[Sticky] Share your Bleaching Horror Stories

When I was in college (and knew absolutely nothing about dying) I did a full bleach every 3 days for 6 weeks :/ My hair snapped off and I had to cut it off

Gee, I thought I was the only one that this kind of thing ever happened to!! :O
My horror story started over a month ago, but I've worked up to it from changing my hair color every other week literally. Then I got around to dying it black and left it that way for several months and decided I absolutely had to have silver hair. So I used a color remover, it did a horrible job, it was just like a harsh bleach! Then I rinsed it and added a bit more in the spots I thought still had the color on it. Then I bleached it the very next day with 30 vol. for about an hour...After I rinsed it, it wasn't even hair anymore. It all stuck together like if you straighten plastic hair. And to top it off, it was a neon orange! I was so upset I was crying so hard and figured it would all fall off and I'd end up having to shave it all off. So I ended up putting countless treatments on it, EVEN STILL I put toners on it, with peroxide...It kept crumbling off, it still is crumbly today, but thank goodness I still have any hair at all. But it looks like a wreck and is now a vomity orangey dark blonde. I have completely stopped putting any coloring products on it and after joining this site I now know the correct way to lighten hair that doesn't ruin it! My hair began almost shoulder length and is now all chewed off looking and near shoulder length in some spots and a bit shorter than chin length in others and it doesn't even make sense. It looks like a monkey cut my hair. Needless to say I am expecting a wig in the mail so I don't feel silly when I go in public. T^T

When I discovered bright colours, I put Rose Red over a coppery box dye - nice result, but I got bored and wanted to go blue - this was in October of 2010 btw, so I had just turned 14 then. I went to the hairdresser to get my hair bleached - they ended up leaving the bleach on for...2 hours, if I remember correctly. When I was done, I was happy with the result though, paid a lot of money and went home.
2 hours later, I discovered that my hair felt weird and realized it was snapping off. Then I noticed that the roots were wet and tried to towel dry them, thinking it was just water and they hadn't dried it all the way after rinsing the blue dye out. I was wrong - my entire scalp was oozing pus. I had those weird blisters and crusts on my head, pus making my hair stick together and it was all breaking off!
I somehow managed to improve the condition after my scalp had recovered, thankfully, but that, combined with some more salon horrors (eg., asking for a pixie cut and ending up with the same hairstyle as my brother who was four years old at that time) taught me that it's better for me to bleach, dye and cut my own hair!

D: That is horrifying, Naomi! I can't remember the last time I went to a hairdresser's, and I would never let them anywhere near my hair with bleach after reading some of the stories on here.

First of all, guys, thank you for reminding me WHY I have given up blonde. I've been dying my hair for 8 years, 6 of which I've been different shades of blonde. From ugly coppery failed blond to bright yellow, to platinum, to dark blonde, to dark honey, to ginger blonde (intentionally). Why I went from platinum to dark blonde, which was basically a brownish colour? Here's where the horror story happened.
My hair is fine, very soft, curly and brown, but it has also red in it (if I remember correctly :D). It was a pain to make it blonde. I had to bleach it and hairdressers in my country never seem to have heard of double processing. Everywhere I went, they put the bleach in and afterwards, permanent hairdye, which always left my scalp irritated, very dry and sometimes I would get a rash. When I was around 19 I went to the hairdresser's after coming back from a vacation at the seaside and wanted to get my roots redone and colour reapplied to my whole head. I don't know exactly what happened because it was 5 years ago, but after rinsing the bleach, when she applied the permanent colour, it felt like my head was on fire. It wasn't just stinging, but it hurt very, very badly and even like this, she left it on for 20 mins because she was cutting someone's hair. The result was platinum blonde that made me look very cheap considering I also had quite a tan at that moment. When I went home I realised that my scalp was burnt and was oozing some kind of liquid on my hair. Thankfully, I had also gotten a haircut and my hair wasn't too damaged, but my scalp continued to develop these very thick crusts and I put some Casting darker blonde 3 weeks later when my scalp looked to have recovered.
That's when I gave up bleaching and my scalp has been extremely sensitive ever since. Even now, 5 years later, sometimes 30 vol developer stings unpleasantly and can cause some crusts if I leave it more than 30 mins. Even with shampoos I have problems and they can irritate my scalp 🙁
Now it's summer and I'm bored. I've been dying it orange on top of bright copper for a while, and more recently a magenta red. I've been thinking about getting it to a gentle peach toned pink, but after reading all your stories and remembering how much it hurt back then, I'm starting to think that maybe I should refrain as my hair will not lighten fast 🙁 I should also ask. Do you know any treatments for sensitive scalp? I've seen some people talking about coconut oil. I've been using argan oil on my ends to keep it healthy, and also I give myself a mask of argan oil before dying it, but only on my hair. Would it help if I used it on my scalp?

I'm so sorry that that's happened to you 🙁

SLS is a foaming ingredient found in most shampoos that can irritate sensitive skin.  Have you tried SLS free shampoos (like Osmo or Naked)?  You can also CO wash (we have a few threads about that around the forum), which is supposed to be amazing for both hair and scalp.

I have a pretty sensitive scalp and coconut oil has helped a lot, especially when I'm bleaching my hair as you can use it on your hair and scalp when you apply bleach. My head doesn't even tingle a little bit now when I use coconut oil.

I don't really have any bleach horror stories I'm afraid! When I did hairdressing briefly after school (realised it wasn't for me as I was terrified of cutting peoples hair) we had hair science lessons and one included photos of all the things you lot have described. So luckily I'm forewarned!

I did see an horrific reaction to a dye once though, while I was in the salon in college. Someone else was working on her. She'd come in the week before for her skin test. Came back saying it had been fine, no irritation etc. We never did work out if she lied for some stupid reason, or washed it off too soon. Anyway, as soon as it went on she commented that it was a bit itchy. The girl working on her said, that's fairly normal, which it is I suppose. It should have been a red flag, but I guess we've all ignored itching dye from time to time. So, as she carried on, this woman started complain more and more about it itching and being sore, but she refused to allow it to be washed off early! It wasn't until it was washed off infact that we started to notice her face looked a bit bigger than before and that she was kind of prodding her face as she'd obviously noticed the same thing. We spoke to the tutor who went over and then suddenly darted to the phone and called 999! By the time the ambulance came, her face was twice the size, her eyes had all but disappeared and her neck was swollen too and her breathing was becoming laboured.

We got news the next day she was recovering. She came back in a few weeks later saying how much she loved the colour and how disappointed she was that she couldn't have the same one again lol

eep o_O; thats one true horror story lol

I'm so sorry that that's happened to you 🙁

SLS is a foaming ingredient found in most shampoos that can irritate sensitive skin.  Have you tried SLS free shampoos (like Osmo or Naked)?  You can also CO wash (we have a few threads about that around the forum), which is supposed to be amazing for both hair and scalp.

Oh, wow...I used to think I knew a lot about hair, but after reading about CO washing, it seems that I have been absolutely wrong. I knew about sulfates and I have tried to use a non-sulfate shampoo, but I gave up on it as it too gave me a rash and itchy dandruff. It was L'oreal Professional Delicate Colour and after using it I gave up on using anything L'Oreal ever again on my hair.
Lately, I've been using products from Wella Brillance, but they have sulfates, cones, parabens and everything that's bad. It kept my scalp in an acceptable state throughout the 3 months I've used it, but it was probably more because I really tried not to wash my hair more than once a week as I use semipermanent dyes and they fade quickly. And still, sometimes I get these red spots.
Now I'm gonna go buy some BIO SLS free shampoo and a conditioner that I can use alternatively. Thank you!

My bleaching horror happened about a year ago when I had previously bleached my hair to dye it with orange sfx dye (which I loved, I'm naturally quite ginger so orange hair really suits me). But I decided I was bored of orange dye so wanted to go blue.

I bleached my whole head with 40 vol bleach and it came out a pretty pale blonde which I should have just toned to light enough to dye blue. However I decided that I would not listen to anyone else's advice and I bleached it again with 30 vol bleach about an hour afterwards 🙁

My hair just died. It was so gummy when wet that it literally just stretched in my hands. The real shock came a few weeks later when I straightened it and the part I straightened burned. I mean literally burned. It smoked and frazzled up and stank of burning hair. My straighteners weren't even that hot.

Soo since then I have had various VERY short hairstyles and my hair is now back in good condition and I will NEVER be doing that again!

had been using a packet blonding kit for several years without issue. last couple of times had noticed roots weren't lightening enough so i decided to mix one packet & do the back of my head, then mix another packet & do top & sides. you know how they say never pile your hair on top of your head?? i could never figure out why as i had done this for years without incident... anyways, comes to rinse off time. after blowdrying my hair i noticed it felt rough across the back. upon closer inspection i discovered i had burnt off a 2 inch wide section of my hair at the crown, leaving it about 1 1/2 inches long (my hair was past shoulder length at this stage) i cant even remeber if the colour turned out any good, i was pretty peeved i'd killed my hair. anyway, i mastered a comb over technique with hairspray & wore 2 plaits a lot to disguise the fuzz.

salon time for a rescue... yeah right! went to a shopping centre hairdressers about 6 weeks later, explained what happened & said just colour the regrowth, i want to grow it out a bit more before i cut it all off. they explained bleach was damaging so they would use "colour" to blonde my hair... mmmmkay. the finished result turned out well & i left happy. next time same salon, colour not so good. doesn't match. left unhappy. pointed it out on 3rd visit to same salon. a bit of chat between the manager & my hairdresser in what i believe was chinese. hairdresser returns with the trolley & upon further discussion i couldn't understand, applies the "colour" to the FULL LENGTH of my hair. mmmkay. sit there for usual time, hair washed. hairdresser combing my damp hair comments it's "very dry". i can't even remember if the colour was any good this time & what they had done was not revealed until 2 days later when i washed my hair again. combing my damp hair i noticed that awful sound your hair make when it is breaking off!! (we all know that sound, don't we ladies!?)my hair was also very stretchy. the 2 inch strip i destroyed had now been widened to 4 inches by incompetant salon. spewing!! a halo of fuzz circled the back of my head. wait another 6 weeks rocking my combover technique & shuffle into a different salon with the "help me!!" face. got most of my hair cut off into a shaggy layered style by a lovely, sympathetic & COMPETANT hairdresser who also managed to colour my regrowth to match the rest of my poor hair. she commented it was like "chewing gum" when it was damp & recommended which treatments to use to keep my hair in as good a condition as possible. another 3 months & all the  fuzzy fried hair had grown out & been trimmed off. it took about 12 months to grow that disaster out & take it from a transitional mullet type 'do to a nice below chin length bob!  unfortunately my hair saviour has moved away & i have been unable to replace her skills with another stylist as of yet. gotta love being blonde tho!

have just discovered my current hairdresser, who has been doing my hair for over 12 months now, has sneakily done something nasty to my hair who knows how long ago?? just found a section of hair near the bottom at the back that is about 2 inches long where the rest is shoulder length. WTF?? i was actually sectioning my hair to look at the regrowth & found it. just reaffirms my theory that hairdressers aren't that great & if i'm gonna get my hair fried i'd rather do it myself for $10 rather than pay some "professional" $90 to do the same!

many a horror story (unfortunately) in my case -wah wah-

the worst had to be in 2008 when i let my husband do my hair from dyed black to flamingo pink
he put 2! yes 2! volume 40 bleaches on my full head of hair (past shoulder length) in one night
it was gummy/dry/falling out and took approx 12-14 months to recover

. . .

just glad i now found this site 😀

Quite a few years ago my hair was black and had been for years so I thought, that's it I'm doing it another colour, did a 40vol bleach on it, fine. I not long after dyed it a sort of plum colour and only after that could I tell the damage I'd done to my hair, it was all stretchy and vile and in the end I got it cut into a bob which got rid of the end damage but it took SO long for it to be in a good condition again!

I did similar, my hair went from red tinted black to silvery white in 2 days!

2 bleaches (with 40 vol) left on for 40 minutes each, then a bleach bath (with 40 vol) left on for an hour on the first day, then another bleach (with 40 vol) left on for 30 minutes and 2 more bleach baths (with 40 vol) 1st one left for an hour, 2nd one with purple shampoo left on for 2 hours on the second day, followed by 2 live XXL Max Blonde's left on for an hour each, a L'oreal Pearl Blonde left on for an hour, Colour Restore Iced Platinum left on for 30 minutes, Directions white toner left on for 30 minutes, Manic Panic Virgin Snow left on for 45 minutes, and 3 washes with Fudge purple shampoo.

My scalp was split in various places and bleeding, and 2 days later i have scabs and lumps of dry skin on my head, but miraculously my hair is only damaged on the very tips of the fringe! i had also already bleached it 8 times in 2 weeks last year in the summer, to go black to blonde, and only about 3 inches of my hair had been cut since that.

That is terrifying. Like completely terrifying.

And this was recent? You might not have all the damage to your hair apparent yet.

Don't ever, EVER do that again, please!