Going From Brown To Blonde....My Hair Color Journey (so far)

Thinking about dying your hair from brown to blonde? 
I've gone from blonde to brown to black to brown to blondish to brown to blonde again. Sheesh. Thats a mouthful.

Before During After

I think I googled pictures of brunettes going blonde for about a month before I got the balls to make the appointment. Let me just start by saying I used to be blonde. I was born blonde, and stayed blonde until I was about  20. This is what I used to look like. A long long long long time ago.

 Then I let a boy persuade me into dye my hair dark. (dumb, dumb, dumb) So I went from blonde to dark brown.

Which at the time I really liked. Then from dark brown to black. Yes, jet black. 

At this point in my hair color timeline I was in college, broke and dying my hair from a box with my roommate. I stuck with the black hair for about a year, then I slowly began to dye it dark brown, then gradually to lighter shades of brown. This really is the best way to get rid of black hair with the least amount of damage.

Once I reached a certain point that was close to my natural (I use "close" loosely) I just gave up and let it grow for a while.

THEN out of the blue I decided to use that John Frieda Go Blonder spray that "lightens" your hair...I'm pretty sure its just peroxide or some similar chemical. It turned my hair an orange/blonde. It wasn't horrible on my lighter hair but it definitely would look really orange on someone who had naturally dark hair. If thats what you're into, by all means, go for it. Looking back it really isn't 'horrible' near my scalp where my new growth was. But it was way too brassy on the previously colored hair. And I was using a toning shampoo.

So, if you've never dyed your hair before and you already have a shade of darker blonde hair - from about my nose upwards is what the spray looks like with roughly 3-4 applications over 2-3 weeks. (on me, it may not look like this on your hair!)

After a summer of looking like I had a bad bleach job....I went into my now current hair stylist, Lazaro. I went dark, again. More of a deep brown, with red undertones this time. Continued this for about 9 months and then decided I wanted to just grow out my hair. That lasted about 4 months until I got bored with it. This was right around my wedding so I couldn't really do anything crazy until after the ceremony.

I had him cut off 10 inches and "ombre" my ends which didn't end up doing anything. This brings me to what this entire post is about. Going from brown hair to blonde hair. I had about 4 inches of virgin hair roots which were my natural color, kind of a dark dishwater blonde/really light brown and then the rest of my hair was a little bit of everything. 

This is the non-existent ombre

I knew what I wanted, that beautiful light honey blonde that I used to be. That "every" Victoria's Secret model is. The color that is practically impossible to get. :( Womp womp womp. We ended up doing a full head of bleach highlights.

Its ok. I don't love it and I know it could be A LOT worse. But, I defiantly know that it's not what I want so, hopefully the next round of highlights/lowlights can get me to the color that I'm looking for. Its very "white/almost grey blonde" on top and I'm more accustom to the golden/yellow blonde. But I feel like if he tried to go warmer it would have been brassy which is what I wanted to avoid. When going blonde especially from a previously dyed a darker color, THERE WILL be an awkward 'in-between' color. It has the blonde but also has the brown and its kind of blah. I'm trying to accept the fact that thats where I am right now, but its pretty ugly... not gonna lie lol

I was a little shocked. 

Its growing on me

What really bothers me is how much lighter the roots are than the ends. My roots are almost platinum while my ends are more of a honey/carmel blonde. If it doesn't dull down in a week I'm going back in to have him tone it with a warm honey colored toner again.

As far as damage goes, there isn't much. Its definitely worth going to a salon to go from brown to blonde. And I would defiantly do highlights rather than having them lift the color of your whole head.  I've never done that, but it seems like it would fry your hair. Overall I'm happy. After all, if I end up hating it later on I can always go dark again.

I'll post updated pictures when I get my hair re-highlighted in a few weeks!

SECOND ROUND OF HIGHLIGHTS

This is the result after the second round of highlights. I'm MUCH happier. He put more highlights throughout concentrating on the ends. While putting a few up near the roots, trying to avoid what had already been bleached to minimize breakage. After the highlights he went back through with a pastel toner. This lifted my natural color just a little bit, it wasn't even a 'lighter color' it was just a little less ashy, which is what I wanted the whole time and didn't realize it. Lazaro gets an A+.