How I Bleach My Hair & Pastel Colour (Guide)

A few weeks ago I asked on Twitter if anyone would be interested in me creating a post about the bleaching process to my hair, and quite a few of you were! I've sort of done a step by step guide on how to change the colour of your hair from dark to blonde/pastel. 

Now I did bleach mine four times within a week period, and yes, it did do quite a substantial amount of damage to my hair, but without using heat, letting it dry naturally and using hair oils and protection conditioner masks it's done really well to recover. 

Now I tried the lightening process before I hit my third trimester and if I'm being brutally honest, it absolutely disheartened me that it didn't work at all. My hair went from auburn to a lighter shade of ginger and I was absolutely devastated. Normally if I use a lightening product/colour remover it takes around 3-4 shades off my hair anyway, but this probably lightened one shade. 

My bleach of choice is Smart Beauty. I've been using their platinum dye for around 5-6 years now and wouldn't go back. I like this dye as it's suitable for Asian hair so you know it will really lift colour. Plus it leaves hair in really good condition and comes with a nourishing toner to reduce the red tones in your hair. 

So my hair was getting long, and it's really not me at all, so I had a dramatic cut and went pixie asymmetric. That left me with a horrid orange coloured barnet that I really didn't want. 

So within a week, I went from the red on the left, through orange shading, to pastel pink. 

I used the Smart Beauty platinum blonde kit, mixed up and left on my hair for an hour. I did this twice one day. Popped on a toner and left this on for around an hour to reduce the orange tones. I used the same process again two days later, bleaching four times within the space of a few days (which I know I shouldn't do but I'm confident with my hair). 

You do get a toner kit with Smart Beauty, but I like to make my own colour rinse from using a pot of Directions white toner mixed with a little lavender colour to add to the neutralising effect. For the last photo, where my hair is pastel pink, I added a small amount of Bleach London's Rose to the mix to give it a pastel shade. 

In between washes I needed to apply a lot of oil as my hair was very crispy. I also used a few of the Hask products and conditioning masks. I didn't use any heat during this time and my hair has recovered within a week or so. 

I normally switch around with the colours every week or so, so sometimes I'll add a bit more lavender to make it more of a silver shade, or add more pink for more of a pale pink pastel shade.