White Hair Dye: How to Dye Your Hair White

Most hair needs to be chemically lightened in order to get to a white blonde shade, and this involves using bleach. Bleaching gets a bit of a bad name because it has the potential to be damaging to your hair. Bleach will definitely dry your hair out, and changing the makeup of your strands needs to be done with care and caution. You’ll need to purchase powder bleach and 20 or 30 volume developer, and mix the two together just prior to bleaching. Work with dry hair that’s at least a day or two post-wash, and apply your mixed bleach and developer to thoroughly coat dry strands.

Once bleach is applied, applying a plastic cap will trap heat and help the bleach to work faster. Wait up to 60 minutes, checking hair every ten minutes, and wiping off excess bleach to reapply as needed. After your hair is lightened to a pale yellow shade or 60 minutes has elapsed (whichever comes first), thoroughly rinse off bleach in lukewarm water. The next step is to apply toner, which will take your hair from a post-bleaching yellowy blonde to your desired white blonde style. Apply toner all over hair, and leave on according to the directions of your specific brand. If your hair was sufficiently bleached beforehand, toning should leave you with snow white hair!

L’Oreal Quick Blue powder is a professional grade product and one of the most popular bleaching products around. You’ll need to purchase a creme developer separately to mix with this bleach, which comes in different strengths. 30 volume developer is strong enough to lift darker hair colors, while 20 volume contains less peroxide, and is a good choice for using on hair that’s grey or already blonde. Avoid using 40 volume, as this creates a very strong product that can easily damage your hair.

Manic Panic’s Flash Lightning Kit is an all-in-one product that features bleach powder and cream developer. This kit is also available in 40 volume strength, but we strongly recommend going with 30 volume to avoid damaging your hair.

For a salon grade toner that’s loved by stylists and DIY experts, we recommend Wella’s T18 Color Charm Toner. Mix it with 20 volume developer, and leave on hair for a maximum of 30 minutes, checking strands often.

If you’re looking for an easy product that doesn’t need to be mixed with a developer, Manic Panic’s Virgin Snow Toner, is popular and easy to use. Because a regular sized tub contains 4 oz, longer hair will require several tubs. Skimping out on toner can lead to unevenly distributed color and yellow patches left in your hair. A big bonus with Manic Panic’s toner (and all of their products) is that they’re vegan and never tested on animals.

If you’re sensitive to bleach or just dead set against using it, you may be able to get white hair without it. High lift dye has the ability to lighten hair up to 4 shades, making it an option for anyone with light brown or blonde hair that hasn’t been previously dyed. Depending on your natural shade, high lift hair color may still leave you with a yellowy or brassy blonde, in which case you’ll need to apply a toner afterwards to get your strands white blonde.

Indola’s High Lift is a professional color can take hair up to 4 levels lighter, and is a good choice for light brown or natural blondes to go white blonde without bleach. Go for color 1000.1 “Blonde Ash”, and you may not need to tone your hair afterwards.

Like most hair dyes, bleach will stain anything it comes in contact with, and it can also be quite irritating to the skin. Take extra care to avoid getting excess bleach on your skin and work in a well-ventilated room. Check your hair every 10 minutes after applying bleach, and remove as soon as it’s lifted to a pale blonde color. This might happen much sooner than 60 minutes, especially if you have light, virgin hair. Applying heat can help your hair to lighten faster, but uneven heat may cause your hair to be unevenly lifted. Using a plastic cap is a good way to keep your hair evenly warm while bleach is working. Another potential source of uneven hair is if you take a long time to apply your bleach, and it’s a good idea to have a friend helping you so that hair can be quickly and evenly saturated with bleach or high lift color.

If you’re already blonde, going white can be a relatively painless process. Use a high lift hair color to lighten your hair up to 4 levels, and additional toner if any yellow notes are left in your hair afterwards.

Light brown hair that hasn’t been previously dyed may be a candidate for using high lift color instead of bleach. But if you’ve got natural brown hair that’s a darker shade or has been previously dyed, you’ll probably need to use bleach before toning your hair to a white blonde. Really dark brown hair may need multiple bleach sessions to get hair to a pale yellow color, but you’ll have to wait at least 2 weeks between bleach sessions.

Going from black to white blonde is the most difficult process, and will definitely take more than one lightening session. If you aren’t prepared to spend several weeks with orangey hair, a white style might not be in the cards for you. Hair that’s been dyed black may need to have its color stripped with a color remover like Color Oops or Colour B4. You should wait at least 2 weeks between stripping and bleaching, which will add time to the process but ensures your hair won’t be damaged or over-processed.

White hair is most easily matched with lighter skin tones, but you don’t have to have porcelain skin to pull off snowy strands. Medium and dark complexions with cool undertones can also look great next to white blonde hair, while warmer skin can tend to look yellowy up against hair that’s pure white. Olive skinned beauties like Rita Ora look especially stunning with a white blonde head of hair, proving that you don’t have to be fair to wear this white hot trend.

Once you’ve spent time and effort getting your hair this light, you’ll need to take proper care of it to keep it brilliantly white. Shampooing your hair less frequently can help to extend the life of your color. If you’re worried about your strands looking greasy, keep in mind that bleached hair is porous and absorbs more oil than unprocessed hair. If your hair is feeling oily from skipping shampoo, using a dry shampoo can help you get an extra day or two in between washes. When you do wash your hair, use products that have been specially formulated for light blonde hair. Most shampoos will have a purple tint, but products that are dark purple can turn your white hair violet. If your product does turn your hair purple, try diluting it with a sulfate -free shampoo that has no purple tint.

We like Redken’s Blonde Idol series for preserving snow white strands, and its conditioner lets you control how much violet gets distributed.

Davines Alchemic Silver shampoo and conditioner is great for preserving white hair or any other cool or ashy blonde shade. It helps to protect your color from environmental damage, and is worth the salon price you’ll pay for this high-end maintenance product.