How often do you fix your roots and what color is your natural hair?

My hair grows fast, I really can not go much more than 6 weeks with out doing my roots or it gets patchy. My natural hair is brown-black so it shows soooooooo badly even 1 week after bleaching. It drives me INSANE seeing all this black hair at my temples when I just did my roots like 8 days ago.

My hair is a level 6/7 dark ash blonde + my hair grows about an inch a month now, so I like to do then every 4-5 weeks. Any longer than and inch to an inch and a half at most, I start to see a difference in level between the part closest to the scalp and the part at the 'end' of the roots. When my hair used to grow slower though, between 1/8 - 1/4 inch at the very most, I could go ages without having to do my roots if I was bleaching. That was when I was dying it a permanent and demi black so when the roots started growing in they looked so ridiculous, I looked like I had a huge bald stripe going down the top of my head, so I'd still do them every few months when they got to about a half inch.

I think it really depends on the natural level, how well the hair lightens and how fast the hair grows though so it really can be different for everyone. I like to do bleach root retouches when my or someone else's hair is about an inch or so, so that the results stay consistent. With some people that is 3 weeks, with some it can be 6 months

I tend to do mine every 6-8 weeks.  My hair grows on average 3/4 of an inch a month, so if I leave it longer than eight weeks (or an inch and a half of roots) it becomes very difficult to get even.

I was warned by several hairdressers that waiting too long between root touch ups will make my hair uneven because it won't process evenly.

When I had inches of roots they did not process evenly.

But how long until I risk being uneven?

If I get my roots done in 5 or 6 week intervals instead of the recommended 4, will I really
Still get banding? I think waiting 2 months runs a risk, but in 4 weeks my growth isn't that much.

It all depends on how much your hair grows. For me 6 weeks is the max I can go which puts my roots around 3/4 of an inch. I waited 2 months once and my roots came out horribly uneven and took forever to sort out.

Most of the forum members do theirs every 4-6 weeks. Just make sure you coconut oil first!

This is something I'm interested in as well.  I will need to do my roots probably next week (5 weeks since whole head bleaching).  I'm wondering whether to just redo the whole lot though, as the ends are still fairly dark under the colour.  (Well - definitely ginger rather than blonde.)

Should I take the pain of a proper fade of colour before bleaching the ends again?  Or can it work just as well over the top of the directions colour?  (I was going to re-do the colour next weekend as well anyway.)

It just depends. Usually when the hair is about an inch long you have the most even, consistent results when doing a bleach root touch up. When it starts getting to an inch and a half though you start to see banding.

@SoniaJM Which Directions color do you have on at the moment?

It's rose red on there at the moment.  It was black until December, when I used colour remove, then put on a generic packet red (think it was an xxl one).  Then I bleached it 4 weeks ago today - and added rose red, which I then redid 2 weeks ago (red not bleach!). 

To be fair I'm having it cut today which will hopefully get rid of the worst end bits that are darkest. 

It's just as it fades it goes more of a red-red (closer to the tone of pillar box red) rather than the pinky red I want, so I'm trying to work out the best way of getting there without killing my hair completely in the process! 

IMO to avoid pinks looking too red you need to get it past the orange/ginger stage. Was the red xxl that you used a permanent dye, did you have to mix developer in with it, or was it a semi?

Either way, you may be better off trying another color remover before bleaching again. I would try to fade down your current color with fading treatments first (or just let it fade on it's own), so that when you do a fading treatment the water runs clear or close to it. Then I would try a color remover. It's very possible that the black dye is still lingering in there, but it's possible the hair may be stained from the black dye too which is common for it to stain the hair ginger. I would try those things first, then try bleaching a test strand to see if it budges or how much it lifts. If you don't have staining and can at least get it to a gold I think you'll have much more of a pinky red and pinky red fade instead of a red-red

right out of the salon, i sometimes feel "too blonde". i think my blonde looks best when there is between 5-10 days of growth, it softens slightly but the dreaded "dark band" hasn't emerged yet because the growth isn't long enough.

but, too much root is ugly too. at 4 weeks my roots were really not too bad, i think i can definitely go 6 from now on.

how much root do you prefer?

When I had white hair, I would always prefer the freshly bleached look. My hair is naturally dark brown so as soon as my roots came through it was really noticeable and I hated it.

So much so that I used to bleach my roots every few weeks and ended up frying my hair.

I think it depends on your natural colour and whether you are trying to look 'natural' or not. When my hair was dark brown and I dyed it pink/red etc it looked better with roots. Now it is grey my roots look horrible with every colour.