STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I have posted about this before, but here is an update.  Any advice? 

I have been heavily highlighted blonde for about 5 years and recently went back to my natural haircolor of medium brown. My hair was like this


and I had it colored brown like this


My haircolorist used permanent color to take me back and I starting hating it after a couple of days. To make me happy, she put a few foils on the top of my head and used a color to lighten those strands a little. This was 5 weeks ago. Well I decided that I just want to go back blonde like in this picture and went for an appointment yesterday.


However, my hair colorist refused to do it saying that we needed to do it in stages so that I would sustain less damage. She said that I need to come back in 5 weeks for her to do a conditioning treatment and then 3 weeks later we will go a little further. She said that every time I came back we would go a little more blonde until we got there and that she could not use bleach because that would be too damaging. She said she is going to lighten it with color. She uses Redken products.

She told me I had a little breakage in the back but that everywhere else it felt good. She trimmed the dead ends (my hair is long)

Now, I don't doubt her abilities because she does haircolor fantastically. She can make your haircolor look like any pic you show her. However, isn't hair dead anyway? Isn't it impossible to repair hair? Is she right in saying that I will sustain less damage if we do the lightening in stages? Should I just find another hair colorist that I trust and tell them to do my hair like that in the pic of Michelle Pfeiffer.

Well, I emailed a friend of mine who is a chemist and has done hair color in the past.  This is her response:

She's an idiot.

Hair is definitely not alive. It is impossible to repair hair. Going blonde gradually, especially if you've just done a tintback, is a recipe for disaster.

You will not sustain less damage if you do the lightening in stages.

The only way to get your hair light again, without excessive damage, is to use a reducing type color remover like ColorFix to remove the artificial color. After that, you bleach and tone. Unfortunately, many colorists try to use bleach to lighten artificial color. It works, but it's not very effective and it really beats up on the hair. Removing the artificial color first is much less damaging to the hair.

Unfortunately, I can't say whether your hair can handle the color removal followed by re-bleaching. If it's already slightly damaged in the back (some breakage), it probably will not handle the process without breakage. Doing what your colorist recommends will result in much more breakage.