More bleaching
I bleached my hair again last week. I had to do it twice, but I think that might have been a problem of application: R helped me put it on, and in the back there were lots of skipped places/too thin application, and then I ran out of bleach at the top of my head so the application was thin there too. The places that I laid it on thick myself and let it stay, it did well.. I am hoping that next time I bleach I can do it once and be done with it. Next time, I will mix a bit more and work on a thicker application.
After the second bleach it came out pretty white, but still more yellow than I like. I did a neutral protein filler, and then attempted to mix up a pale violet cellophane toner. I added too much purple to my clear base, so I need to purchase another bottle of clear base to further dilute it. Instead I used a leftover mix of a violet protein filler and Manic Panic, diluted with shampoo, and it came out pretty good-looking.
It is, however, in SHOCK. So dry, so stiff. The last time I used that violet protein filler/Manic Panic mix it left my hair kind of crunchy, so I was optimistic that a shampoo would help, but in the meantime I hot-oiled it without much result, and also deep-conditioned it with cholesterol. (I shampooed it tonight and that, along with deep-conditioning it with L'Oreal Eversleek, left on for an hour or so with heat, helped. That Eversleek treatment is damn good stuff.) I'm not going to use that neutral filler again.
To help with the shockiness I bought a leave-in marketed toward African-American women. It has a lot of shea butter (2nd ingredient) as well as coconut milk and coconut oil. I've been using it for a few days now and I like it. It is deeply moisturizing. Tonight I put some in after the Eversleek treatment and my hair is quite soft.
The thing is that every time I bleach to platinum, my hair gets so dried out that it goes kind of shocky. This even though I use an oil bleach and add extra oil to it. It gets super-dry and stands straight up and is basically hard to manage for awhile. I have been using a cholesterol conditioner and giving it long treatments, but the hair still took a week or to last time to recover. I am hoping that this very moisturizing leave-in will help to speed the recovery. If I bleach again I will add MORE oil to the bleach.
I say "if" because though I love the blonde, it is a pain to upkeep, I hate how dry it gets in this shocky phase after bleaching, and also, it makes the resemblance between me and my baby sister almost impossible to see and that upsets her. There's something weird to me, also, about being at a family gathering surrounded by my sisters and having blonde hair. I don't feel any less related to them or anything like that, but I suppose I am attached to the resemblance we share.
Someone asked CL Saturday why Baby CR has red hair, and she pointed at me and said "My sister has red hair, it looked just like this when she was a baby." LOL. Hard to believe with me looking like this, I know.
After the second bleach it came out pretty white, but still more yellow than I like. I did a neutral protein filler, and then attempted to mix up a pale violet cellophane toner. I added too much purple to my clear base, so I need to purchase another bottle of clear base to further dilute it. Instead I used a leftover mix of a violet protein filler and Manic Panic, diluted with shampoo, and it came out pretty good-looking.
It is, however, in SHOCK. So dry, so stiff. The last time I used that violet protein filler/Manic Panic mix it left my hair kind of crunchy, so I was optimistic that a shampoo would help, but in the meantime I hot-oiled it without much result, and also deep-conditioned it with cholesterol. (I shampooed it tonight and that, along with deep-conditioning it with L'Oreal Eversleek, left on for an hour or so with heat, helped. That Eversleek treatment is damn good stuff.) I'm not going to use that neutral filler again.
To help with the shockiness I bought a leave-in marketed toward African-American women. It has a lot of shea butter (2nd ingredient) as well as coconut milk and coconut oil. I've been using it for a few days now and I like it. It is deeply moisturizing. Tonight I put some in after the Eversleek treatment and my hair is quite soft.
The thing is that every time I bleach to platinum, my hair gets so dried out that it goes kind of shocky. This even though I use an oil bleach and add extra oil to it. It gets super-dry and stands straight up and is basically hard to manage for awhile. I have been using a cholesterol conditioner and giving it long treatments, but the hair still took a week or to last time to recover. I am hoping that this very moisturizing leave-in will help to speed the recovery. If I bleach again I will add MORE oil to the bleach.
I say "if" because though I love the blonde, it is a pain to upkeep, I hate how dry it gets in this shocky phase after bleaching, and also, it makes the resemblance between me and my baby sister almost impossible to see and that upsets her. There's something weird to me, also, about being at a family gathering surrounded by my sisters and having blonde hair. I don't feel any less related to them or anything like that, but I suppose I am attached to the resemblance we share.
Someone asked CL Saturday why Baby CR has red hair, and she pointed at me and said "My sister has red hair, it looked just like this when she was a baby." LOL. Hard to believe with me looking like this, I know.