Today’s video is about my hair bleaching experience, back in July! A bit of background:
The last time I had my hair coloured in a salon was in 2009. Those were the days before Olaplex, when hairdressers would just look at my coarse black Asian hair and shake their heads sadly. When I say coarse, I mean my hair should be used to make rock-climbing rope – it’s unbreakable, but also unbleachable. Or so we thought…
Then came Olaplex, a bond builder that protects the chemical bonds in your hair during bleaching, and repairs them afterwards. Suddenly everything was possible!
After years of procrastination (I am a really ambitious procrastinator), for my birthday in July I finally got my act together and found myself a salon to get my hair bleached to platinum and dyed purple, which I’ve posted a bit about earlier.
There are two well-known salons in Sydney who specialise in bleaching Asian hair to pastel shades: Mojka, which is conveniently located in Sydney’s CBD, and Ultrafade by Rich, which is a bit more suburban but right next to a train station. As you’d expect, Mojka charges more for the convenience!
As I was trying to decide on a salon, I found out that one of my colleagues was friends with Rich, and one of my other friends actually had her pink and purple ombre done there last year. So Ultrafade it was! It was a great experience, and I’m super happy with the results.
It took me a while, but I finally managed to edit all the footage together – here it is:
It’s a bit of a different style of video, so I hope you like it! I would love any feedback you have for improvements.
Note: This video wasn’t sponsored and I paid for the session myself. I’d recommend Rich and his team without hesitation – they have so much passion for hair and the results are amazing!
Salon details
Ultrafade by Rich in Sefton (western Sydney). They specialise in Asian hair which you can see from their Instagram.
Price
It really depends on your hair length, thickness and current condition, how many rounds of bleaching, whether you get it coloured etc., so don’t take this as any more than a rough indication – their contact details are on their Instagram page if you want up to date information.
At the time I was quoted $300-480 for the basic package which includes bleach, toning, Olaplex treatment, a bottle of Olaplex 3, cut, wash, blow dry and style. I ended up doing two rounds of bleaching and added colouring and bought some products (e.g. the amazing Fanola No Yellow Shampoo) as well, which took it to $700-800.
Time
Again, it depends on your hair and what you’re aiming for as the final result – my hair took the full 8 hours.
How long did the purple last?
I had no idea what I was doing at first, so I was using all sorts of products on my hair without checking if it would strip the colour… so within a week my hair was pastel purple. Which was fine, because pastel purple was actually my final goal! (Rich and I decided to go with vivid purple at first so it would be like two colours in one.)
After about a week.
Even now that I sort of know what I’m doing, I still have to re-dye my hair around once a week and tone it every time I shampoo – purple just doesn’t seem to take hold very well!
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I love how it looks on you, but I am not adventurous enough. My hair has been the same shade of blonde in forever, the same way it was when I was a kid. Only back then the sun did the highlights and now I have to rely on my hair dresser and Olaplex.