My whole life I have had very long dark hair that my parents were very serious about not letting me dye it. There were times I had thought about going blonde but would back off from the idea and a few times even went in for the consultation and three different salons said they wouldn’t do that to my hair all at once.
Session 1: This summer I finally on a whim asked my mom when she was going in that day to ask the hairdresser if she could let me know the availability for the week. She said I could come in in two hours for highlights. Spoiler I left the salon crying because I was so unsure since it was so different.
Session 1.5: After a week I let the high lights relax, but then went back in and she said if I kept layering on highlights it would let me maintain my length and I would be able to get to blonde after a few sessions. She added more highlights on top of the original set and I was happier to be closer to blonde than brown.
Session 2: After a month my roots started growing in pretty noticeably, so I went in and did the same heavy foil highlights on top. By doing this I also was able to go even lighter on these so now my original hair color is the lowlight.
Session 3: This is now the end of summer in August, so I went a little less than a month for a fresher upper before school started. At this point I am about 80% blonde and realized people started referring to me as the blonde girl rather than brunette.
Session 4: This was my first session while outside of Rhode Island. By this session I realized that by doing layered highlights people don’t realize when it is grown out because it looks mostly natural from the summer rather than a dramatic change and worrying about having to get my hair done every 3 weeks.
Finishing thoughts and tips:
- This definitely was better than fully bleaching at once because my hair is not dead, and I have lost no length.
- Purple shampoo is a god sent
- Definitely never be scared to go back to the hairdresser if something doesn’t look right because everyone’s hair is different