Is bleach over black box dye going to work? If you are in this article, it is because you surely want to eliminate the black dye from your hair.
But wait! Before coloring your hair, you need to know what will happen if you bleach your hair. Bleaching box dyes could be tricky, and should be careful to protect your hair quality and do not get damaged hair.
If you use bleach over black box hair, what will happen is that you will begin to loosen the darker pigments of your hair, and you will achieve a brownish color with reddish tones which you will have to have again. Whenever you bleach your hair you will have to apply a permanent dye or gloss to neutralize the brassy highlights of your hair and deposit the right color.
Using bleach over black box dye is not going to make your hair lighter than 2 shades. Basically you can go from a box dye black to a medium brown, but you can not achieve blonde hair in just one session. Is important that you take this process with patience, because otherwise you could really damage your hair.
Let’s learn more about bleaching black box dyes:
Using bleach over black box dye
If you are thinking of applying bleach on black box dye, it is important that you know that it is one of the most difficult things you can do. Even for professionals, it is a risky and not guaranteed color service.
This happens because the black pigmentation that box dyes have is usually very penetrating. The difference between a box dye, and a professional color is the quality of the pigments. When you bleach a professional dye, the hair tends to lighten evenly and harmoniously. On the other hand, when you bleach a box dye, the lightening often looks patchy and unstable.
Therefore, my best recommendation is that if you have the opportunity, go to a colorist hairdresser who will help you remove the black box dye.
If you plan to do it from home, the most important thing to keep in mind is that in the first session, your hair will most likely go from black to dark brown. The lightening of your hair will be very light, so do not expect to be able to achieve a light color from the first session.
In this type of procedure, the most important thing is that you take care of your hair health. For this reason, it is best to have a lightening session every 12 weeks approximately, taking good care of your hair and not forcing it too much. Otherwise you could make your hair break! Patience is the key to success in these cases.
What should you expect if you bleach your black box dye hair?
The first thing you have to know is that in the best of cases, you can dye your hair brown. It is practically impossible to achieve hair lighter than a chocolate color in your first bleaching session.
The few cases of people who have been able to go from a black box dye to fairly light hair in one day have had the unpleasant surprise that, although on the first day their hair looked stable, over the weeks their ends begin to to constantly break.
For this reason, in my experience as a colorist, I highly recommend that you avoid lightening your hair more than two shades in your first session (especially if you have applied several black box dyes). There is a limit to how much you can bleach your hair, and in 90% of cases the safest scenario is to aim for a dark chocolate color in your first session.
How much to lighten your hair will get depends 100% on how many box dyes you have on your ends. For instance:
- If you have black box hair and every time you dye it you just touch only the roots, your ends will have less pigmentation than a person who dyes their entire hair each time the dye is applied.
- And in the same way, a person who has only had a black dye for a few months will have a better chance of lightening it better than a person who has been applying black box dye for years.
Keep this in mind when defining your expectations. And remember that going from black box dye hair to blonde hair in one session is absolutely impossible. You can probably only get brown hair in the first session.
How to use bleach over black box dye
If you have decided to use bleach on your black box dye hair, the first thing you should do is get professional quality products. To do this, I recommend that you buy bleach, peroxide and brown dye at a store that sells hairdressing products.
On the other hand, keep in mind that you should bleach only the areas where you have black box dyed hair, and not all of your hair.
If the dye does not visibly differentiate, I recommend that you calculate how many months ago you dyed your hair for the last time. Hair grows an average of half an inch a month, so if (for example) you dyed your hair 6 months ago, try not to touch the top 3 inches of your hair with the bleach.
It’s always normal to have bleach stains on your natural hair (which is why you’ll apply the brown dye later), but the more precise you can apply it, the better.
Let’s see now if the step by step to bleach your hair:
step by step for bleaching your hair
- Divide your hair into 3 sections (the two sides at the front, and the section at the back). Hold each section with tweezers.
- Prepare the mixture of bleach and peroxide. For an easier, more watery application, use two parts developer for every part bleach (I recommend using a 20v developer but you can use up to 30v if your hair is thick).
- Brush the bleach mixture section by section, dividing each section into small sections. Apply enough product to make sure you saturate the hair well (otherwise you will have black spots). Don’t forget to avoid touching your natural hair area as much as possible.
- Once everything is applied (don’t take more than 30 minutes applying the bleach), leave your hair current for about 45 minutes. That is how long to leave bleach in hair to avoid damage.
- Go check your hair at all times, and if you feel that it begins to weaken, rinse it immediately. If you see some areas that are dry where they lack product, apply more bleach.
- Once you’re ready, wash your hair abundantly with shampoo several times and apply a treatment to seal your anti-porosity cuticles such as the Kerastase therapiste mask (let it act for 10 minutes and then rinse). This will help the brown dye seal into your hair properly and repair damage from the bleach.
- Once out of the shower, blow dry your hair 100%.
- Prepare the brown dye that you have chosen (how light or dark it will depend on how much you have lightened your hair) and apply it all over your hair.
- Wait about 35 minutes and wash your hair normally.
tips for bleaching your hair
Whenever you plan to use bleach over black box dye, it is important that you follow certain precautions and rules. To begin with, you need to know that you should beach your hair only once to avoid breakage. You should not bleach your hair twice.
I know that it can be very tentative to prepare a bleach with a strong peroxide or let it act longer, but the truth is that doing this will only damage your hair more (it will not lighten it more). Also, if you use a very strong peroxide on your scalp you can cause hair bleach burning on your scalp.
Therefore, I will share these tips and rules that you must take into account when lightening your hair:
- Buy the best quality bleach powder that you can. The more professional the bleaching is, the better results you will expect.
- Always mix Olaplex with the bleaching to avoid damage. Using Olaplex when bleaching your hair can reduce damage up to 70%. If you can, use the Olaplex products range at home to restore your hair after bleaching as well.
- Never use a high volume peroxide with the bleaching. You should use ideally 20v, and the maximum you should use is 30v.
- Do not take more than 20 minutes applying it so that it would be even. The maximum application time should be 30 minutes.
- Leave the bleach process for a maximum of 45 minutes and no more than that. You can always rinse the bleach earlier, but do not let it process for more than that time.
- Wait a week to wash your hair again. This way you will recover the natural oils of your scalp and it will also help you to seal the color better in your cuticle.
And don’t forget that you must rest a minimum of 12 weeks if you plan to do another color cleaning!
Let’s get better hair!
I hope this article has been helpful so that you know how to use bleach over black box dye.
Remember that for the process of making your hair lighter, patience is the key to success! It is better to go little by little but ensuring healthy hair than to bleach a lot in one session and end up with damaged hair.
Until next time!
