Punk Hair FAQ

Firstly, I would like to seriously apologise for not getting to this question until about a month later. As a couple of people who read this site will know, I had surgery in June and spent the whole summer physically recovering, and I have spent the last few months recovering financially, because I couldn’t really do any of the little money-making things I normally do while recovering.

So now, on with Alyson’s question!

hey. love the faq. it helped a lot with my first attempt at bleaching my hair.

You’re very welcome.

this might be a dumb question,

You’ve obviously never worked tech support. (Or, at least, have never seen my Inbox on OKCupid.)

…but how exactly should i go about touching up my roots when this becomes necessary? will it hurt my hair if some of the bleach gets onto already bleached hair?

Generally speaking, it shouldn’t.

Technically, though, as long as you wait a minimum of 24-hours for a minor touch-up (like, say, you missed a spot or want to do a quick lightening to go lighter) or two weeks for a major touch-up (that’s what I recommend, based on my own experiences), then your hair should be fine. If you want to play it cautiously, do a weekly placenta and/or twice-weekly bone marrow treatment between bleaching (though neither option is technically vegan, if that’s at all important to you), or some other regular deep-conditioning treatment; if your extra-scared, use the next-gentlest volume strength for touch-ups: say your first bleaching was with 40, you can do touch-ups in 30 — just don’t use 10 for bleach, cos it really won’t do anything (I tried, I tried and I failed).

i’m just trying to avoid having it fall off or anything. also, i was hoping to get my hair just a touch lighter, so i was thinking i would touch up my roots and then wait a week or so and then bleach all my hair until it got as light as i wanted (i’m not trying to go all the way to white, just more of a platinum blonde.) is this the right thing to do?

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. For quick lightenings like it seems you’re suggesting, I usually recommend waiting a minimum of a day or two, but if you’re being cautious or don’t think your hair can take that much chemical all at once, a week would be best.

Also, for a platinum blond/e shade, I’d recommend one of Wella’s toners mixed with a 20volume developer after you’ve lightened it; I forget the name and number for their toners that I don’t use, but your hair just may thank you for it. These are available at Sally’s and most other beauty supply stores I’ve been to.

my hair is a little shy of shoulder length, naturally a dishwater blonde, and it’s mega thick. like, it would take forty minutes, at least, just to paint it all with the little brush if i actually applied hair dye and bleach that way. (what i end up doing is more like “slapping” it on my head like you not-so-seriously mentioned and then combing it through so it all gets on there around the same time. seems to work ok.)

As you’re doing root touch-ups, it seems to me like a no-brainer to get the new growth and as little of the rest as possible by carefully sectioning off one’s hair and going slowly. The hair at the back of one’s head is, generally speaking, more resilient than the hair on top one’s head, so I always suggest touching up the back first, then the sides, then the top, so that you get the strongest portions of hair first, cos that’s the hair that can take steeping in mixed bleach longer. If this means you have to get a friend to help you, then by all means, do that. You also want to avoid the ends as much as possible, just to keep them looking healthier as long as possible.

ALSO: I absolutely do not recommend combing through bleach (if you already did this and discovered why I don’t, then my sincerest apologies). I tried it twice and both times, this resulted in drier, more brittle ends and the growth near the root was almost like straw. I don’t know the mechanics of why that is, but I just can’t recommend that other people do that after two bad experiences on myself.