It's been known for years that hair turns gray due to a natural buildup of hydrogen peroxide in hair follicles, which causes oxidative stress and graying. (Hydrogen peroxide solutions have been used for years as a cheap and easy way to "go blonde.")
How long does it take for hydrogen peroxide to lighten hair? Leave the hydrogen peroxide in your hair for about 30 minutes. Depending on how dark your hair is, how light you want it, and how much irritation the chemical may cause, you'll want to experiment and play around with it.
If you want to bleach your entire head, mix equal parts of hydrogen peroxide and water in a spray bottle. Spray it on your hair and cover the neck and back with a towel. Leave it on for 30-40 minutes to get bleached hair.
How to Whiten Gray Hair With Hydrogen Peroxide Mix. Mix equal parts of 30 volume hydrogen peroxide (three percent) and conditioner. Apply this mixture to your hair and comb it through. Place a plastic cap over your hair and let your hair process for about 20 minutes.
Colorist Kathy Debski says hydrogen peroxide lightens hair by penetrating the strands' cortex and breaking apart the melanin inside and stripping dark color. Yes, this does cause a lightening effect, but it essentially corrodes the strand to do so — leading to frizz, breakage, and split ends.
In dye mixtures, hydrogen peroxide acts as an oxidising agent. It oxidises melanins, organic compounds which absorb visible light and give hair its colour; this oxidation removes the parts of the compounds that cause colour, and causes the natural pale yellow of keratin (the protein that makes up hair) to show through.
Baking soda and hydrogen peroxide
Baking soda can also lighten hair that isn't dyed, but not when it's used by itself. To lighten nondyed hair, you have to use baking soda as a base with hydrogen peroxide. This is a bleaching agent that lightens hair.
Hydrogen peroxide attacks the enzyme tyrosinase by oxidizing an amino acid, methionine, at the active site. As a consequence, this key enzyme, which normally starts the synthesizing pathway of the coloring pigment melanin, does not function anymore.
The pigment in our hair is caused by melanin— the same pigment that is also responsible for our skin color. Gray hair is caused by a loss in melanin, whereas white hair does not have any melanin at all. As you age, your hair produces less and less melanin that leads your hair to appear gray, and then eventually white.
Use two teaspoons of baking soda to two teaspoons of shampoo for long hair. Mix and coat your hair gently from root to tips, leave on hair for around 3 minutes and then rinse thoroughly, you can shampoo again if you feel you want to get all the baking soda out, and then do the QSH mask.
Any hair can be taken to white blonde. It is a simple matter of lifting with bleach all the way up to level 10 and eliminating all the yellow pigments on the way. Then coloring and toning it to get to that exact shade of white blonde. The above hair was brown level 5 before this bleaching and coloring process.
Use lemon juice on your hair to make it a few shades lighter. Squeeze a lemon to get the juice and mix it with an equal proportion of water. Then spray it all over your hair evenly, ensuring all hair strands are covered properly with your juice mixture.
Natural bleaching agents like apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, chamomile tea, or cinnamon and honey can lighten hair gently and naturally with minimal damage. Rinse your hair in a solution of warm water and one or more of these lightening agents, then sit in the sun to dry.
Hydrogen peroxide and bleach typically lighten your hair 1 or 2 shades, so you won't go from dark hair to blond. Keep in mind that it may bring out red, orange, or yellow tones in your hair, especially if your hair is dark.
30 volume developer (9% peroxide)
Used for dyeing and also for lightening hair. Suitable for coloring grey hair. The most often it is mixed with permanent color and lightening cream or powder.
The hair can't actually turn white overnight, because all the hair is "dead", and the only way you can make its colour change is with dyes. Hair gets its colour from a chemical called melanin, which is pumped in by cells at the base of the hair follicle.
Your hair turns gray or white from a loss of melanin, a pigment-producing component that produces melanocyte cells. These make up your natural hair and skin color. The less melanin you have, the lighter your hair color. Gray hair has minimal melanin, while white has none.
Despite the claims made online and by product marketers, it's not possible to reverse white hair if the cause is genetic. Once your hair follicles lose melanin, they can't produce it on their own. As melanin production slows, your hair turns gray, and then white when melanin production has completely stopped.
Though not completely natural, you can use hydrogen peroxide mixed with equal amount of water and apply it to hair to get rid of hair dye. Keep the hydrogen peroxide in hair for 10 minutes for it to work through hair. Rinse thoroughly afterwards.
Apple cider vinegar to lighten hair
It can reduce dandruff, encourage growth, and remove oil build-up, making it a wonder treatment for hair. For lightening, mix one-part apple cider vinegar with six-part waters and spray across the hair. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes before washing it out.
If you have yellow, orange, or brassy tones after bleaching, cover them up with a toner or color corrector. You can also offset yellow tones with a purple shampoo or a little gentian violet. You can also brighten your hair naturally with lemon juice.
Can toothpaste bleach your hair? Yes, leaving toothpaste on your hair long enough may bleach your hair, but that doesn't mean you should try it. Even if whitening toothpaste can “bleach” or lighten hair on your skin and on your body, the result will be somewhat unpredictable.
To get silver hair, you have to bleach your hair until your strands are almost white. The darker your natural color is, the more bleach sessions you'll have to go through to lighten your hair enough to achieve that ethereal silver hue. The bleaching process can be very damaging to your delicate mane.