So I've been watching literally HOURS of youtube videos about lightening hair without bleach.. I have recently gotten my hair foiled but I'm so impatient when it comes to having the hair colour I want. The only problem with that is I am really conscious of my damaged hair from being bleached previously, before coloured it brown, and now I'm back to foils again...
Then I thought I might do a DIY post about lightening hair with as little damage as possible that is super cheap!
Quick Note:
Remember everyones hair is different. I would only recommend this for medium to light brown hair, or blondes, otherwise it can turn orange! If that is the case, I would recommend using a purple shampoo/toner to remove the brassy tones. Use a 'soft' peroxide if you want to use peroxide, as it is less likely to damage or over process your hair. I would only recommend doing this maximum once a week, even if your 'potion' is really weak like mine. xx
What you will need:
Lemons/Limes (doesn't really matter which you use in my opinion), 1 cup boiling water, camomile tea (I used 1 tea bag but you can use up to 5), 1 big spoon of honey, 3% 10 volume peroxide.
Keep in mind you don't HAVE to use peroxide if you don't want to. If you want a completely all natural lightening spray you can leave peroxide out of the concoction. Instead I would use more lemons/camomile to make it extra potent, OR add some ground cinnamon as that is also meant to help lighten hair naturally.
You can also use baking soda, but I didn't because my hair is quite dry so I decided to avoid it in my potion. If you do want something more potent don't use as much boiling water.
I'm not very good with the exact measurements as the 'product' was literally a bit of just throwing a bunch of things together and voila!
But the steps I took in order were;
- Add camomile tea to the 1 cup of boiling water. I cut the tea bag open and poured the camomile herbs straight into the water.
- Add large spoon of honey (any honey is fine)
- Add lemon/lime juice. I used 2 miniature limes for mine but you can use up to 2 big lemons worth of juice.
- Stir ingredients together and strain the lemon/honey mixture into a bottle, preferably with a sprayable nozzle so you can evenly distribute the products throughout your hair at your own pace. This spray bottle MUST be dark coloured, or NOT translucent as peroxide reacts to sunlights in a way that makes it ineffective. Otherwise just make sure you keep your potion in a dark place.
- Add 3% peroxide to the potion. I filled my bottle with one-third of peroxide solution to two-thirds of my natural mixture in the bottle. You could do 50% peroxide with 50% lemon/honey mixture but it's up to you. I felt more secure because I used 1 cup of water so it was less potent regardless, even though I used 1/3 of peroxide (I was scared and cautious).
- Shake bottle lightly to make sure peroxide mixes with lemon/honey mixture and spray throughout the hair. I left the spray on my hair for about 1 and a half hours. Spraying more on my hair every 10 minutes. I used a hair dryer to make it 'process' my hair faster as heat helps open the hair cuticles. And then I had a shower and washed it out.
My results
This stuff did make my hair lighter. I would definitely do it again in a week or so as the change was not dramatic. I didn't make my hair dry or frazzled. When I washed it out in the shower it actually felt quite nice and that might have been because of the honey.. I'm not too sure. I still used a deep conditioner afterwards because of the peroxide and acidic lemon.
I'll post before and after pictures sometime next week! I just wanted to write this all down first and I didn't have a good picture of the back of my hair before I attempted it (sorry!!!).
Kira
