Style June 21, 2017
Let all your childhood dreams come true!
Photo via Instagram / @kyliejennerAre your childhood dreams to transform yourself into a beautiful mermaid or fanciful unicorn with pastel hair begging to come true?
Or maybe you’ve seen every popular celebrity from Kylie Jenner to Hillary Duff rocking light blue, pink and green locks and you have to keep up with the trend.
We have the solution for you.
There is absolutely no avoiding it. If you want to get that perfect pastel hair color, it is time to grab the bleach because you will be going platinum blonde first.
If you are lucky enough to be born with pale locks, you can skip this step. But for the rest of us brunette babes, here’s how to start.
Melanin is the pigment that gives hair its color. Eumelanin is responsible for darker hair colors while phaeomelanin is responsible for blonde and red colors.
Underneath the melanin, dark hair has red, orange and yellow hues preventing the desired pale color that is necessary for getting pastel hair.
This is where bleach comes in.
Bleach strips those pesky pigments from your hair, but it also strips some of the good stuff too, like essential nutrients and oils.
The darker your hair, the more bleach you will need. The more bleach you use, the worse it is for your hair.
If done wrong, this can lead to dry hair, frayed ends and even strands breaking off.
So you are probably asking yourself, how do I get the color I want, without my hair falling out?
With pastel hair being on trend right now, it is tempting to want to go from black to blonde in one visit to get to your end goal faster. But this is just not practical and will lead to the undesired breakage and fallout.
Phillip Kingsley, the man the New York Times deemed “the hair guru,” explains on his website that dark hair colors require stronger bleaching agents that are left on the hair longer.
Repeated bleaching and leaving the agents on the hair too long will leave you with no hair left to bleach.
His website explains that bleaching raises the hairs’ outer cuticle, which is responsible for the moisture in your hair.
think of bleached hair as being a bit like a sponge – it’s very porous. But while it soaks up water quickly and easily, it loses it just as rapidly. You need to use products that encourage the cuticle to close, so that the hairs’ moisture content and integrity is maintained.” -Natalie Carr, Consultant Trichologist at the Philip Kinglsey Clinic
Kingsley offers these three tips to preserve your hair’s cuticle and moisture. These will get you one step closer to the pastel hair that will have you embracing your inner mermaid:
Olaplex reconnects broken disulfide sulfur bonds, responsible for giving your hair elasticity and strength. The product is free of silicone and sulfates and never tested on animals.
Online reviews of this hot product include:
“If you are a fan of coloring your hair past the point of rational thought then you need this system in your life!”
“So good! I bleach my hair and Its in super good condition and Its growing and its long. Thats entirely thanks to Olaplex. I don’t even have split ends and trim my hair once a year my stylists always are in shock of how good condition my hair and ends are in.”
“This stuff is a miracle product. I was recommended this from my stylist while trying to dye my hair from black Asian hair to blonde. I wish I had this before! It makes severely processed hair feels normal again.”
Okay, you have achieved pale blonde hair. Now what?
Google girls with similar skin tones and eye colors to your own, to see which colors will look best on you.
Find a popular product that is recommended as safe and has good reviews!
Pastel shades usually keep their vibrant color for two to three weeks.
So, make sure you take all the Instagram-worthy mermaid and unicorn photos before you morph back into a regular human like the rest of us.
