Highlift blonde going back to highlights, is it possible?

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delia21

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Hi all, I have asked a few years back about this and didnt get a definite answer, so since I am flirting with this idea again, I'll just ask away: From your experience, is it possible and maybe not very damaging to go from an overall high lift blonde to just highlights? I have been a hi lift blonde for 4 years, but I used to have highlights like 10 yrs ago (I assume bleached, not sure tho) and loved them. Would it be a difficult process? What would it imply for me (i.e. growing out my roots more before making the change etc.)? And could the highlights be done with a hi lift as well? Thank you so much, so many great advice on here!!
 
Why do you prefer highlift to bleach?

Do you mistakenly believe it’s less damaging?
 
Why do you prefer highlift to bleach?

Do you mistakenly believe it’s less damaging?
Umm sort of lol. I have had one nasty experience w. bleach when I went hi lift 4 years ago., So the ends of my hair still had some dark brown dye on them, so they have been bleached, w. Olaplex. That part of my hair was a MESS, super hard to comb, dry, horrible split ends etc. etc. Had to cut it off real soon afterward. However, the rest of my hair has been in great condition with the highlift ever since. Coincidence? Idk, but I am pretty happy with it. Except for now I aim for a more natural look, I guess..
 
Highlift tints generally use 12% peroxide solution which is far harsher than using bleach with 6%. They’re good in some circumstances but if your natural hair colour is light brown or darker and you want to be a light blonde, your hair is always better off using bleach with a low strength developer and taking it slowly.

In my experience, the clients who say they’ve had a bad experience with bleach is usually due to user error, either a home diy-er who doesn't really understand what they’re doing or a poorly trained hairdresser.
They might use a solution that’s far too strong thinking it will speed up the process and/or overlap the product onto already fragile hair, especially if they’re trying to remove old colour. Olaplex can’t cure poor decisions.

It happened to me back in the 80’s, long before I trained.
A hairdesser used a very strong bleach solution to lift my light brown hair and it was so bad, lots of it broke off near the scalp. I had to have a very short pixie cut for ages afterwards as my fine hair grows quite slowly and I never let anyone else colour my hair afterwards.

If you‘ve been using Highlift tints (with 12%) on your hair for a while and if your hair has any length to it, you need to be very cautious trying to highlight already potentially fragile damaged hair. If you use styling products that contain silicones, they mask the damage to an extent because clients wrongly assume that the softness is healthy hair but viewing it under a microscope will tell you a different story.

Take a strand of hair and wet it then stretch it and let go. Does it stretch and spring back easily? Healthy hair will stretch and recover easily, damaged hair has less elasticity in it.
 
Thank you so much, AcidPerm, it does make sense indeed. I am naturally a level 6/7 (different opinions from different hairdressers) and we usually use either a 9% or a mix of 9 with 12. But what I understand is that highlights would be quite damaging on what I currently have. What I was actually imagining would be more of doing my root touch up in foils only, so that in time I would have all over highlights at some point. Its hard to explain really. My end goal would be to get back to highlights, but not at once or right away if that makes sense? since I am an all over color and I have long hair
 
You could ask to have a few lowlights put in to give your colour more dimension at this stage. That might be a workable solution.
Either using a demi with a very low strength developer or a semi that doesn’t need developer adding. A semi on porous hair can last quite a few shampoos.
 

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