Turn back Sarah, turn back before it's too late.

So I am going to break a HUGE curly girl method rule, I am going to bleach my hair....

And of course after I bleach my hair I am going to complain about my damaged hair and curse myself for bleaching it.

After one overall bleaching and another bleaching to touch up some roots that I missed. I had about 5 different colors in my hair before I bleached them all out and almost an inch of root. I had to bleach my roots twice.

Well, that was then and this is now, and I'm kinda only half cursing myself for bleaching it, maybe even one fourth cursing myself, because I did manage to keep my hair from getting completely destroyed. I didn't even have to cut a few inches off after the dye, I'm that good, I have no idea how or why, but I am.

Let's start with the few days prior to bleaching. I had gone without washing my hair a day, which turned into a few days because they say that you shouldn't wash your hair before you dye your hair, the more natural oils in your hair before dying, the better, that is what they say and so I had dirty greasy hair leading up to the dye. I had also done deep conditioning masks before the big dye and I was putting castor oil in my hair for about a month prior as well. I had also ordered a product called Bond Angel which is suppose to act like a wicked expensive product called Olaplex. Olaplex is suppose to protect your hair during bleaching and dying, it's like insurance for your hair. I couldn't afford to try the olaplex out and so I decided to try out a product that was suppose to work similarly. I got the product half off, In exchange for my review of the product which was a huge gamble. The system retails for $55.

Bond Angel

The last time that I had bleached my hair with real bleach was almost 10 yrs ago and I was, and am not super familiar with bleach. At the time of the bleaching in question I was straightening my hair almost daily and I was dying my whole head with 40 volume developers, not just my roots, why? I have no idea. My hair was definitely not in any condition to bleach, but I had no clue and so I bleached my hair a week after I decided to dye my hair a purple red. (Red is the hardest color to get out of your hair) My hair turned orange which is completely normal (which I had no idea about, because I didn't know what I was doing!) So I bleached my hair again to try to remove the orange and my hair was still orange and so I dyed my hair with a blonde color that I purchased at Sally's with more 40 volume developer, little did I know that all I had to do was tone my hair to get rid of the orange and save my hair from melting right off of my head. The remainder of my hair was a slimey ball of cotton candy. I swore I would never bleach my hair ever again. Years later and here we are.

Freaking out the night before, after watching bleach disaster videos on YouTube and having several second thoughts.

The night before I had bleached my hair I made the mistake of drinking some coffee at 8pm. (My caffeine cut off is usually in the early afternoon) So I couldn't get to sleep and I started doing more research about the whole bleach process, I wanted to be prepared. I watched more youtube videos, and read up about it on random blogs. Then I stumbled upon YouTube videos with titles such as "How Bleach Ruined My Hair" or "I had to shave my head after bleaching my hair". Now, there was a time that I would have totally shaved my head because I would love to start over fresh with brand new virgin hair, but I'm not prepared at the moment for that. The more disaster warning videos that I watched, the more frightened I became to bleach my hair. I probably only got 3 hrs of sleep the night prior to bleaching my hair, which was probably not the smartest move.

Before the big bleach, I had mega bags under my eyes, my hair was a billion colors and I had almost an inch of root.

The morning of the bleach I was prepared, and most of all I was ready to wash my grimy hair! First I did a strand test with the bleach because if the bleach was going to melt my hair, this was one way to determine if that would happen. I took a piece of hair and put some bleach in it, I waited 30 minutes and washed it out. I had no issues and so I set my bleaching station up and I was ready to go.

I had a mirror on a table so that I could see the back of my head and a towel for spillage, probably should have used a white towel, oh well.

I had the powder bleach, 20 volume cream developer, bond angel and Wella T18 toner ready for after I bleached.

My strand test, you can see how bleach turns your hair orange.

I mixed up the bleach, I used Clairol basic white, a giant tub of it was on sale for $14.99 at Sally's and I've heard it is one of the best bleaching powders. I poured in the generic 20 volume developer. I didn't measure the developer out like I do with hair dye, I watched tons of videos and no one measured it out, they just poured enough to make a consistency that they were happy with. I then added the bond angel no. 1 that I measured out before hand. The consistency was what I thought was ok, so I started to apply the bleach to my hair. I sectioned my hair into 4 parts and worked from the back of my head to the front. I realized immediately that I didn't add enough developer. The bleach became so thick and chalky, it was terrible. 

The measured out bleach powder and bond angel no 1.

What I thought was a good consistency for the bleach. I was wrong.

Half way through getting the bleach in my hair and already I was thinking about all of the mistakes that I made. First off, I should have measured 2 parts developer to one part bleach. I should have put the mixture into one of my coloring bottles, but because no one in the videos or tutorials measured their developer or put the bleach in a color bottle, I didn't. Using the bowl of bleach and the brush alone is insane, I had no control, but again, that's how everyone does it! I could hardly move my hair to get to parts of my hair that hadn't been bleached yet because the sections of my hair that I put bleach in were just hard and crusted and wouldn't move. It was a disaster.

 So I had finally gotten all of the bleach in my hair and I was looking at my hair and was thinking, there goes an entire year of getting my hair healthy. I thought that my hair was dying right in front of me, I could have cried. Then at one moment I thought that my hair was falling out and I was only 10 minutes into my 40 minute wait to let the bleach stay in my hair before I could wash it out. So I contemplated washing the bleach out, but I didn't. I only had a little bit of an anxiety attack and I occupied my mind until the bleach was ready to wash out to prevent a full blown panic attack.

So I started to wash the bleach out of my hair. After I washed the bleach out it was then time to use the 2nd step to my bond angel kit, no.2. The bond angel no. 2 has the  same consistency of conditioner, but in no way is it conditioner, the no.2 is suppose to finish the "bonding process". I put some of the no. 2 in my hair and my hair honestly felt like matted up dog hair, I couldn't even get the no.2 in my hair at first, not until I added a liberal amount. Then the instructions told me to comb the product through my hair with a wide tooth comb from the bottom of my hair to the root, there was no way. I had to add even more of the product to attempt to get anything through my hair. After I got the product in my hair I had to leave it in for 15-20 minutes and then wash out. So I let it sit and then washed it out, my hair still felt pretty matted, dry and brittle.

You can only shampoo and condition your hair after you use step 1 and 2 of bond angel, so I was anxious to condition my hair. I decided not to shampoo it, I didn't want to make it any dryer than it already was. I used Loreal EverPure Repair and Defend conditioner and I left that in my hair for about 3 minutes and then I used the EverPure Repair And Defend hair mask and left that in for about 5 minutes. To my surprise my hair didn't feel completely destroyed after I conditioned. It no longer felt matted, it felt somewhat smooth now. I could run my hands through my hair, it still felt somewhat damaged but it didn't feel like wet noodles, it didn't feel like elastic and all of my ends weren't completely fried. So I call that success!

Pretty impressed that my hair wasn't completely fried!

When my hair was still damp I put some Kinky Curly Knot Today in my hair along with some Ouidad gel. Then I let my hair air dry. I was going to tone my hair that same day but I noticed that I had missed a few spots towards the back of my head and also my roots didn't lift enough and so I had to apply more bleach to the patchy areas and I had to apply more bleach to my roots. I decided to give my hair a break and bleach those spots the next day and enjoy the very Hollywood bleach blonde hair that I had!

                      

The next day I had my mother who actually went to school for cosmetology help me out with the roots and she did an awesome job, I was so paranoid about getting bleach on my hair that had already been bleached and frying it. Before I bleached again I put tons of castor oil in my hair to make my hair more manageable when it came to sectioning my roots, and I wanted that added protection.

Missed roots

This time around when I was mixing the bleach, I measured out the developer with the little scoop that came with the bleach. I did 2 parts developer to one part bleach and the consistency was perfect. I was even able to pour it into one of my coloring bottles which totally helped control where the bleach was going.

Roots take two

Finally no more roots

Freshly washed and conditioned after the second bleaching

It's gold Jerry! Gold!

I mean, can you even tell that a curly girly JUST bleached her hair? Mystic Devine is heaven in a jar.

 After I washed the bleach out of my hair for the second time and I repeated the bond angel no. 1 and 2 steps again. I conditioned again and I decided to do an Argan oil mask from this company called Mystic Devine. It was one of those masks that they have at the counter when you check out at Sally's. Usually those masks do absolutely nothing for my hair and if anything they make my hair feel like straw, but I decided to try the mask out because I really wanted to do a repairing mask. So I cut open the package and I applied the mask to my hair, I couldn't believe how instantly my hair felt like silk after putting the stuff in my hair! I left the mask on for an hr and when I washed it out my hair didn't even feel like it had just been bleached not just once but twice! I am in love with the stuff, next time there's a Sally's trip Mystic Devine is the first product that I am going to put in the cart, it's biblically good. 

Applying the toner

Toner has been applied to my entire head

After leaving the toner in my hair for about 10 minutes, my hair appears to be purple, that's what gets rid of orange and brassiness

After all of the bleaching my hair was pretty orange and I really wanted to get it toned with the Wella Color Charm T18 toner and I had read that most everyone tones their hair the same day that they bleached their hair and so I decided to tone my damp hair following the Mystic Devine hair mask that I had just done. I was able to get away with using one bottle of the toner, I even had a little extra to spare. I had used the bond angel in the toner as well because it contained more 20 developer. I used a clear developer in the toner instead of the cream. I had no issues applying the toner to my entire head. I left the toner on for about 20-30 minutes, however long the box said to leave it in for. 

Right after washing the toner out

Before toning and after

I dried the front of my hair with my hot air brush just to see what my silver hair would look like semi straight

When I washed the toner out my hair actually felt more damaged than it did when I had bleached it, that's when I could see a lot of fried dead ends. I definitely should have given my hair a break, but I didn't and it is what it is. My hair looked really cool after I toned it, it looked silver. I was just relieved that I was finally done dying it for a little while!

                   

After a few washes my color was a very pretty pale whitish color. I've done countess hair masks to try to repair my hair from the bleaching and it's only been 2 weeks and my hair is already bouncing back. I am really impressed. I'm not sure if it's because of Loreal EverPure Repair and Defend products that I'm using or the bond angel or the hair treatments, but I'm happy that my hair isn't completely fried and I didn't even have to cut a few inches of hair off, which I was totally prepared to do. My curls are starting to come back too! Now it's time to start playing around with some powder pinks!

Finally getting my curls back! Here I'm using Kinky Curly Knot Today, Loreal EverPure Repair and Defend hair lotion, Curl Keeper and Ouidad. I did a lot of a scrunching and only a few finger curls.

So I didn't turn back. Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I had fought my way to have platinum hair. Bleach, you have no power over me!