Is Taking A Lot Of Heat On The Hair Ok?

Many of my salon-clients and blog- visitors have asked me often if getting the hair heated during highlights is a good thing or not. Before answering this question, I would like to discuss the process involved during highlighting your hair.

When you get highlights on your hair, bleach is used. Generally, powdered bleach is used which is mixed with 40-, 30-, 20- or 10- volume of peroxide. As the amount of peroxide increases, the strength of the highlights also gets augmented. It would help you to know that a bowl of mixed bleach can stay for some hours.

So, after I have finished doing the highlights on a client, I can use the leftover bleach (with a small refreshing, if the need is there) on another customer who comes after 2 hours. What I want to prove here is that the life span of such bleach is long. Well-applied bleach will stay wet for at most an hour and will have a lift for the total time. Using a dryer is not recommended as it will cause breakage of the hair.

In case you are using a strong hair color, it’s not easy to know if enough heat had been applied to the hair. So, excess heat may be used, causing hair to get brittle and damaged. If such a thing happens, you will find tufts of hair flying away.

I use heat only for those clients who have virgin and healthy black hair as such hair is difficult to lift. In case of Baliage, if I find the bleach drying out after 30-45 minutes, I use heat. However, even when I use heat, I use it sparingly only for about five minutes.

So, select either a healthy hair or a quick processing time. Remember that the latter comes at the cost of your hair’s health.

Additional tips: Stay away from the heat if you have fine and dry hair.