Hair breakage after bleaching

I’m so sorry, but your hair is almost certainly past saving. You’re going to do the best thing by having the majority cut off. I’ll come back to that though.

There’s been some hard lessons learnt here. For your reference in the future and anyone else reading...

1. Never use 40 volume, but especially never use it on hair that’s already bleached. This I have to emphasise, it’s horrible stuff.

2. You were never going to get blonde easily because your hair was stained from so many years of dark dye. It needed months of very gradual lightening with mild bleach baths giving at least a month in between to make sure the hair was still in good condition. All this should only be a last resort if dye removers fail (as yours did).

3. You need a better bleach than Jerome Russell. It’s just not very good which is why it needs 40 vol to get any results. A good bleach powder will give you the same lift or better with a 20 vol peroxide and be less damaging, especially to your scalp.

4. You need to be very careful when scratching your head with bleach on. You can easily break the skin which leaves you open to even worse chemical burns. 40 vol is extremely likely to cause bad burns anyway and should never, ever be used on the scalp (at best it should only ever be used for highlights). It makes me so angry that 40 vol is the only one available in Boots etc most of the time. If used badly it can cause permanent damage to the root of the hair, hair won’t grow out of scar tissue 🙁 Look for the better bleach powders and lower volume peroxide in Sally’s or Amazon. You can’t always get the best bleach powders, but you can get far better ones.

5. I’m very concerned that it said 90 minutes. Bleach generally doesn’t stay active for longer than 90 minutes and, when you take into account the length of time it takes to apply, then that means a lot of time on your hair where it’s not actively removing pigment but it’s still damaging hair. Most bleaches say 60 mins max for that reason. So, never leave any bleach on for longer than 60 mins regardless of what the instructions say.

Ok, so what can you do now? As I said, the most productive and cheapest (you’ll spend a ton doing it any other way) is going and getting a fun short haircut which hopefully immediately cuts out all the damage.

Really don’t want to do that straight away? I know, most people don’t want to cut it off, but I can tell you it’s less heartbreaking in the long run, but I get it. Even though I never have my hair longer than my shoulders, I still know it’s tough to get a haircut when you don’t want one. So I’ll go through some of your options.

Don’t get olaplex. If you are given that as a suggestion elsewhere, don’t do it. It’s scarily expensive and if your hair is too far gone it’s not going to help. I know some claim it does, but they’re either lying deliberately or just feeling the after affects of a sleek blow dry which can make hair feel better for a while. Don’t go down that root. It only works for hair that’s a bit damaged. It’ll be good for when you inevitably forget this experience and go bleach happy in the future 😉 (though, keep in mind it’s not a miracle and over bleach8ng with olaplex will still result in mass breakage).

Do try some Aphogee 2 step protein treatment. It’s fairly cheap and should help quite a bit, it’s not a miracle and you’ll need to redo it every few weeks (don’t be tempted to do it too often, I can speak from experience that over using protein is almost as bad as bleach damage, thankfully it’s more easily reversed). Make sure you get the pack with the conditioner included.

I think you ca; guess the other stuff I’m going to say.

Wash as little as possible. Once a week is best. Use cool water. Try conditioner only washing as well.

There’s been some evidence recently that blow drying is actually better than air drying. HOWEVER, only if you move the hair around a lot, leaving it in one place damages, so it has to be blown randomly around if that makes sense. This really only works if yo7 have naturally straight hair that isn’t prone to fuzz. And should definitely only be done on the coolest setting. Of none of these apply, don’t blow dry. Put your hair up if you have to, but avoid blow drying because pulling the hair straight with a brush and blowdrying it (even though it might feel better in the short term) will damage it.

You can use hairspray and other product, but be sparing. As you need to make your hair last as long as possible between washes and preferably use less detergents (in shampoo) you really need to use as little as possible. You also want to avoid making it more brittle, which hairspray can do, as when you brush or comb it can cause more breakage.

It’s impossible to say if it’ll stop breaking (I avoid using the term falling out, because it’s not doing that). It really depends if every single strand is so damaged it’s inevitably going to break at some point. This is why my first suggestion is always get it cut off as it’s the least painful in the long run. The problem with damage in the hair shaft is it can travel up the hair, especially where the hair has broken off already. So the longer you leave it the worse it can get. This means if you leave it then the damage can be creeping up the hair and if you do eventually decide to get it cut it might have to be even shorter than you’d have to originally or at least as short as it would have been originally, only it could have grown out more by that point (I hope that makes sense, it’s a difficult one to explain!).

Do get a good healthy trim even if you won’t cut it short. It probably won’t make a lot of difference, but it’ll hopefully get rid of some of the worst areas that tangle which will still help.

You don’t have to go to a salon. Unfortunately some of our worst bleaching horror stories come from salons. But you do need some good, solid, basic knowledge behind you 🙂

So, to sum up. Best course of action, a good hair cut to get rid of the worst damage. Failing that, only blow dry occasionally and only ever on the coolest setting. Avoid too much product of any kind. Wash much less often. Try conditioner only washing.

Oh, and lastly, avoid silicones, especially non-water soluble ones (you can find lists of non silicone conditioners online). They’ll make your hair feel better temporarily, but it also blocks protein and moisture getting in somthe condition actually gets worse, all it does is smooth down the cuticle to make it feel better. Get some jojoba oil, I get it on amazon, 100% natural oil, doesn’t have to be organic. Don’t use the Moroccan oils or most serums around at the moment, they’re mostly stuff full of silicones.

Hopefully I’ve not missed too much, it’s a lot to type! Feel free to ask any questions 🙂

To Janineb: Thank you so much! I went to the hairdressers in the end today because I was really desperate. My hair felt as if sticky, I couldn’t even touch it, not even mentioning brushing it which felt impossible. So much more hair came out. I am so happy I went because what she did with my hair I find amazing. It looks so much better, it is not even that short but what’s important, it’s not breaking anymore. I think she brushed what was meant to come off and i lost at least 1/3 of my hair (what I mean here is the thickness, the lenghts went only by 2 inches rougly)  which is really bad and it sucks but they will grow back. And I have quite lots od hair so it doesn’t look as bad. Thank god for that. She also suggested some products which she also used in the salon, it was Redken anti snap. She also put lots of things on when she was washing it and I can’t say what it was because she used like 5 different things. But it seems it worked pretty well. My hair obviously still feels very dry and damaged but I can go through it with my hand and it goes easily out. It doesn’t get stuck there. And most importantly, no more hair is coming off even when I pull it. Hopefully it will stay like this. Now I’m going to take a proper care of it. I’ve never actually realized the importance of my hair before.  ::)

I have attached the photo of my hair now!

You have lovely thick hair, so that helps a lot 😀

The thing is, Redkin Anti Snap is full of silicone, that's why your hair feels better. It isn't though, it's just patched up with, effectively, plastic. It's the kind that might be next to impossible to remove, especially if high heat is used on it. It requires the use of very harsh shampoo to remove it and it builds up easily. The best case is, it'll wash out when you use a shampoo and it'll be back to how it was. If you reuse it then you run the risk of heavy build up and that can be a pain. Meanwhile, your hair condition could well be getting worse as any protein or moisture you use won't get through the silicone.