Hi folks, I wanted to share my weekend’s activities with you as I did something out of the blue – I went platinum blonde. My regrowth was insane, but I am right in the middle of a cash flow issue, so didn’t want to spend a fortune on my hair. I just couldn’t justify it. But…what can I do to deal with these awful roots?
I experienced hair loss when taking an immunosuppressant for my psoriatic arthritis. Even though I stopped the medicine, I’d already lost about 20% of my hair’s thickness. Now that my hair is growing back, I have hair at several lengths and thicknesses. I’ve got a few grey, straggly, witch hairs as well as my new hair that is growing through again (with regrowth). Finally, I have my former long locks which are blonde with dark regrowth. So the regrowth is pretty weird looking, thick hair at the top with a few greys and fine wispy hairs at the ends.
Why did I want Platinum Hair All Over?
I wanted to do something uniform throught the hair, to unify the different lengths, colours and textures. I love Ella Levy (my wonderful and lovely hairdresser) and normally she does great blonde foils but with my budget at the moment I am freelancing so my cashflow is up and down. Ella is great and is reasonable for blonde, but it is a “vanity” expense and I want to cut out excess costs. Now, I can’t do my own foils, but my experience years ago as a junior hairdresser taught me how to do regrowth on blonde hair. I’ve also been watching hairdressers for years.
How did I dye my hair Platinum?
The technique I used was several steps. I did a double process blonde (where you bleach it twice, as the first time was to take it to bright yellow and then the second step was to take it all the way to platinum). The product I used for this was by L’Oreal Préférence Platinums VERY PLATINUM: 6 LEVELS OF LIFT and I bought 2 packs ($19.99 each) in advance. I knew that I’d need to do it twice.
Platinum Blonde – Bleach Stage 1
The first part I applied the product to my roots first and at the end, pulled the colour through to the ends. I did this to “brighten” the ends, even though they are blonde, there is still some darker hair from the foils. I left the colour on my hair for 40 minutes and it was looking orange/yellow, so I pull the color through to the ends, and added heat with my hair dryer to help it “lift”. My hair is slow to bleach and gets stuck at this stage, so after 45 minutes on my hair in total I washed it out. I conditioned and toned my hair with the product in the package (no.4) and slept on it.
Platinum Blonde – Bleach Stage 2
The next morning I repeated the process from the night before, and it lifted all the way to lightest yellow. My husband did help me do the back, so I know it’s even all over.
Platinum Blonde – Toning the Yellow
I tried toning it with a purple toner but it grabbed onto parts of the hair, so I had to wash that out. It left just enough to keep the hair a nice all over platinum colour. Yellow is the complimentary opposite of purple so to neutralise the yellow just add a (very little) purple.
(cover image credit: L’Oreal)
