If you’re keen for a new look you might want to change your hair colour. This can be in the form of dying or bleaching the hair. Changing up your look is always a fun thing to do. It gives you a new look and a major confidence boost. This article looks at the difference between bleaching and dyeing hair
Table of Contents
Bleaching hair:
This is what people with platinum hair have done to achieve the colour. If you want to change your hair from a darker colour to a light one then this is how you’d do it.
Your hair, just like your skin, has melanin, bleach strips the hair of this. Bleaching removes all colour from the hair, the result is that the hair turns a very light yellow colour. A good colourist will help you lighten your hair in is a less aggressive way over a couple of sessions preventing serious damage to your hair.
Bleaching will turn the hair a light yellow colour, if you want the platinum look you would need to apply a tint to get the desired colour. If you like the yellow look and would not like to add the tint you can leave it as is, some people do this and it looks great.
In the case of bleaching your hair, the colour does not fade, there is no colour on your hair to fade, your hair (where you bleached it) will be that colour forever. When your natural hair colour grows out you might want to bleach it to match the colour of the bleached hair. If you won’t want the bleached hair anymore you need to cut it.
Bleaching will have damaging effects on your hair. When the cuticle of the hair is opened it makes the cuticles weaker, the longer the cuticles stay open, while the product is on your hair, the weaker the hair will become. Because your hair is damaged, when you wash your hair you need to gently towel dry the stands to prevent too much breakage.
Dying hair:
There are two types of dye, temporary and permanent.
A temporary dye is a dye that coats the strands of hair in pigment. The temporary options don’t last as long as the permeant dyes do.
When you use a permeant hair dye the product penetrates the hair follicles. In order to lift some of the natural pigment of the hair and replace this pigment with the dye pigment, the dyes sometimes contain peroxide.
The peroxide removes some colour from the hair allowing the dye to attach and be more vibrant on the hair. This makes the bond to the follicle stronger. The permanent dyes are called “permeant” but they are not really permeant, the hair dye will start to fade after about 6 months.
Note that the longer you have the hair dye or bleach on your hair the more damage you do to the hair. While the product is on your hair the cuticle stays lifted. The cuticle stays lifted the whole time the product is on your head until you rinse the product out. This is when the hair dye molecules actually get into your hair. The longer the cuticle stays lifted the weaker the hair becomes. When you add the conditioner the cuticles come down.
Safety:
- When changing the colour of your hair it is always best to go to a professional. These products are quite strong and you don’t want to end up with a bizarre look because you decided to do it yourself.
- If you decide to do it yourself and bleach your hair you need to be very careful. It is very necessary to properly remove the product off of your hair. If not the product will eat at the hair and your hair strands will disintegrate.
- Changing the hair colour using chemicals can have a variety of reactions on your skin. It can cause pimples, acne or a rash from an allergic reaction. Click the links to find out how.
- If you leave the product on your hair for too long, your hair can become weak and break off. This is one of the reasons why you need to be very careful or see a professional.
- In both of these cases, you will need to maintain the look with products that were designed to take care of the hair. This is in the form of products that keep the colour bright or products that will prevent the hair from drying out.
Should I dye or bleach my hair?
It all depends on what look you want. You also need to know the risks involved when doing this and if you are willing to accept the risk and deal with them. It’s a given that you will look different and this might be for the better. As long as you’re taking care of your hair afterwards you’ll be fine.
I hope that you can now tell the difference between bleaching and drying hair. If you enjoyed this article then please share it to educate others.
