![]() A lack of moisture is what makes your hair that awful straw-like consistently or causes it to snap off when it gets to a certain length. Healthy hair has the perfect balance of both protein and moisture in it, so you make sure you restore both. Make them from anything high in protein – eggs, mayo, olive oil, banana, avocado, coconut or almond oil!Īs well as being protein deficient, your bleach mangled hair is most likely very, very thirsty. You can also use homemade hair masks about once or twice a week if you’d like too. If you use them for too long it will cause a build up in your hair which can make it break even easier. Hair that breaks with very little effort is a sign of an over-abundance of protein, and a deficiency of moisture. Be sure you only use this stuff as long as you need it though (while your hair is still at that stringy when wet stage) because it has a LOT of protein in it. I started by using Redken Extreme shampoo, conditioner, treatments and their anti-snap heat protector lotion. This will help to patch up the frayed cortex and smooth out the scales. When you use products with it in, you are effectively replacing the missing and damaged keratin from your hair. ![]() So the first thing you need to do is repair this outer layer by getting as much protein back into your mop as possible. When you use bleach, the chemicals in it cause those cuticle scales to lift and separate, therefore exposing the cortex. The cuticle is made up of keratin (protein) cells that fit together a bit like scales and create a waterproof and airtight barrier around the cortex. Hair is made of protein and chemical damage is essentially the degradation of those proteins that make up the outer cuticle layer. Rip that metaphorical plaster off and chop off as much off as you can bear! Restore the protein When your hair is as destroyed as mine was, the ends are probably not salvageable. If we’d taken all of the damaged bits off, I’d have been practically scalped! As you can see my hair was already pretty damn short so I managed to convince Elbie to just do a few millimetres at a time. The first thing we had to do was cut off the damaged bits. Here’s how we did it: Lop off the straggly bits That was probably about two years ago, and now my hair has never looked better! Luckily my fairy hairmother pulled me back from the brink and promised that we could fix it. I was actually very near just chopping the whole lot off and starting again, or at least going back to my natural colour. I’m not gonna lie, when I first had this realisation I cried. Still don’t believe how bad it was? How about an extreeeeeme close-up?! Look at the ends especially – frazzled! My hair also wouldn’t grow any longer than this, it would just snap off. ![]() You can see how awful it used to be in these photos. When I started to see Elbie, my hair resembled chewing gum when it was wet (stretchy and thin!) and was like crunchy straw when it was dry. ![]() She said it also looked like the bleached areas had overlapped each time, again, most likely in an attempt to get it as light as possible. ![]() My hair is naturally very dark so perhaps it was just left on for too long, under too much heat. Obviously we can’t know for sure, but she suggested that it looked like the bleach had been applied really carelessly. I’m not really sure if it was just inexperience with unnatural colouring or what, but when I became friends with Elbie and decided to go to her for my hair preening instead, she informed me that my hair was… to put it bluntly… completely fucked. Not really knowing any better, I was going to a well known chain (one that rhymes with ‘phoney and pie’… ahem) for around three years, and unwittingly allowing them to ravage my fuchsia tresses more and more with each visit! I started doing it myself at home, and then progressed to getting it done at a salon every six to eight weeks. I’ve been bleaching my hair on and off since I was 16. ![]()
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