Fair warning: 12 min read on everything you should know about what it takes to maintain blond hair from the salon

All I knew at the beginning was that I wanted to be a platinum blonde. Little did I know that changing my hair colour would change my hair care routine, consume a sum of money larger than I expected, and deepen my knowledge about the process, the products, and perils ready to attack my new visual identity. You will read the firsthand experience about the highs and lows of having blond hair obtained by chemical interference conducted by a professional hairdresser/colourist, so that you can feel 100% prepared for the journey without feeling disappointed, should you decide to go for it.

Photo credit: Marc Louviere

If your idea of hair care is as mine was before I was blonde – just wash-n-go, you had better read this blog until the end – twice. I don’t want to dissuade you and by no means do I intend to discourage you from going blonde. My sole objective is your preparedness for the journey, as it never ends as long as you are on it.
The most important part of being blonde is that it’s not one-and-one deal; quite the opposite. Not only does it take time to become one but you may also change your mind in the process and try different tints or tones of blond. Besides, once your trusted hairdresser successfully lifts (removes) melanin (your natural hair colour) from your hair, the hard work for you just starts. And practically never ends. I will explain every single task and step in detail below. Buckle up!​

Unless you are naturally blonde, light blonde, light grey or white haired, your first colour appointment may not turn you straight into Marilyn Monroe. Becoming blonde is a journey with a few stops. Their number depends mostly on how strong and thus resilient your hair pigment is. The stronger the pigment the more stops / appointments. Expecting that you will get platinum or other kinds of light blond in one appointment is utterly unrealistic, particularly when your hair is on the darker or redder side. I have created a diagram depicting your most probable journey from any other colour to blond.

Diagram credit: Marc Louviere

You can read more on the topic in this blog. 

Being unnaturally blonde takes not only money, but also time. You will have to get used to hours long appointments, you will have to learn to invest some time into styling your hair at home and apply various products every time you wash your hair, if you want to look photoshoot ready. The blond colour is demanding and rewarding at the same time.
We can safely say that it can become a little goldmine for hairdressers to get clients who want to be blonde and aren’t naturally. Regular appointments, regular haircuts, selling products. If you are a hairdresser, by any means, don’t try to convince anyone to become blonde just to make more money. That’s not ethical. Remember, karma is actually a meticulous accountant with personalized delivery services on the highest level and always comes unannounced. On the other hand, when a client expresses a genuine desire to be blonde, guide her through the process, explain every step, outline the related expenses. Don’t hide the risks; be realistic with expectations and she will choose you. Or just send her the link to this blog and call her the next day after she recovers.

a) Four-hour appointments
Even though you will typically have them every 6 weeks, still, it’s not easy to sit and wait for your hair to turn blonde. Bring reading material or listen to a super cool podcast. I talk to Sandy’s dogs because they are always suspicious of me. Or maybe they just think I talk too much, hence their disapproving looks.

Loyal guardians of Crazy Beautiful Hair Studio. 

Photo credit: Karolina Chic

b) Higher price bracket products
You will need them. There is no way around it. The better you choose, the better you will look on a daily basis. Higher price doesn’t automatically mean that they are the best for you. Even though a higher price does tie with better brands, less harmful and more effective products, listen to your trusted hair care advisor and do as he/she says, or else! In all seriousness, if you don’t, you will pay the price – with messed up hair, a bad or cheap looks and lower(ed) confidence.

I use 3 products when I wash my hair (shampoo, purple shampoo, conditioner – in this order ) and 2-4 products on my towel dry hair or dry hair

1. volumizer to pretend I still have hair like when I was 20 years old

2. monoi oil/silk product to soften my hair

3. heat protector if I use hot tools like a straightener or a curler

4. volumizing powder so that my styled hair behaves.

I talk more about the products I use here. Just scroll down a bit until you see the pictures of the products. Or read the whole blog. It’s a captivating read. 

The products cost about 20 dollars each but they last long. Months long. I am still on my first batch I bought 7 months ago. Based on the content, they will last for another 4-5 months. If you want to calculate it, 7 products x $20 = $140 annually, which is less than $12 dollars monthly.

c) Appointments every 6 weeks
When you decide to go blonde, you can plan your entire year around your hair appointments and adjust them when needed. You can go more often or less often. That depends on the length of your hair, your desired look, your life schedule, and your budget. The longest time between the appointments I have had was 10 weeks due to illness. After the 8th week I had to style my hair every single time to ‘hide’ the darkness coming out of my head, otherwise I looked like a cashier at your local convenience store who didn’t budget well this month so she had to admit the 2 inch wide skunk line. Not a good sight.
Keep in mind that when you cancel your scheduled appointment, your hairdresser may not have another 4-hour window required for you in the next few days. Unless somebody else cancels.

What you see on these two pictures is the hair growth, albeit minimal, in mere two days after the colour appointment. The top picture is the upper part of my forehead, the bottom is the enlarged area of the top picture to make the growth more visible.

Photo credit: Karolina Chic

d) Price for the colour service
The price for colour services can vary, no matter where you live. Unless, of course, you live in a town with only one hair salon, whose owner would be terribly offended, if you went to ‘the city’ even though she is ‘right here!’. I have seen a price range from $120 – $750. I’d expect that paying even higher prices would provide you with some sort of entertainment during those four hours or a glass of freshly poured water delivered from Iceland–just for you. I hope to god that those $750 colour appointments don’t include barbarously harvested caviar.

Whereas some salons charge for the service, which means the hours required for turning you into a blonde are calculated into the final price, other salons charge by the hour. Big difference in the bill!
Always ask about the closest estimate beforehand. I do it all the time. It helps me build trust in any service provider and budget for it in the future.
Anyway, choose the salon that
1. you can afford throughout the period of time when you plan to be blonde
2. guarantees quality. Search google reviews, yelp reviews, or any other reviews you can click on. Read everything you can, deliberate over everything you read, especially the bad reviews and the replies to them (some clients are disagreeable by nature so you can make your own judgement based on the replies to their comments), and make a good decision you will not regret. Thus, you don’t have to search again, feeling disappointed when things go in unexpected way after your first appointment.
This is not a good time to experiment with different salons. Ideally, you will carefully select a skilled and trustworthy hairdresser who will have a file on you. He or she will know which products you bought on October 16, 2019 so he/she can remind you to refill them. Your colourist will start with colouring your hair blond and know every step of the way throughout the year. Because he/she knows your hair situation, he/she will have no difficulties navigating through the times when you will lose faith in you being blonde. Trust me on this one. Moral support might be needed on occasion.

Photo credit: Cottonbro Pexels.com

e) Added cut services
Because your hair will go through the unnatural but safe chemical process, its texture will change. To prevent split ends, a new haircut or at least a bit of trimming might be needed during every visit. Calculate it in!

f) Homework
The biggest part of being blonde is in your hands. You have to use the products as recommended. You have to style your hair between the colour appointments to make the most of your stunning glowing hair colour. (Unless your budget allows you more frequent style visits in between your colour appointments.) You have to wash your hair with water as cold as you can bear. You’d better get used to cold showers. You will have to be careful about a dozen things to maintain the tone and not to turn your platinum blond into a custard yellow blond.

It is a commitment. Being blonde, especially platinum blonde cannot be half-assed without visual penalty. You are either all in or you are out.

Short hair may offer different colour options than long hair. Gray / white hair may not require bleach, whereas anything darker will. You can go full colour blond, balayage, head full of foils, money piece, root melt, highlight/lowlights, bronde (blond and brown hair) … Take into consideration your hair quality, the money you are willing to invest into your angelic looks, and the time you are willing to spend styling your hair. Do your research, study all your options, and educate yourself before you talk to your trusted hairdresser. Make the consultation worthy of yours and your hairdresser’s time.
Every option has its advantages and disadvantages. A single colour means a visible demarcation line that becomes increasingly more and more visible the closer your next appointment is. The darker your natural hair is and the lighter your choice of blond is, the more contrasting the demarcation line will be. If you risk this option, you may want to allot more hair appointments into your annual hair/beauty/self-care budget. Otherwise, style your hair to create waves or curls to soften the contrast between your natural (brown) hair colour and unnatural yet stunning blond a few days prior to having your roots retouched. Any other option may be less demanding but there are too many, so I listed the ‘worst’ one and the only one I have experienced so far.

Credit: Depositphoto

Things in the blond world are far from black and white or, in better words, dark and blond. Very far. Very very far. It took four appointments for me to become a so-called platinum blonde or as I like to call it, pearl blonde. Still, in every room with different lighting, my pearl blond hair appears to have a different colour tint or tone. Not all light is the same. My bathroom light makes my hair look ever so slightly tinted green. In the bedroom, where the walls are painted light warm yellow (with a paint called Golden Nectar – yes, I love the illusion of a sunlit room every morning right after I wake up. Now, get out of my bedroom!), my hair looks light warm yellow. When I go downstairs and look in the mirror by the biggest window in the house, my hair looks platinum / pearl blond (thank you, daylight). However, golden hour and blue hour still alter my hair colour appearance. When I go outside and the sun is shining in the morning, my hair appears cooler (blue light) than at noon. Evening hours bring more golden yellow.
To sum up, your hair will look different in every single photograph, and practically in every room, depending on the light. This is physics, more specifically, optics at work. Don’t blame your hairdresser or think that you made a wrong choice.

* I asked Sandy Nault, my trusted hairdresser, the owner of the Crazy Beautiful Hair Studio to read through my hair styling and hair colouring related blogs, including this one, to prevent disseminating incorrect information. This is how Sandy commented on this particular point: “Thank you for stating this. This is something what many clients don’t understand and we have to struggle with a lot.”

Credit: Marc Louviere

The most difficult task has become maintaining the fresh-out-of-salon blond. I always take pictures right after I come from the salon to capture the beauty of my pearl ash blond. It doesn’t look as perfect a few weeks after, unless I follow the specific instructions to maintain it and, most of all, avoid what I need to avoid.

Let’s see the bad guys.

Warm / hard water
It is the archenemy of blond hair. The absolute worst. Expect to wash your hair with water a bit colder than lukewarm. This is good practice for cold showers that are immensely beneficial for your overall health. There are tons of advantages of taking cold shower daily or, even better – cold baths. Esp. men cannot say nice enough things about the positive effects of cold baths. Do you know why? It increases the level of testosterone and everything that comes with it. I told you it’s beneficial for everyone’s health.

Credit: Pexels.com

High iron
Have you ever been to the mountains? Have you ever seen a reddish one? Yeah, that’s the one with iron. There can be mineral deposits of high iron in your shower water. They are incredibly tiny to see in action but incredibly irritating when you see them turning your blond hair yellow. Blame it on high iron.

Chlorine
Modern day chemicals require good old fashioned non-chlorine water. If you cannot commit to washing your coloured hair in Costa Rica’s natural waterfalls twice or three times a week, don’t worry. You can install a shower filter in your home waterfall and clean it regularly so that your platinum doesn’t turn sulphur. If you can’t do that either, you can still use your normal shower water, just add purple shampoo every three to five times when you wash your hair and you should be alright. Don’t use it more than once a week or your platinum hair will turn blue or light violet. Also, don’t forget to condition your hair afterwards, as the purple shampoo is actually a toner that can ruffle the feathers on your hair. It fills your hair with a pigment and thus leaves the layers of your hair ajar, so to speak. Conditioner closes it, so the hair keeps in the moisture, the colour pigment, and it’s smooth to touch.
Another piece of advice, if you plan to swim in a pool with chlorine water. Apply silicone based products or natural oils like coconut (can be too heavy for fine hair) or castor (the lighter the yellow colour, the purer the oil) on your wet hair and either braid your hair or put it in a bun before you make a splash. Alternatively, you can wear a swim cap. Definitely wear a swim cap in hot springs.

Credit: Pexels.com

Natural oils
Speaking of natural oils, you may want to give them to your best friend or leave them on the shelf for the time being while you are platinum or light blond, as the yellow pigment in them may turn your hair yellow. Practically any oil with a yellow base, including argan oil (I know! That holy grail of hair oils from Morocco that repairs, hydrates, and smoothes your strands!) should not come near your blond. Always use white or clear product.
I used to use an olive oil mask with an egg on my hair a couple of hours prior to washing. Then I switched to a pale yellow option – a spoonful of avocado oil with two drops of rosemary oil added only 10 minutes prior to washing my hair. A gentle oil massage of the scalp increases the blood flow, ergo induces hair growth. It softened my hair without making me look like a clown. Nevertheless, it was still too yellow for my hair. The safest bet, however, has become monoi oil hair treatment from Sojourn or Silk Therapy by Biosilk. They both smell heavenly and make my hair nice to touch.

Credit: Mareefe Pexels.com

Unsuitable hair products
When you become blonde, your maintenance routine changes alongside the products (shampoo, conditioner, hair spray) you will have to use. Ask your trusted hairdresser/colourist, which products for colour-treated hair are ideal for your new hair colour and stick to them. Using the wrong products that can create a yellowish tone is inevitably counterproductive in your blond situation.

Sun rays
An excellent time to take my lesson on hats! And wear them every time you go outside. Like in the olden days. It’s the UV light that turns your expensive pearl toned mane into a pile of hay just after one set of 10,000 steps in direct sunlight. If you don’t fancy wearing hats or if you think that you are not fancy enough to wear them (, which is complete nonsense because there is a hat for every head), you can use another product – a UV serum. When you learn that you have to apply it every half an hour while you are outside, you will realize that wearing a hat is more normal behavior outdoors than applying a hair product every 30 minutes, after all.

Credit: Marc Louviere

Smoke
Smoking turns everything yellow – your skin, your teeth, your fingers, your ceiling. It’s totally counterproductive to your fancy pants hair colour. Not to mention those lengthy 4 hours appointments.

Environment
Well, this is a rather broad term but generally speaking, existing turns your platinum hair colour yellow. Gray, white and platinum hair picks up the pigments from the environment – chemicals in water (mentioned above) or chemicals in the polluted air, which is the very same air you normally breathe.

I told you that being blonde despite God’s intention is high maintenance even without the Costa Rica part.

Your health
Let’s not forget this one. The oil that your body produces to help your scalp can alter your hair colour and make it appear (more) yellow. Your diet can also reflect on your hair colour. Esp. if you are naturally light grey or white haired already. Eat your vegetables, as your mom used to say. Don’t forget eggs, fatty fish, avocados, berries, nuts, beans…

Credit: Trang Doan Pexels.com

There are other honorary factors that I want to mention as they are as relevant as everything above:

– low-end hair colour (a.k.a. colour in a box for DIY experiments that more often than not end up as disasters and require specialist’s intervention anyway),
– too hot tools – high heat on blowdryers, flat irons, and curling irons
– spray tans,
– buildup from cheap shampoos,
– ocean water,
and being late for your colour appointment.

Your newly blond hair will change texture because it is practically permanently swollen due to the colour molecules contained in the toner of your choice. It appears thicker; it doesn’t move in a silky manner as natural hair does, unless I use the silky product – at least in my case.
It doesn’t mean that your hair will become coarse. Not at all. It might with the box bleach from the drug store. Word of advice: do not attempt to bleach your hair at home with the box bleach. Not all bleach is created equal. The one that comes in the box is probably the worst. Your educated and skilled hairdresser/colourist knows which bleach to use, for how long, and monitors the entire process, which general instruction on the box won’t do. Save yourself the damaged hair, disappointment, regret and the long wait for the healthy version of your hair. I bleached my hair once when I was young, my daughter did it because she is still young and refuses to learn from my mistakes. The bottom line – not worth it. Leave this uneasy process to a specialist. When done right, being pearl blond is worth every penny.

*****

Despite appearances, this blog on being blonde was not meant to be your dark appointment with reality, merely setting the record straight by eliminating any illusions, misconceptions, and telling you about hidden side effects. By all means, go for it; go blonde, if that’s what you want. Choose wisely, be selective, be informed, and ask good questions so that your knowledgeable colourist can dissipate your irrational fears of having your hair permanently damaged, your frustrations when seeing a high contrasting demarcation line one week before your next appointment, or your not knowing which colour option to choose for yourself because there are so many to choose from!