How to Dye Asian Hair Platinum Blond
Stage 1/ Pre-Lightening
Ingredients needed:
~ A good deep-conditioner
~ Bleaching kit with 30 to 40 volume
~ A towel
Make sure you bleach on 'virgin' hair, otherwise your hair will melt. Virgin hair is hair that has never been processed, either through perming, chemical straightening, or through any hair dyes. It should be shiny, vibrant, and strong. Never attempt bleaching with weak, brittle, or damaged hair.
To begin the process, you will need a good bleaching kit. All good bleaching kits use powder bleach -- powder bleach is stronger and more effective. Look for bleaches with 30 to 40 volume. For a softer, less harmful bleach, use 30 volume. For a more dramatic bleach, use 40 volume. Asian tresses needs a stronger bleach to remove the color, but I would suggest using 30 volume. You will bleach it again after this first step, so the intensity isn't quite as important.
Once you have that, you can begin the bleaching process. Part off your hair into four sections. Wrap a towel around your neck for safety (bleach burns, and it's permanent). To protect yourself from burns, coat the edge of your hairline with Vaseline. With the help of a friend, begin coating each section with the bleaching mixture, from tips to about one inch from your roots. You want to keep it away from your roots because it bleaches faster. If you leave it on your roots for too long, it can damage your cuticles, resulting in permanent hair loss.
Wait about 20 minutes. Asian tresses takes longer to bleach, so it might be 30 to 40 minutes. When your hair turns a nice orange, begin applying the bleach to your roots, but keep it off your scalp. Bleach burns.
By 60 minutes, it should be either light orange or yellow. Wash it off with a mild shampoo. Do not leave bleach on longer than 60 minutes. After shampooing, immediately apply conditioner, gently massaging through your Asian tresses.
Get used to your hair looking yellow for a bit, because you will need to keep it like that for approximately 2 weeks. Between these two weeks you will deep-condition each day, leaving in conditioner for at least 30 minutes. You want to return moisture to your Asian tresses -- bleach dries it out. You cannot bleach again over dry hair, otherwise your Asian hair gets very, very angry.
Stage 2/ Lightening
Ingredients needed: Same as above.
After two weeks have passed, your Asian tresses should be somewhat soft and not dry to the touch. If it is, continue to deep-condition until it is soft. It might take longer to condition, because of its thickness.
You will repeat Stage 1 again. This time bleach until it is a pale yellow. Do not exceed 45 minutes. Afterward, wash out with a mild shampoo and immediately condition. Continue to deep-condition for a week.
Stage 3/ Toner
Ingredients needed:
~ Toner
~ Conditioner
This is the last step. Now you've had ucky Asian yellow hair for quite a bit -- now we're going to make it platinum blond.
You will need something called a toner. This is a very mild dye that removes the ucky yellows out of your Asian hair. This is available at high end beauty stores, such as Sally's. I would suggest you visit and talk to a representative for the best toner for your hair. Usually, if you have yellow hair, you will need a mild violet dye. You hair will not turn violet if you followed all two steps properly. The violet cancels out the yellow, leaving you with beautiful blond tresses.
Apply the toner like any other hair dye. Follow the instructions in the toner packet, washing out when instructed. Use a mild shampoo, immediately deep-conditioning afterward.
If you've done all three steps properly, you now have beautiful Asian blond hair. Fluff it, show it off, do whatever you want! Make sure to touch up the roots every four to six weeks for authentic, blond hair you'll continue to love for years.
Published by Ann Olson - Featured Contributor in Health & Wellness
When I'm not lifting 200 lbs. off the ground with my bare hands, I moonlight as a freelance reporter and diet consultant. What I do: I write regular diet and exercise-oriented columns for Yahoo! Sports, Yah... View profile
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13 Comments
Post a CommentInsightful, good feedback I have an Asian wife and would love her to go blonde.
I'm an Asian, thanks for your time to write this out because I get tired hearing people saying that Asians (Latinas or blacks for that matter) cannot go blond because it's unnatural or whatever. Right now I'm a platinum blonde Asian, and I've bleached my hair from previously dyed hair. Again, like you wrote, I don't recommend this to anyone who doesn't have experience with how to bleach previously dyed hair. I always use a gentle color remover to remove any remaining color before I do the double processing. Now, I just do root touchups which are a little easier than all over coloring in the first place. I'm very faithful to Wella Color Charm toners, I love them and they make my hair look so pure blonde and pretty, not yellowish or goldish at all. It's true that Asians have to go past the orange hair level in order to go yellow. Just to keep it in mind. But deep conditioning treatments, reconstructor, and leave in glossing polish are a must.
Oh, I forgot, the best toner to use (at least in my case for actual platinum), is Wella Color Charm Ivory Lady T10 and T18 White Lady. using half of each bottle, mix them together with 20 Vol developer, leave on for less than 10 min. It develops quite fast depending on how much you've already lifted your hair color. If you want platinum, use this toner mix as the last step, I wouldn't tone your hair if it's still orange, wait until you've processed it at least a yellow tone. Also then follow up with a color depositing shampoo, like Altrec Violet, or L'oreal white violet shampoo. And remember to use a good reconstructor. Good luck
This is a great article, I'm asian, and have been bleaching my hair on and off for about 15 years, it all started the day, someone told I couldn't have platinum hair, so I proved them wrong, with pretty much the exact same method you've posted. It took me a few times to figure mine out at the time, so great job teaching the method. Ah I wish I had access to internet back then, heh
Interesting article. I read this because I saw a Thai woman the other day with green hair because she'd obviously tried to dye it blonde. I felt sorry for her as everyone was staring at her (Thais overall never color their hair beyond maybe adding red or dark brown highlights)
Thanks Ann!
Morning -- 1) If you bleach on already processed or heavily dyed hair, your hair will melt because it's already in bad shape. 2) Using blond hair dye on bleached hair is generally not recommended by professionals because it usually it won't turn blond. You need to use a toner to take out the yellows and oranges. Violet makes it a very light blond. There are different toners for different blond tones you want to achieve. That was probably the problem you were running into -- you used hair dye instead of toner. Using hair dye on bleached hair is either hit or miss. 3) Bleach should take darker dyes easier than blond dyes, and it should stick unless you use bad dye. It also might not stick because your hair is too processed to retain colour.
great job by the way
I'm not asian but close enough and when I was a young teen I thought I should try blonde. haha...it didn't work out very well because I followed the instructions very UNLIKE these. I look funny as a blonde because it doesn't go with my skin tone
Well, I am Asian, I have bleached my hair, and YES, it MUSN'T BE "Virgin." Asian girls generally don't have course hair; boys prominently do. Agree on the burning, but in three days, it does go away from dead skin flaking, and I don't think so about the hair loss. One bleach on genuine Asian "Black" hair doesn't make it "platinum"; you stated so yourself: it makes it orange. That's when you need to go get yourself a bright blonde hair dye. My hair was a blend of natural brunette and reds, so it made it a cross between yellow-orange and blonde. Other than that, Asians will get orange hair.
Sorry to be such a stickler about this, but I've done it, and now it's gone. I don't recommend Asians bleaching DIY-way because it will take a while to either grow out the natural hair colour back, which looks absolutely ridiculous, or colour it back to original and make it STAY there for more than 2 weeks. Bleach murders hair by the way.