How to Dye Your Hair Blonde This Summer

A gentleman's guide to going blonde.

What nobody tells you about dying your hair blonde: You'll get a LOT uninvited opinions. Thousands. Ever since I bleached my hair, all of my social media acquaintances and fourth-degree coworkers, plus the people I met during Welcome Week my freshman year of college and then never spoken to again, have offered up their unsolicited feedback on my recent conversion. "Looks great!" one says. "Wow," says another, more neutrally. I am polite because I kind of love the attention. But it's grating after a while.

In truth, I had been toying with the idea of bleaching my hair white-blonde for a long time, and recently decided to commit for the sake of journalism. There are hundreds of detailed, nuanced first-person accounts how to dye your hair blonde—for women. There are almost none for men, which is ludicrous. It's 2018 in the United States of America: If you are a man who wants to bleach his hair, I salute you. I'm here to answer all of your ugly questions about the process.

Like: Does it hurt? What is the maintenance like, post-bleaching? Will the process render me slightly dumber in the process, as peroxide from the bleach soaks through my scalp and eats away at my brain cells? Do I need a reference photo? And we'll get to all that. Right now all you need is one thing: a highly skilled colorist.

Mine is Colleen Flaherty at Spoke and Weal in Lower Manhattan. I brought a reference photo of Justin Bieber to show her what I wanted. She told me that I would not look like Justin Bieber. She did so kindly but firmly, with the casual demeanor of a customer service representative who is happy to accommodate you but cannot give you 15% off of your purchase.

This is why the most important part of the process is the colorist. Going in, you have two options: Either demand the exact shade of Justin Bieber you are going for, or work with the professional on a shade that honors your wishes but also your complexion. Flaherty's insistence on an icier, more natural blonde ended up saving me from looking like Eminem. "You wouldn't necessarily go to a doctor and just ask for the pill you think you need," she tells me, massaging bleach into my scalp. "Does that make sense?"

Flaherty shellacs my hair with bleach the way you might coat a raw chicken in olive oil before broiling. Then it's covered in a clear plastic shower cap and left to bake for twenty minutes. When she comes back and airs it out, my hair looks like the top of a lemon meringue pie—which is to say, not the hair I walked in with. This is the very beginning of the process. We are about 20% done. The hair is recoated and baked again.

A note on the pain: I thought it was going to be MUCH worse than it was! Flaherty's advice for pain mitigation was to avoid washing my hair for four days before—I did a week, because I was terrified. The bleach does tingle, but not unbearably so. Is it pleasant? Lmao, absolutely not. But everything is manageable, and you are allowed to bring a book or your laptop to pass the time.

At this point, as my hair glows a fine shade of post-binge drinking urine, I am able to reflect on the nature of this dramatic endeavor. There is a bizarre psychological tick that registers as you watch, in real time, your natural hair color change to not your hair color. Coloration appointments provide plenty of time for self examination—unlike a haircut, most of the action takes place when you are sitting by yourself, staring intently at your reflection, watching the color leave your hair like a human soul departing a dying corpse for Paradise.

It also takes HOURS. While the bleach soaks down into the cortex of my hair, I read a thousand internet articles. Flaherty visits periodically, inspects my hair, and offers vague affirmations. "Yup!" She says, before scooting past. "Looks blonde," she says, one other time. A woman who is not Flaherty drapes a washcloth over my head, "to keep you warm," even though I am not cold. Is she talking about the hair?

Watch Now:

Fetty Wap's Jewelry Collection Will Blow Your Mind

The most annoying thing about the process is not the several hours you spend sitting by yourself, speaking to no one. The most annoying thing is that everybody around you pretends it is not a big deal. It is!!!!!!

I send a photo of my Saran-wrapped orange head to a friend. "You look scared," she says. "It'll grow back in two weeks."

"Why is everybody acting like it's not OK to be a LITTLE uncomfortable with bleaching your hair for the first time??" I reply furiously on a bathroom break.

Finally we enter Act III, the Glossing, in which my yellow-blonde is infused with purple dye to make it look whiter. It takes a full hour and you cannot read the internet while it happens.

300 years later, New York City is a sun-scorched steel wasteland, radiation mutant rats prowl the ruin looking for human survivors, and my blonde is done. It looks exactly how Flaherty said it would prior to any treatment: a luminous icy platinum the color of Lucky Blue Smith (who is not Justin Bieber). Apparently it makes my face look more angular? My boss said I looked like a super villain. Two thumbs up!

Once you are blonde, you are condemned to a lifetime of caring for the blondeness. My existing hair product routine was overhauled in favor of moisture masks and toning conditioners and bottles of purple gloop. It is critical you have a scalp conditioning treatment on hand—after multiple bleach treatments, the skin under your hair looks and feels like scorched earth. The only other thing I can recommend is Davines Alchemic Conditioner, a violet-hued treatment that is supposed to combat any yellow in my hair. Yellow is the enemy of blonde.

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS ONE

Let's block ads! (Why?)