I'm a natural blonde, but I've dyed my hair brown a bunch of times. The last time I dyed it was in January, and it's faded a lot since then so right now I'm at this light brown color. But I'm going to be dying it purple, so I'm going to bleach it first and I'm actually terrified lol. My hair is pretty healthy, I guess. My ends are just dead and split, but other than that, my hair isn't damaged. I guess my actual questions are, should I leave the bleach in for only around ten minutes, being as my hair is already a light brown? And should I deep condition right after I wash the bleach out? Also, when would it be alright to shampoo again? Im just looking for any way to reduce damage.
10 minutes isn't long enough. I had to bleach 4 times because I had black hair. The 3rd bleach got me to a dark blonde and I still had to bleach again for the full 50 minutes, which just got me to a lighter yellow. Watch it while it's bleaching, better yet, take a small test piece of hair and apply some bleach, keep an eye on it and see how long it takes to get your desired lightness before doing your entire head. It's very important that you don't apply the bleach to your roots until 10 minutes before you wash it out or you will over develop them due to the heat from your head, you will end up with lighter roots and darker hair, not a good look. You can melt coconut oil and apply to your hair 12 hours before you bleach, it reduces damage dramatically. You can also do a bleach bath, Mix your bleach, then add shampoo and apply to wet hair, repeat every 10 days if necessary. This way is slower though. You need to get to the pale yellow stage to dye it purple. Use only 30 volume developer