[Sticky] Share your Bleaching Horror Stories

It's a big misconception that I also fell for that if You pay a lot, You'll get what You want... Such a bulls***. Never falling for that again

My first horror story wasn't as bad as some here...For a few months I had been bleaching the front of my hair around my face and putting blue dye on it along with a few streaks..Eventually I wanted the underlayer blue instead of it all just being on top. So my mom bleached it for me and it was fine..we started at my hairline and it was only maybe a quarter Inch of hair.I had a nice dark blue on it and once it washed out and I had taken a break from the bleaching for a bit ... My mom told me she wanted to relax my hair  (I'm mixed and I have a lot of super frizzy hair..practically a weighted down afro..) It was getting a little crazy so I agreed to it...dummy me didn't know you should never put a relaxer on top of ANY bleached hair.  It was on my hair for maybe 15 minutes when my mom THEN decided to inform me or had just remembered that I shouldn't relax my hair when it's been bleached.  Now being paranoid I ask her to keep an eye on it and say we should probably rinse it but soon she comments on it looking gummy and we immediately wash it out..Sure enough there was breakage all long the back mostly on the underlayer and I think only a small amount on the older highlights. My hair when straightened hits about mid back and  the breakage had made most of that break off to shorter than my collarbone.  It's grown out now but I haven't relaxed it since and don't plan to =p

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This one was much more recent..The whole front of my head is a light blonde now..from about the back of my ears forward..It was all blue until the beginning of last summer. Turns out I don't make a half bad blonde...Eventually I want to go white so I figured I'd just strip out the blue and let it go and bleach it as it comes..The bleaching was going fine and I was hitting my roots as they came in after they reached about a quarter if an inch and was using 30 and sometimes even 40 volume (which is stupid)...I was lightly overlapping even though I know I shouldn't since it was such a pale blonde I know it was already way over processed...my hair finally had enough of my over processing around fell right before I went to the Renaissance festival.  It had majorly broken off in the front from all the overlaps and I didn't quite realize the extent until I went to get my hair braided in an updo and the braider commented on it all being much shorter around the part. A majority had broken off to maybe an inch in length  but since I normally wear a headband I've been able to hide it.  It's gotten to around 4 inches now and is no longer entirely curly fro on the front of my head and I've spaced out my bleaching and have turned to 20 volumes instead..only issue my last bleaching about a month ago I had to lightly over process the previously bleached areas due to the halo I had that toner hadn't helped..I had to do two seperate bleaching on that and the roots but now still have slightly darker roots cause the 20 volume didn't lift them as high as I wanted even after 2 sessions on the roots... =p

Hi guys, not sure if you would be able to help, however here is my "horror story" / dilemma! I have no history of allergies, no hypersensitivities including dermatitis. Yesterday I got my hair done - touched up (ombre, with bleached ends). When my hairdresser of over 30 years experience placed the bleach (30 vol) on my hair with foils it got warm really quickly and then started boiling to the extent steam was coming off and burned my hairdressers hands.. Now fortunately she got it off in time before it did any damage to my hair. Anyway, she claims she has never had this happen before nor heard of it.. And she has used that bleach agent in my hair numerous times before over 5 years of intermittent bleaching.. She thinks s it is because I've been using purple shampoo regularly (..too often apparently) and there is a build up of "iron minerals" in my hair that reacted with the bleach... I just have a tough time believing my purple shampoo which is used for bleached hair could have caused my hair to start burning once bleach was applied.... Especially when I have friends with lighter hair than myself using it daily and bleaching 2 monthly. Does anyone have any thoughts??

I triple processed my hair with bleach in a bid to get it white in time for a Marilyn Manson gig (this was about 10 years ago)

I had very very black hair and when id finished it was just very pale yellow. I was so upset. My hair was just past my shoulders and I covered it with a beanie at the gig.

the next day I had to get it all cut off because my hair was broken.

🙁

But hey, its growing back now yay 🙂

I have level 2-3 brown/dk brown  hair and winter of 2013 decided I wanted to be blond. I've done the salon thing with highlights but I don't like the striped look. did the lengths first, then roots, but still came out orange. several days and processes later I was blond. I re-do my roots and usually they are brassy the first couple of days but then tone down. I use well t28 toner. bleach and toner with only 20 vol peroxide because I'm scare to go higher. not so much because I think my hair will fall out but because i won't apply the bleach fast enough and the result will be very uneven. Overall, I'm happy with what I've accomplished. Also *big suggestion* I have been putting coconut oil on my scalp 8+hours before root touch ups and my scalp never burns.

didn't realize this topic is for horror stories. the only bad thing that happened in my journey to go blonde was having orange hair for a couple of days, then toning, then bleach bath, then toning, then just bleaching again. That week was not fun because it was Christmas and we had relatives in town.

I have natural blonde hair but I dyed it red for about 10 months using crazy colour fire over a permanent red and then dark brown over that for about a year. I decided I wanted half of my hair white/silver so I used colour b4 3 times then bleached my hair 3(!!! I know, I hate to think about it!) times in 3 days using BBlonde kits (40vol).

My scalp was burnt on both sides above my ears and swelled to horrible bubbles, which when shrunk left dried skin for weeks. When I was washing the bleach out the last time clumps of hair were washing out too, and when I brushed it for a few days I had brush-fulls of hair. That was terrifying!

It would not got the colour I wanted so I put crazy colour violet over it and was fairly happy. I didn't realise until about 3 weeks later that I had a few tufts of hair about 1cm long from it snapping off, I was devastated!

It took me a year and a half to get my hair all one length, and I'm still sad at the lost length! It has also taken me a long time to get it back to healthy.

But it has taught me to look after my hair! I would never use plain bleach again, only ever coconut oil bleach baths for me!

I have natural blonde hair but I dyed it red for about 10 months using crazy colour fire over a permanent red and then dark brown over that for about a year. I decided I wanted half of my hair white/silver so I used colour b4 3 times then bleached my hair 3(!!! I know, I hate to think about it!) times in 3 days using BBlonde kits (40vol).

My scalp was burnt on both sides above my ears and swelled to horrible bubbles, which when shrunk left dried skin for weeks. When I was washing the bleach out the last time clumps of hair were washing out too, and when I brushed it for a few days I had brush-fulls of hair. That was terrifying!

It would not got the colour I wanted so I put crazy colour violet over it and was fairly happy. I didn't realise until about 3 weeks later that I had a few tufts of hair about 1cm long from it snapping off, I was devastated!

It took me a year and a half to get my hair all one length, and I'm still sad at the lost length! It has also taken me a long time to get it back to healthy.

But it has taught me to look after my hair! I would never use plain bleach again, only ever coconut oil bleach baths for me!

you shouldn't be discouraged from using straight bleach again. you just need to remember to only bleach once every 4-6 weeks and never ever use 40 vol. I personally think that 40 vol bleach shouldn't even be sold; it is unnecessary  even for the darkest of hairs.

Yes, there's nothing wrong with straight bleach, used correctly.

I used to dye my hair black. I am natural ash blond sandy blond color. when ny roots came in I would go over all of it woth black. Not.just do my roots. Lots of.build up. I.finallygot tired of the black and wanted it out... went to countless. salons noone would.touch.my hair for fear.of ruining it. Finaly someone did bleach it... four hours.at the salon got me bleaches hair.yes but. My ears and scalp and neck got blistered... i was angree at.that but.figured.meh then.two.weeks.later my hair started to break. But.i did not.fully fry my hair at least.

I had not dyed my hair in years, never bleached it either. So about september time, decided I wanted to go from my natural colour (dark brown) to pink. Bought crazy colors bleaching kit, and got my mate to wack it on. I probably should have got 2 kits as my hair was pretty long. We had a few glasses of wine, and until it was washed out, we thought we had done a great job. I was mistaken.
So woke up, and looked like a cheetah basically. Didn't have the confidence to redo it, so booked myself into a salon where I had to pay over £100 to get it bleached and have the colour put on it. I have attached a picture of what my hair looked like after it was bleached.  *boo*

It's probably been answered in here but when says 2 parts shampoo what does that mean?
Also what's the coconut oil treatment? X

It's just a measurement thing Ferne - the ratio of products needed in a recipe if you will. Putting coconut oil in your hair prior to bleaching  helps to protect it from some damage. Theirs lots of threads about this if you want to read them.
I must say I've enjoyed reading this thread heaps,It's been very informative and educational.  It's kinda like a horror story or a book about a serial killer - a bit gross but you just can't stop reading, thanks to everyone who has posted!

I've realised I posted on the wrong thing to lol.
Think I'm gna get my laptop out and read up.  Hard to do on your mobile

I went to my usual hairdresser 3 weeks ago and decided to go grey, I recently had my hair cropped and thought it would look great!  After bleaching with low vol and olaplex for 85 mins and 3 toners...I was a lovely dove grey and loved it...until I washed my hair and the grey washed out on the ends (about 3 cm at longest bits). I tried all sorts of grey toners but nothing would grab and stay.
Visit 2 to hairdressers, had remaining grey removed and tried to go for a darker steel grey (she even put some black and clear colour in) walked out loving it...wash hair and the same thing happened (looked worse though because of the darker grey).
Visit 3, the ends looked dry so went very short  🙁 more lifting with low vol and olaplex, lots of joico treatment,  followed by a permanent ashy grey blonde (had enough grey by that point and just really needed something to stick).  Didn't wash my hair for 3 days....oh no!! I now have ashy sides and a blonde top, not a good look for me, been using black mascara mixed with joico oil to try and blend.....help me!!!!!! I think it's down to the fact that I had brown dye still on the ends from a few months before???