So I am Asian and I have really black Asian hair. I really don't understand how the world of bleaching and dying hair works but a couple of days ago (a week maybe) i tried to dye my hair midnight blue. It didn't come out blue my hair was still black so i tried to bleach my hair. I used some Garnier box but it hardly lift my hair as much as I wanted it too (I was trying to lift up to a light orange, but really wanted a blond). Today i tried a Lo'riel Ferris box blond color and it still hardly lifted my hair. I was wondering if I needed to use color remover first or should I just get a stronger bleach.
I would do a color remover in case it stains when you try to bleach. Color remover doesn't damage hair to much, just drys it out. Deff deep condition after.
If you want a lighter color you will need to bleach and I would not use box dye either. Go to sallys. I've always used blonde brillance and had good results but its your preference
The problem you will have in getting blue is that blue is the opposite colour to Orange so if you lighten your hair to orange and then put blue over it then it will most likely turn brown!
When very dark hair is bleached it goes through a number of stages, first red, then orange, then gold, then yellow. Not everybody can get their hair all the way to yellow and it takes different amounts of time for different people depending on how much red and yellow tones your hair has. Blonde box dyes won't be strong enough to lift black hair to blonde, you want a good quality bleach and developer.
You need to rest your hair for a while after using the blonde dye though before you bleach, especially if you have used two box dyes on it already.