punjabi rose i have a question dat do u get bleached ur hair first b4 applying any color?bcuz black hair dont catch the right desired colored widout bleach or color cut them 1st..n bleach makes them the worst(although u hv told abut ur hair condition) but im so afraid of get my hair bleached just falling n falling n split ends..n if u use bleach then u have to use it every time wen u take ur new color or wat?
Horizon- Yes, at times when I wanted to get my hair a very light shade- I would have to dye it a color which did contain bleach in it. There is no other way to get the color effect you want when you have black hair (and my hair is seriously the darkest black there is...it gives off a blue tint in the sun). A trick that a friend of mine told me back in the day was to grab a box of blonde hair dye (preferably one that works the fastest so that the chemicals are not on your hair for that long). This will turn your hair more of an orangey color. Looks horrible. But I would give my hair like one days rest (so this was always done on the weekend when I could get away with not leaving my house, dorm room, or apartment lol) and then dye it whatever color I actually wanted. The color would come out perfectly. When the hair would start to grow out, It would be annoying though. I would usually just add highlights at that point to help everything blend in better. You do not have to use the bleach thing each time you dye your hair a different color .... for your whole head atleast. All of that hair has already been lightened and once the color starts fading (of the color you had dyed it) ..u can apply the same color or apply a whole different color. The problem only comes to the issue of roots.
I'm not going to lie - dying black hair a lighter color is a major hassle. Only because of the whole dark roots problem. My hair grows like weeds so their was a lot of maintenance involved. As time went on and I got more and more busy with my studies, I had less and less time for stuff like this. So what I started doing then was keeping my hair black and only doing highlights. I would use the same procedure...use a light shade to get the selected hairs to bleach first and then dye my entire head with the overall color I desired my highlights to be. The dye would not make any difference to the black hair and would only dye the bleached hairs. It would look really pretty and the maintenance was a lot easier. Dark reds, violets, amber browns were some of my favorites.
As I mentioned earlier - I dyed my hair way too much.... often in short amount of time. But I never saw any damaging effects of all my "experiments". As Stoppit says - It may be because I am pre-disposed to have good genes for hair? And the fact that I have been very regular about doing hot oil treatments for over ten years and taking multivitamins??? Who knows.
The only time I noticed a difference with my hair is when I did the whole Beyonce look. My hair just got dryer than its usual. It was a great look and I am glad I tried it.... but never again. I had to bleach my hair for a longer period of time to get her hair shade and then had to bleach it again to get the desired blonde highlights. It was ridiculous.
Why don't you first try doing some highlights and see how your hair holds up with it? It might be a good way to ease into things and access the situation first.