[Sticky] Share your Bleaching Horror Stories

When I first started bleaching my hair I had a stupid habit of double processing and not even realizing it. I'd be brushing bleach onto one section of my fringe first, then moving on to the rest of my hair, and because I have SO MUCH HAIR I'd still be doing sections of my hair 20 minutes later and not yet finished.

Anyway, my bangs would be lightening 20 minutes in, I'd just be finished brushing bleach onto the rest of my hair, and I'd have this ridiculous compulsion to go back to my bangs, and PUT MORE BLEACH ON THEM just to make sure.

Well, I ended up with betty bangs because my fringe pretty much fell off, lol. I cut off so much of my fringe it came up past my eyebrows in a blunt cut, and I used to have a sweeping side fringe. I'm just glad that I only did that to my bangs and not the rest of my hair, lol. I never double processed again after that!

This isn't too traumatic as some stories! But last July, I stupidly bleached my hair (only my roots once) 4 times in one day 0.o then i bb it over the next two months (using k-pak) a further 5 times! Lost around 8-9 inches of hair! Another 6 months and I should have cut off all the damage for definite! I'm being super cautious cos I want dreads! Can't do anything with split ends!

If you're dying the same colour each time then I'm guessing you're retouching your roots, in which case 40vol is a very bad idea. I used 40vol in a bleach bath recently (daft moment, picked that up rather than 30 vol) and even though I diluted the mix down heavily, a blob landed on my shoulder and two weeks later I have a dry sore patch there still. Never again.

Yup, an accidental 40vol bleach bath totally fried my hair. A year later and the damage has almost grown out now.

I wish I knew about this forum before I went to a salon to get my hair done.
My hair was a dark brown, that was probably some funky shade underneath from past bleaches, and I had about 5 cm of black re-growth. I went to a salon to get it bleached so I could dye it red. I always bleached and coloured my own hair but this time I wanted to know if a salon could get it more even, as my hair always turned a mix of pale yellow at the top, and a brassy orange at the bottom.

So I went to a salon and after dealing with the strange looks and comments they gave me when I told them I wanted to get my hair bleached because I wanted to dye it a bright BRIGHT red, they got on with it. Honestly, it was already quite upsetting having them react like that just because I wanted my hair an unnatural shade of red, I'm pretty shy and self-concious and going to a salon to get my hair done was a huge step >. <  Anyways, they lathered the bleach on, and I didn't know what volume bleach they used, but I assume 30 or 40 and they let it sit for like, an hour. It started to itch and burn a tiny bit but they said it was normal.
They rinsed it out, dried it and the ends of my hair, lets say the bottom 10 cm was fried to a crisp 🙁 It was a mix of yellow, orange and brown and it cost me over 100 euro to get my just-past-shoulder-length hair done. I ended up cutting my hair above shoulder length just to get rid of the extremely damaged parts.

I think that experience added to my list of reasons why I don't go to salons to get my hair either coloured of cut.

Oh Man. I had the worst bleaching experience of my life last year.
I had black hair... Permanent black dyed hair. I decided I wanted to go blonde. Platinum.  So I used a color stripper. Took my hair to a dark brown. Then the next day I went straight into bleaching. Full head bleaching. My hair was pretty long. A little past my chest. My first bleach took me to a reddish medium brown, and it was very uneven. My hair didn't seem too damaged and I was eager to get to blonde, after seeing people do it in one or 2 days on the dreadful "youtube" (never believe anything on youtube) so a week later I bleached again, turned bright dark reddish orange, after that my hair was fried. Beyond fried!! Frizzy, dry, breaking off, split ends, it felt like... idk if any of you smoke, but if you have ever lit a cigarette on the stove an accidentally burnt the ends of your bangs.. haha. that is what my hair felt like. Looked like a big bush on my head. So I cut most of my hair off to about the middle of my neck. I looked terrible. I was so embarrassed just to get out of bed. So I Used a bunch of treatments serums ect for about a month and a half until my hair seemed pretty good. then bleached again. (I had no patience) Waited a month, bleached again. Used a hi lift hair color. Waited a month did a bleach bath. Took me forever to get out of the orange stage. It was still really damaged. But Then I finally got it to pale yellow, and used Wella White Lady Toner and it turned my hair purple! Like a periwinkle shade, so the next day I did another bath to get that out, then used Manic Panic Virgin Snow and that finally got my hair to white!!!!

My hair was very dry and stiff. Couldn't style it well. So a week later I Decided I hated it and dyed my hair dark brown... LOL. The brown dye didnt stick well to my hair from the damage. So I have been using a lot of treatments, coconut oil hair masks, Joiko reconstructor, Aussie moist shampoo and conditioner, Aussie 3 minute miracle, white vinegar rinses, I trim my hair once every month or so, and etc. I've been doing this for the past few months and Now my hair is finally back to normal. Some days its a little dry but nothing one of my treatments wont fix. Its a really pretty dark chocolate brown color and I love it. I think my scalp even got damaged from all the bleaching. My hair doesnt grow nearly as fast as it used to, so its short, but I wear extensions.

I love my hair dark, I feel so confident and pretty, my hair is my favorite part of my appearance. I dont know why I ever wanted to go so light it was a total waste of my time and hundreds of dollars, and my precious hair was ruined. If you ever plan to bleach please do your research and know what you are getting yourself into. I wish I did.. hahah. Thanks for listening. 🙂

reading all the horror stories involving hairdressers is making me cringe so much I have never been more glad that the hairdresser I go to is a good hairdresser and knows what she's doing all the times I've been to her she listened to exactly what I want and I've left happy with the results every time I don't think I would ever ever trust anyone else near my hair

I don't have a horror story, but I'm reading this thread over and over to make sure I don't have one! I have dark brown hair, and I wanted bright purple hair with blue ends. Bleached my hair with 40vol yesterday, but it came out a really patchy yellow/orange as it took so long to apply, and I still had remnants of an XXL dye in there 🙁 bleached about 2 inches from the roots, and yet my scalp feels a bit tender at one point...

My plan was to wait a week(!) and bleach it again, but after reading this thread, I decided to take the safe route out and just dye it now (the orange looked awful). I didn't have enough purple to cover my head, and the blue didn't take at all, so it looks like I have a few grey hairs haha. Going to buy another pot of purple tomorrow.

Oh my. But how did the purple come out? Does it look purple or did it come out weird? I'm glad you could stop yourself before frying your hair! Good choice :3

I have done some silly things with bleach in my teen years but never as bad as what some people/stylist have done mentioned here. I've had a bit of a sore scalp after but nothing like burns.
I have over processed my hair to a crisp before. It seemed like forever to grow it out. I had no idea about over processing and all that important stuff.

I had bleach blonde, already damaged hair which was quite short I think this was 2008 but it was damaged before 2006. I decided to box dye it brown. Everyone told me I looked better blonde soooo I bleached some highlights in it. Used one of those boxes with 40 vol. bleach and a streaking cap (I HATE those things) When I tried to take the streaking cap off after rinsing it was matted, I whacked loads of conditioner on it and it took what seemed like forever trying to remove the damn cap trying not to break my hair off. Once I dried it I had completely frazzled white streaks and loads of breakage. It was an awful fussy, strawy mess. I refused to cut it any shorter, only trim it so after a while I just put a brown dye back on it and just left my virgin roots to grow for about 6 months. Then finally gave in (must have been 09) and saw a hairdresser and drastic got layers in. She did a horrible job (it was at one of those fancy big name salons too). She cut layers with a comb as a guide and hair sheers, what are they called? The electric thingy for shaving hair short. That was worrying but it looked okay until she accidentally slipped and took out a chunk at the front so she had to even it up on the other side. This resulted in the dreaded mullet! On the bright side I had healthy hair I could grow out, I kept it all natural for a while but caved and dyed it! Ever since I have been so careful, I have maybe 14" of healthy hair. YAY the longest I have had it. I would never have gone red if I hadn't discovered this forum and the coconut oil! So thank you!!

Xana, the purple came out great! The blue just didn't take at all. I've since dyed my hair all purple (Directions Violet) and I'm really happy with it, so no more bleaching for me... until it all grows out 😀

I recently had a sort of horror story. It wasn't bleach, but due to excessive bleaching in the months prior to this my hair was excessively damaged and I had to get a fair few inches cut off. :'( But anyway, I decided to use loreal casting creme to get my hair to an ashy blonde so that I could dye over that, and it just didn't do much at all. It hardly worked on my roots, blonded SOME parts of my hair, and completely left massive patches over the majority of it. I tried to repair the terrible look with Special Effects atomic pink, but it wasn't the result I had anticipated. Not a happy bunny!

Wow ,I feel better knowing I am not the only one that has been silly ,lol ,When I was 16 back in cave man days ,or possibly before I had platinum blonde mohawk ,I use to use Born Blonde ,do they still make it ? I bleached once to orange and then again till it was white blonde ,This was a box job and i was a child ,I did this every time my roots needed doing ,Needless to say my mohawk got loads shorter as the ends snapped ,I dyed it black and left it for 6 months then had it all cut out ,It then took over 8 years to get to waist length ,It really put me off bleaching but I have never made that error again ,I must say I agree with Mindi,Lots of us have no need for 40 vol ,I would be so concerned about chemical burns ,I think the oil tip is invaluable.

Briefly outlined this on the Intro page but thought I'd share here

After a verrrrrrry long time of getting my hair to a decent length, I fell head over heels in love with the likes of Cheryl Cole's glossy red locks and Rihanna's pillar box red hair. My hair for the last two years before that had been black - I'd always go back to black eventually. I thought it's what suited me. My hair dresser happens to be my very good friend, and she agreed that she thought red would look great on me. But she explained that in order to get out 2 years of black, I'd need a full head of bleach. At the time, I knew bleach wasn't GOOD for your hair, but I really had no idea what excessive amounts could do. NAIVE!!! So, with my friends warnings no concern, she went ahead and bleached my whole head which as expected, turned my hair orange. She then put on the red, and it literally went so red, I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror without having to shield my eyes. It was the brightest red I had ever seen. I went to work the next day and my manager told me he would have understood if I'd called in sick that morning, because I looked like a traffic beacon.  ::) I decided to tone it down with a dark red box colour, which worked a charm for all of 7 days, until one side turned orange, clumped up, wouldn't brush and began to flake off. *Le sigh* I'm quite ballsy when it comes to my hair so I went to see my friend the next week and got it all cut off. The hair cut was lovely, although it didn't suit me and couldn't wait to grow it out.

A case study on chemical burns caused by bleaching with 9% (30vol) peroxide.

There are pictures, so do not click if you are squeamish.

If the stories already shared in this thread didn't deter you, perhaps you'll think again after reading that link.

A case study on chemical burns caused by bleaching with 9% (30vol) peroxide.

There are pictures, so do not click if you are squeamish.

If the stories already shared in this thread didn't deter you, perhaps you'll think again after reading that link.

Oh my gosh, that is truly awful!!!  🙁