… bleach your own hair roots instead of waiting for hair salons to reopen?
#8
Before
My hair hasn’t been bleached for six months. My partner cut it (not a success) and I have trimmed it myself subsequently (also not a success beyond the mere fact of it now being shorter). The likelihood of securing a hair appointment within the next few months strikes me as slim. I had thought I would be fine returning to patchy grey and brown. I’m not, especially now most of the white blond has been cut off.
I am not recommending bleach to anyone who has never had their hair bleached before and I have not yet tried it myself (I have progressed as far as ordering a bleach kit) so it might end up being apparent why the general consensus is not to BiY (bleach it yourself). I have had my hair bleached fairly regularly for the past five years and know how it should and shouldn’t feel on my scalp.
I had Googled BiY and didn’t feel confident so I decided against it, but then I saw a friend’s BiY results and it looked as good as you’d hope it would look, even from a salon. So I ordered from the same salon as she did, Bleach London.
Ahead of my BiY session, which I am VERY nervous about, I am fully prepared and accepting of shaving all my hair off again if it goes horribly wrong.
I now have to wait for my bleach order to arrive, during which time I will obsessively Google and prepare myself for as many eventualities as possible.
Front view before bleaching 
Remains of bleach at back of head
After
It has taken me a few weeks to actually pluck up the courage to bleach my hair. And I am so, so glad I finally did it. But I reiterate that this is not the first time my hair has been bleached so I know how it should/shouldn’t look and feel and I know it could have gone horribly wrong.
I followed the instructions, bleached it, then did a toner. In addition to the coconut shell bowl and brush I ordered from Bleach London, I also used a tail comb (for the turning of rows of bleached hair), though a disposable chopstick was my plan B if I hadn’t found a tail comb in a local supermarket, and I set myself up with a big mirror in front of a glass door and wore a nylon cape that we’ve always had to make home-barbering seem more professional.
The plan was to end up with platinum blonde hair.
The result is what I would call fried egg in that it’s largely a pale yolky colour at the centre and white around the edges. However, this does not constitute a disaster and I actually quite like it; innovate, cutting-edge …
I spent probably more hours than you might expect doing it and I did enlist my partner’s help to brush bleach on the back. He had it drilled into him that if he got too much on my scalp it would burn and he’d be in a lot of trouble. He approached the job with significantly more seriousness and diligence than when he cut/butchered my hair previously.
Towards the end of bleaching – note a slight straw-texture to the already-bleached ends 
Platinum toner doing its magic
There was nothing exciting about the process, it all went smoothly, albeit slowly.
As for the photos, I did them as selfies. While taking photos, I forgot that the front camera of my phone defaults to a beautifying filter until I downloaded the photos onto my laptop to sort out. The dream-like smoothness of my skin is not the reality, which all of my friends can confirm! I forgot to take an “after” photo until I was going for a need-to-get-out-of-the-bleach-smelling-flat walk. The brightness of my hair and the horrible earmuff-effect of the sides being too long are not the desired key features of that photo.
Why am I glad I did it? In part, because it was something I wanted to do, felt nervous about doing and there was a time when I wouldn’t have done, the concerns outweighing the possible benefits; a kind of low-level personal achievement. Also, it makes me feel less prematurely-grey which, annoyingly, I still associate with being old. So, yes, I suppose it does make me feel younger, or at least my age.
What about the egg yolk area? This is not the first time I’ve been left with a suggestion of yolk, though it is pale-coloured yellow, and purple neutralising shampoos have always evened it out after a few washes so I’m not worried or alarmed.
Were there any differences in how it felt doing it at home versus at a salon? Other than washing my hair over a bath being far less comfortable than leaning back in a salon-basin and having someone else do it, nothing much in the process. The only time I really worried was when I realised the ends of my hair, bits that were already bleached and which I know you are not supposed to bleach over but which I had accidentally bleached over, started to look and feel extremely dry and straw-like. But with the special hair masks that came with the kits, it was fine in the end and seemingly no ill-effects.
Would I do it again? Yes, but only if I couldn’t get an appointment with my (or I’d even resort to “any”) hairdresser. I would far rather a professional bleached my hair. And then I could also get it cut, which I am planning to do myself in the next day or two. Eek. The earmuffs must go. I would rather bleach my own hair again than cut it though.