"Can we perm on bleached hair?"
This is a frequently asked question especially in a generation where most ladies would have bleached their hair at least once or twice previously to achieve a funky or lighter shade of hair color. In the past, perming on bleached hair is a 100% NO. However, in the recent years many product companies and hair salons have also tried to push this boundary by coming out with products or techniques to perm on bleached hair.
What is bleaching? And why bleaching and perm don’t go well together?
Firstly, in layman terms, bleaching is a process of “washing out.” This is usually done when the hair is naturally a dark shade (especially for Asian) and we want to go a lot lighter. So we need to washing out some of the natural color pigments before we can put all these vibrant colors such as pink, ash, purple etc. on the hair.
During the process of washing out some of our natural color pigments, some of the the “bonds” within our hair are also destroyed and broken. These bonds are also what we call the elasticity of our hair. And one essential element we need in the hair during a perm is this elasticity, which will also determine how well the curls will form.
If the hair has been bleached severely and too much bonds were broken, and hair elasticity is at its minimal, it will be truly hard for the curls to turn out.
Then will covering the bleached hair back to black or resting the hair for a few months or using a lot of hair treatment daily helps to restore the elasticity of the hair?
The answer is unfortunately no. Covering it black will only replenish color pigments artificially but does not replenish any elasticity to the hair. Resting the hair for a few months from doing any chemical service will not restore the hair as our hair unlike our skin, cannot self-regenerate. Doing treatments will also only artificially makes the hair stronger, but will never be able to re-create the same type of elasticity that we have in our original hair.
Yes we can perm on bleached hair, but there are criterias that you need to meet.
The chart below serve as a guide as in how many rounds of bleaching is required for the different types of colors. Also know that once you have bleached your hair, the bleached portion will not be able to take any perm/rebond services in the future. Thus you will need to take this into consideration, and might want to opt to only bleach the hair ends and not the whole hair.
7 Things You Need To Know On Doing A Perm On Bleached Hair
1. The hair is not severely bleached many rounds, or even if it is only bleached one round, it is not strongly bleached. Thus certain level of original elasticity still exist within inside the hair.
2. Hair texture is thick, and thus elasticity is also a lot stronger than fine hair
3. The Customer understands that still a certain amount of risk is involved, even though the hairstylist is very experienced. So in the occasion that the perm fails, there is no room for a redo of the perm, and the only rectification that the stylist can do then is to then pull it back straight.
4. Hair will be dry and curls will be more frizzy as compared to non-bleached hair. Thus the customer will need to put in more effort in applying products like curl cream and blowdrying it.
5. Curls might come out looser than expected due to the hair not having enough elasticity to hold the curls. Thus will advise to start off with tighter curls as the perm might also wear off a lot faster than on normal hair.
6. Stylist cannot guarantee the Longevity of the curls. ut for sure a perm on Bleached Hair will not last as long as non-Bleached Hair. Longevity for a perm on bleached hair can range from 1 week – 3 months.
7. Some parts of the curls might come out uneven as bleached hair have uneven elasticity. So the customer must be able to accept certain parts of imperfection in the curls.
