Removing hair colour - Bleach bathing

I had my hair mega fabulous in a mermaid trimple ombre effect while I was abroad in February (as some of you may know). After I had arrived back home I was booked onto some work at the NEC quite short notice and had no time to vitamin C strip/ fade my hair colour out so I turned to my wonderful emergency hair colour removal method - yes, the bleach bath.

How my hair looked just before bleach bathing

To do this you will need bleach powder, cream developer, shampoo, a mixing bowl, gloves, a measuring cup/scoop, a spoon/ something to mix it with, and an application brush (optional)

 Chances are if you're using this method to remove colourful dyes your hair will already be pretty pale underneath so when doing this method I suggest you use the lowest vol of cream peroxide possible (I used 3% / 10vol), it doesn't need to lift much and the last thing you want is to create irreversible damage to your hair. Many many many people on the interwebs have different mixing ratios, but the one I go with is 1 scoop bleach, 1 scoop developer, and 2 scoops of shampoo. I find this mixture to be very effective and I like the consistency as I find it easy to work into the hair.

Ratio 1:1:2

When you've mixed all the products together you should end up with a concoction that looks something like the first picture below.
Before applying the mixture to the hair you'll want to wet it and take off any excess moisture so it isn't dribbling water all over you - but don't dry it too much! Remember this is a shampoo mixture and shampoo lathers much easier through wet hair! You can apply the mixture with an application brush, but personally I find it much easier to just whack it on and lather it through my hair. This method is much faster than applying with a brush so the colour should come out evenly quicker and cause less damage to the hair - but of course it's entirely up to you.

Once you've fully saturated the hair with the mixture I suggest putting a shower cap over your hair so the heat from your head will help it process faster. Keep checking on the progress though as this can take no time at all if your hair isn't being stubborn -  parts of mine went blonde seconds after putting the mixture on but other parts took much longer. In total I left mine on for 20 minutes and had absolutely no colour left in my hair which was fabbo. Once it seems light enough to you just rinse it out and condition well and voila!

I did use a toner to make sure there weren't any yellow tones after.

If you don't have experience in bleaching hair please be cautious. Leaving the mixture on for too long (especially with higher volumes of developer) will damage the hair cuticle and could make your hair very dry and prone to snapping/ breakage.

I also did a corresponding video on this topic.