Alright...so, I've never bleached my hair, but I've died it black about 6 to 8 times over about two years...

Is it safe to bleach it to a lighter color?

I have l'oreal 7 stage bleach powder
40 volume creme stuff that goes with the bleach (don't know what it's really called)
Ion intense one time treatment for after I bleach
Red-orange correcter to mix with the bleach
Ion conditioning stuff for like the week I'm giving my hair to rest
and a tint brush

My hair is very healthy, it's about waist-length, and the black is starting to fade. I have about an inch of regrown medium brown hair.

I talked to a lady at Sally's beauty here in MI, and she told me my hair should be fine, as long as I don't try and bleach it more than once...she told me I'd have to live with whatever color it turns out for 2 weeks to give it a break and then she told me to dye it a blonde before I go purple...is that right?
I'm very very worried that my hair will fall out. I would cry a lot. My hair is my baby...

There's a certain amount of risk and damage related to any bleaching. But there are a couple things you can do to prevent it from completely frying your hair.


- Use a hair colour stripper [I personally like One 'n Only Color Fixx] once or twice, depending upon your first results, a day or two before bleaching. It will help get the black dye out of your hair without damaging it, allowing you to get a nicer, more even result from the bleaching.


- Instead of bleaching in one sitting with 40 volume developer, use a 30 volume cream developer. It'll be a lot easier on your hair. 40 volume should only be used on hair that is very dark or otherwise resistant to bleaching. On anything else, it'll probably just cause unneccesary damage. If you can't get your hair as light as desired in a hour with 30 volume, you can just wait a week or two while using an intesive conditioning treatment, and use 30 or 20 volume for under half an hour.

- If after two bleachings and the red-orange correcter your hair is still too yellow, invest in a semi-perminant vegetable based toner. It won't cause any damage, and while it might get your hair perfect white blonde, it'll get a lot closer by neutralizing at least some of the yellow-ness.

- Now, this might just be a personal preference, but I wouldn't recommend using blonde dye on your hair if you're planning on going an unnatural colour, particularily if you're going to be using a vegitable based semi-perminant. I've tried this before, and I find that it inhibits your hair's ability to absorb the unnatural colour and will mess with your results. I used very light ash blonde dye on my hair before dying it pink and I wound up with grey toned roots that stuck out something awful. Plus, using the dye after the bleach also killed my hair even more than was neccessary.

- Ion Effective Care Treatment is amazing. Use it after bleaching in order to help get rid of any straw-like side effects. But make sure not to use it anymore than one to three times every 3 - 4 weeks or it might end up doing more harm than good.



[This is more like a side note, but take anything a person who works at Sally's says with a grain of salt and get a second opinion. I've found that most of the people at the Sally's near my house have next to no real expirience with hair and have an annoying habit of being useless, especially when it comes to dying your hair unnatural colours. But that's just my expirience.]



So basically, as long as you are careful about your bleaching and avoid anything that causes excessive, unneccessary damage, your hair should be just fine and not fall out.

Good luck. ^_^