It’s always a good time to go blonde! Even though winter is upon us, lightening up your hair might be exactly what you need to slay this holiday season. Here’s what you need to know to make it happen before New Year’s Eve.

Table of Contents:

• Should You Go Blonde? Factors To Consider
• How To Go Blonde the Right Way
• How To Prep Your Hair for Going Blonde
• Be Honest With Your Hair Stylist
• Avoid Heat Before Your Appointment
• Avoid Harsh Chemical Treatments Before Your Appointment
• Take Care of Your Hair With Nourishing Treatments
• Don’t Wash Your Hair Before Your Appointment
• How To Take Care of Your New Blonde Hair
• Go Blonde This Year!

Should You Go Blonde? Factors To Consider

Before you head to the salon, you need to be 100% sure about your decision to go blonde. While it might seem easy to change your mind and just dye your hair back to brown, you need to think about the time and money you’re investing to make sure that it’s actually worthwhile. Here are the most important factors you need to consider before going blonde.

Will Blonde Hair Compliment Your Skin Tone?

The first thing you need to consider is if blonde hair will compliment your skin tone. The good news is that blonde hair can be universally flattering if you choose the right shade.

For example, a platinum blonde may look good on Katy Perry, but it might not look good on you. On the other hand, some of the hottest celebs might not be able to pull off a honey blonde as you can!

TLDR; Make sure you find the right blonde for your specific look.

What Is the Current State of Your Hair?

The second thing you need to consider is if your hair is healthy enough to withstand the transformation from brunette to blonde — a transformation that can be incredibly rough on your hair. This is because the bleach used to lighten your hair can actually end up weakening it.

What good is blonde hair if it looks dry, dull, and unhealthy? If your hair is already unhealthy, you may want to reconsider your decision or at least wait until your hair is healthier.

Do You Have the Money and the Time To Go Blonde?

The third thing you need to consider is if you’re prepared for the investment required to go blonde — in both time and money. Depending on your current hair shade, going blonde may require multiple salon appointments to safely lift your hair to your desired shade.

Not only does this mean spending hours sitting in a salon chair, but it also means spending hundreds of dollars.

How To Go Blonde the Right Way

If you are confident in your decision to go blonde and are ready to move forward with the process, here’s a step-by-step guide on what you need to do.

Step 1: Decide on the Specific Type of Blonde You Want

Before you head to the salon, you need to decide on the specific shade of blonde you want for your hair. With so many different shades out there, this is easier said than done! It might help to look for inspiration from your favorite celebrities or even your friends.

Once you have a better idea of the shades you’re interested in, here’s what you need to consider before sure it’s the right match for you:

• Warm skin tones look best with warm shades of blonde like golden blonde, honey blonde, and even caramel dirty blonde
• Cool skin tones look best with cool shades of blonde like ash blonde, beige, and baby-blonde
  
  
• Dark eye colors look best with deeper and richer shades of blonde
• Lighter eye colors look best with soft shades of blonde with different tones

Step 2: Decide on the Cut You Want

For a dramatic transformation, you might also want to consider a haircut with your hair color! Again, you can look to your favorite celebrities for inspiration here. Just make sure to keep your hair texture, type, and thickness in mind when choosing your cut so that it’s just as flattering on you as it is on the picture on your phone.

Step 3: Find the Right Hair Stylist

Finally, you need to find the right hairstylist to help you achieve your blonde transformation. If you don’t already have a stylist that you trust, you can ask your friends and family for recommendations.

If you strike out with personal recommendations, you can look online for the best stylists in your area. Just make sure to read plenty of reviews and check out their social media accounts to see their work.

You should also consider booking a consultation with a few different stylists before making your final decision. During these appointments, you can get more information about how the process will work, including how many sessions you will need and how much it will cost at the end of the day.

How To Prep Your Hair for Going Blonde

Now that you’ve found the right stylist, you need to get your hair ready for its transformation. Here’s what you need to do:

Be Honest With Your Hair Stylist

For the best results, you need to be completely honest with your stylist about your hair. They need to know about any previous hair treatments — especially at-home box dye. This is because these treatments and products can affect the way your hair responds to the bleach and dye products used by your stylist.

Experienced stylists will do what’s called a “test strand,” in which they take a strand of your hair from underneath and apply bleach to see how your hair reacts before applying it to your entire head. This is the safest approach to use if you have previously used a lot of box dye products on your hair.

Avoid Heat Before Your Appointment

Before your appointment, it’s a good idea to avoid using heat on your hair. This means putting away your curling iron, blow dryer, flat iron, etc., for at least a week before your hair appointment. Doing so will help ensure that your hair is healthier and will respond better to the bleach used to lighten your hair.

Avoid Harsh Chemical Treatments Before Your Appointment

You should also try to avoid harsh chemical hair treatments before your appointment. For example, you should wait at least two weeks after using box dye on your hair before bleaching it. You may also need to wait if you have had your hair permed or relaxed.

And while two weeks may be the minimum wait time, if possible, you may want to consider waiting for a month or longer before going blonde.

Take Care of Your Hair With Nourishing Treatments

It’s not enough to eliminate things that will hurt your hair before your hair appointment. You may also need to incorporate new steps and products to take better care of your hair before the bleach touches it.

For example, you may want to consider using hair oil to help protect and strengthen it. WOW Skin Science’s 10-in-1 Hair Oil is the perfect product to use here.

This formula contains ten beneficial hair oils, including extra virgin olive oil, sweet almond oil, Moroccan argan oil, jojoba oil, grapeseed oil, safflower oil, rosemary essential oil, tea tree essential oil, and more.

Simply heat up the oil, work it into your hair, and let it sit for up to two hours. From there, shampoo as usual and rinse with cold water.

You may also want to consider a nourishing hair mask to prepare your hair for bleaching. WOW Skin Science’s Coconut Milk Hair Mask is formulated with natural and vegan ingredients designed to hydrate brittle, dry, and chemically treated hair thanks to coconut oil, sweet almond oil, Moroccan argan oil, shea butter, and coconut milk extract.

Don’t Wash Your Hair Before Your Appointment

This question is very frequent: Should I wash my hair before dying it? Finally, you shouldn’t wash your hair in the days leading up to your hair appointment. This is because it's better for your hair to be a bit oily when it’s bleached. It also helps make sure that your hair isn’t overly stripped and dry when your stylist washes it after being treated.

How To Take Care of Your New Blonde Hair

The work isn’t done after the foils come out — taking care of your new blonde hair takes work! Here’s what you need to do to protect and care for your new shade:

Tip 1: Use the Right Products

Your new hair likely requires new products to properly care for it. For starters, you need to use nourishing and hydrating hair products that will protect your hair and combat any damage from the harsh bleached used to lighten it to its new blonde shade.

It’s best to use natural products that are formulated without harsh chemical ingredients that could further damage your hair.

You may also need to use products that are designed for blonde hair. You’ve likely seen “purple” products on the shelves before.

These “purple” products effectively tone your blonde hair and prevent it from going brassy, returning it to the beautiful shade that you left the salon with!

Tip 2: Implement the Right Routine

Your new hair also likely requires a new hair care routine to keep up with your new blonde color.

To make your color last longer, you should avoid washing it too often. You also need to make sure to apply deep conditioning treatments and hair masks on a weekly basis to keep it nourished, hydrated, and healthy.

In most cases, toners like the “purple” products mentioned above are necessary for most blondes — so make sure that you tone your hair once a week.

And although it might be tempting to reach for heat tools to style your new blonde hair, you may want to rethink this approach.

Heat tools can further damage your hair — especially after it’s been bleached — so try to cut back on blow drying, straightening, and curling your hair as much as possible and embrace natural styles instead.

Tip 3: Keep Up With Your Hair Appointments

Finally, you need to keep up with your hair appointments to maintain your new beautiful blonde color!

While your stylist will help you come up with the right maintenance schedule for your specific needs, you can generally expect to head back to the salon for a root touch-up every four to six weeks.

That being said, there are lower maintenance blonde styles, including ombre, balayage, and babylights that don’t require as many trips to the salon.

Go Blonde This Year!

Now that you know what it takes to go blonde, you’re ready to make it happen!

But before you book that salon appointment, make sure that you’re properly prepping your hair with nourishing hair care products from natural and vegan brands like WOW Skin Science.

Sources:

5 Things to Consider Before Going Blonde | Harper's Bazaar

8 commonly asked questions about coloring your hair | Empire