not sure why it didn't lighten anywhere else though.

Sorry to jump in here, but is a bleach bath and appropriate thing to do for extensions? They're microloops, and just the ends need lifting, not the rest, or would a colour remover be best? It's blue and the extensions are real hair. Has anyone used Colour B4 Fashion Colour Remover and had good results??

It's not really advised to bleach extensions, they aren't coloured in the same manner your own hair would be. It's anyone's guess how it could turn out. I've had some lighten lovely- then I've had one human hair set literally get so hot it would cause skin burns to touch. Pretty scary.

As for CB4 fashion colours, the shampoo it's great for fading but I don't really rate it. I do have atomic pink in though and nothing really hacks into that

Ahhh, you see, I didn't pay for my extensions, as Toni and Guy gave them free in exchange for pictures for their website, so if I screw them up there's no way on earth I could pay for replacements. Why would hair go that hot!? Thats terrifying!11!

I did have atomic pink before this blue and I know the pain of it, its like GLUE. I've bought some of it so maybe i'll give it a go if it's not going to do any harm. I don't need to completely get it out, it's Crazy Colour Bubblegum over the AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL Bleach Washed Out Mermaid, so it's quite strong and I fancy a bit of time pastel. Do you think I could achieve pastel??

Ahhh I see! It completely depends on how they've been treated tbh, my bet is even T & G won't know exactly! Maybe strand test?
I know right- the heat was horrific I had to throw them in a cold bath. Stunned. The were indeed human hair too!

Na the CB4 shampoo in that box is pretty awesome, he should sell it on it's own!

I would suggest soaking the extensions in a bowl of washing up liquid or head and shoulders overnight.  We've had some people take their extensions back to blonde this way.  Just be sure to condition them really well after!

Well I could, but they're attached to my head! I think i'd be a lot happier doing stuff to them if they weren't because if they're ruined thats it, they can't be replaced. Given that, would you recommend I use the Colour B4 fashion colours thingy? I bought some last night on a whim so I have it but obviously don't have to use it!

Ah, yeah, sorry, I missed the microloop part.

I'd say give either Colour B4 Fashion Colours or Scott Cornwall's Decolour Remover a go, as they're not damaging (though they can be drying, so condition well after!).

Okay, thats my plan!!! Thank you so much, I hopefully will achieve my pastel dream! I condition a lot, it's just a worry that my actual real hair has such severe breakage that it's two inches long on top. Fingers crossed it doesn't fry 🙁

Thank you that's great!

Around how many times could I bleach bath my hair? I'm worried it would get too damaged if I overdo it. Trying to resolve a hair issue (hairdyeforum.com/index.php?topic=12946.0) through bleach bathing until I get the result I want.

Thank you! 🙂