Sometimes, you feel like a drastic change is needed in your life. You want to freshen things up and bring a new look to the table. Often, the best way to do this is by changing your hair. Opting for a new hairstyle is one way to do it, but changing your hair color is another fantastic choice. Especially if you make dramatic changes, such as going from a dark brunette to a light blonde! 

If you’ve never done this before, you can look like an entirely new person. It’s such a brilliant and easy way of doing something different and feeling a bit better about yourself. They say blondes have more fun, so it only seems fair to test this theory! Unfortunately, there’s no fun involved in messing up the hair dyeing process. Too many people have found that going from brunette to blonde ends in tears. If you don’t go about things the right way, you can mess it up and end up with a hair color that’s more akin to a carrot. 

How do you go from brunette to blonde without any mishaps? Here are a few points and tips to help the process go by as smoothly as possible:

Have realistic expectations

A lot of people assume that going from brunette to blonde is simply a case of applying bleach and waiting for a few hours. In one day, you have become a blonde bombshell! This isn’t going to happen, so don’t ever expect it to. As a natural brunette, you will always need time to progressively lighten your hair to the point where it can become blonde. Otherwise, you will end up with orangey or brassy hair after one sitting. This is the mistake most people make, meaning you spend a lot of time hiding away wearing hats. 

So, set yourself realistic expectations for how long it will take to go blonde. Remember, you can’t dye your hair repeatedly day after day – it needs time to heal. If you are planning on going blonde for an event, like a wedding or party, prepare months in advance for the day. Don’t start bleaching your hair the week before and expect to turn up to the event with perfectly blonde locks!

Start by lightening your hair

The hair-dying process begins by lightening your hair or lifting the color from it. Effectively, this is where you gradually take your hair from brown to a lighter shade. There are plenty of lightening products you can use for this, and the amount of time it takes for your hair to lighten depends on how dark it is, to begin with. Some people even recommend bleaching your hair at the beginning, whereby you can follow this up with a blonde hair color kit. 

Effectively, you need to realize that you can’t make the huge jump from brunette to blonde in one sitting. No matter how powerful your dye is, or even if you go to a professional salon to get it done, your hair will never be able to make such a huge jump. Instead, you will need a few sessions where you gradually lighten it, use some toner on your hair, and see how it looks. Some of you may reach a dirty blonde color and that’s exactly what you’re looking for. Others may prefer to go for a platinum blonde, in which case you can get your hair to a lighter shade, then start with the hair-dying kits. 

Another tactic is to give yourself blonde highlights or balayage your hair to get a bit of extra lightness to it. From here, it is much easier to progress towards a full-on blonde look as your hair color is a lot lighter. 

The bottom line is that your natural hair color needs to progressively lighten, which will take at least two sessions for most brunettes. Those of you with darker hair that borders on black will need more sessions than this!

Get your hair colored at a salon

The previous advice applies to people who are looking to dye their hair at home. Purchase some bleach and pre-lightening products/toners, along with blonde coloring kits. Already, you can see how this becomes confusing and expensive. You will make your life so much easier if you just go to a salon and book a few appointments. Yes, you will need more than one, which puts a lot of people off as it does also get expensive to have your hair dyed by professionals. 

However, think about the advantages of doing this:

• The salon artist is highly experienced and has dyed many people’s hair, so they know exactly what they’re doing. It means there’s less chance that your hair will mess up when going from a darker shade to blonde. 
• The salon has access to professional dying products that work better than ones you buy at home and will last for longer. They also tend to be better for your hair as they’re expensive and packed full of things like keratin to keep your hair strong during the dying process. 
• It’s easier to achieve the precise color of blonde that you’re after when you go to a salon, rather than attempting it yourself at home. Many people struggle to achieve this color, dying their hair over and over again, which can damage it. 
• Speaking of which, because the salon artist knows what they’re doing, they can space out your appointments to let your hair recover properly, leaving it in the best condition possible. 
• It’s also far less messy than if you do it at home. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about getting bleach or other dying products on the towels or bathroom surfaces at home. 

To be clear, you most definitely can dye your hair at home if you want to. If you are really against going to a salon or would prefer to save money, this is a viable option. The best approach is to follow the instructions on all the products you have bought. Also, checking out some online tutorials will help you visually understand what to do. Here’s a video that you will find helpful for at-home hair dye:

 

Use purple shampoo to maintain your hair color

Once you’ve achieved your blonde look, you need to ensure that it remains as lovely as possible for as long as possible. Naturally, the colors will begin to fade and alter over time. This is because your natural hair color pigments will return, fusing with the dye. What tends to happen is your hair gets quite brassy and you start seeing orange tints showing up. 

Here, you can prevent this with some purple shampoo, which can be used once or twice a week. For those of you wondering, what is purple shampoo? It’s a special type of shampoo that uses purple pigments to interact with the color pigments in your hair and neutralize the brassy tones. In essence, it is designed to keep your hair as blonde as possible for as long as possible. As just mentioned, using this once or twice a week is recommended for maintaining the blonde locks. 

Following all of this, you will have gone from brunette to blonde! Now, you look like a different person and it can change the way you feel about yourself. For many, a change in hair color is all that’s needed to get a huge boost of self-confidence. If you want to keep maintaining this lovely blonde color, be sure to book yourself in for top-up appointments every 8 weeks or so. If you’re using the home method, just top it up with your product of choice every 8 weeks instead.