Platinum Blonde in One Sitting - A Myth or Reality

The world is in a platinum blonde craze, and although we are loving the trend, we are often confronted with a difficult, if not impossible task, of transforming dark hair into platinum-blonde perfection in just one sitting.

Unrealistic expectations are partly fuelled by images swirling around Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. There’s social media photos, and then there’s reality. In extreme cases, photos are enhanced for visual appeal, but are often misleading the clients into thinking they can get what they see in a magical instant. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a platinum blond.

Cookie-cutter results are almost impossible, with exceptions, in one session, and this is for several reasons. In order to understand better why transition isn’t always feasible in one day, we’re going to quickly describe the entire process.

First, bleach is applied to your entire hair, which takes about two hours. This will sometimes involve heating the hair so that the bleach can process faster.

Add another hour for washing the bleach out and blow-drying the hair.

Then, get ready for the second round of bleaching, especially if you don’t have what we call ’virgin’ hair. ‘Virgin’ hair, in other words, hair shaft that’s never been dyed requires less bleaching and an entirely different process. It also takes a lot less time. On the contrary, dyed hair shaft won’t allow the bleach to lighten as much, which involves more bleaching. Add two more hours to the entire process. Getting impatient yet?

We can’t forget about the toner. Toner is a must, because it eliminates the yellow tone in the hair colour. Add a couple of more hours for toning, washing and blow-drying.

Now that you know that the process takes a lot of time, you should know that not every hair is the same. For example, if you have dark brown or black hair, stretch out the visits to at least three or four appointments, in order to achieve platinum blonde without severely damaging your hair. It might be hella trendy, but it’s not worth the risk of irreversibly damaging your hair. Light brown coloured hair takes up to two treatments, while true red heads won’t need too much lifting and can get away with one or two treatments.

But there’s more!

Hair grows about 10 cm each year, which can be an encouragement to some, but consider the previous treatments given your length. If you already have shoulder length hair, consider what treatments it has undergone in the last three to four years. Going through a process like this can really damage your hair, dry it out until there’s nothing left to do but cut the length, lose the unattractive ends, in order to shape it. After all, the most important thing is that your hair is healthy, but if you’re looking to keep your length, it’s best to stretch out the bleaching treatment and focus on nourishing your hair or even reconsider doing this treatment.

So...

Are you armed with several hours and a bunch of bills for the treatments? That’s a start, but it’s not enough. Unfortunately, it might take you several trips down to your favourite hair salon to get the result right. And this is nobody’s fault. Even if everyone in the industry actually was a hairgicians, this complex transition would require a lot of patience and time.