I finally bleached my roots, yay!

My dreads didn’t all die and fall off, yay! 

I was a bit scared about the whole dread bleaching thing. A few scare stories left me worried that if I left the bleach in a second too long, my dreads would melt right off. Several other stories reassured me that it would all be fine, and it was

I know dreads are still just hair, so you might wonder why I was making a big deal of it. Thing is, my hair has been through so many bleachings and dyings, especially the older part, so even though the roots were brand new hair, and the next couple of inches had only been bleached a couple of times, I was worried about the rest. I had planned to rub some body lotion into the lower part of the dreads, which didn’t need bleaching, which is what I usually do to help prevent dye going on the wrong areas, but then I thought if the lotion didn’t penetrate the dread, and the bleach got drawn down inside the core, the lotion may seal it in or just make it harder to rinse out thoroughly, so in the end I didn’t.

Ok let’s see, what’s important when bleaching dreadlocks?

- You should  be a bit more careful with the timing than you would with straight hair. I was really paranoid and started rinsing the moment 40 minutes (as per the instructions) had elapsed. Usually I would leave it in for 1 hour 15 mins. It takes a lot longer to rinse stuff out of dreads, so even if you start rinsing at the correct time, you may still have bleach active in your hair for several minutes more. This is what I was most concerned about, hence the strictness with timing. In fact I think it would’ve been ok to leave the bleach a bit longer.

- Make sure everything is organised. If you only want to bleach some of your dreads, get them all sorted out first, with the ones you don’t want to bleach out of the way. It takes a bit longer to apply bleach/dye well, and if there’s a 20 minute time lapse between you starting the first dread and finishing the last one, the timing will be all off and you may not get even results. I started by very quickly smearing some bleach on each dread, so they were started approximately together, then went back over them doing a more thorough job.

- Buy enough bleach (/dye), because dreads are like sponges. One box of bleach was barely enough for just doing the roots of only half my dreads.

I had the idea of introducing some apple cider vinegar to the rinsing process. I figured it would help neutralise the bleach and maybe kinda deactivate it a bit, reducing any further damage that might occur before it was all rinsed out. Whether this worked or not, I couldn’t say for certain, though it seems logical in theory. However, I was very glad I used vinegar, because the bleach made my dreads feel horrible, completely dry and tacky even whilst wet, if that makes sense and the vinegar softened them up loads. I used nearly half a litre of the stuff!

The most important thing is rinsing. I had intended to rinse for about half an hour, but after twenty minutes the hot water ran out, so I just put the last of the vinegar on my dreads and a towel on my head, so if any bleach was left in there it would hopefully be neutralised. I went back to rinse after an hour or so. The water was still cold but I was bored of hanging round, so it was just a quick cold rinse to remove the vinegar.

I’m sure I was over-cautious, but I’d rather that than lose my dreads! Afterwards I applied aloe vera gel to them, to help restore some moisture. They still feel pretty crispy though.

Well the colour came out a lot more yellowy orange than usual because I didn’t leave the bleach in so long. Usually I get my hair more-or-less to platinum blonde. If I had been bleaching for blondeness, I’d want to do it again, but since it’s just for dying over, it’ll do. My dye hasn’t arrived yet though, so I’m having to do some cunning disguise work with a head band

Picture time! First, some before shots.

Pre-Bleach Organising

Dreadlock Bleaching In Progress

Now for the after shots! Much yellow, as you can see, but it’ll be fine for dying over (Had to link the next pic to flickr because it was too large to work properly from Wordpress)

Dreadlocks Post-Bleach

So that’s it. All done Hope my new dye will arrive soon; Special Effects “Virgin Rose”, if you’re interested.

Don’t forget I’m frequently updating Gallery 1, My Dreadlock Journey, which you can also view on flickr if you prefer that format.

Bleaching Dreads: A Success