How To Lighten Dark Brown Hair?

Why Should You Avoid Bleaching To Lighten Hair?

Hair bleaching is a process that involves stripping the natural color pigments from your hair strands to get a lighter base. It allows you to get the lighter base as you desired without waiting a long time. Moreover, If your hair color is not naturally light, you only get level 8-10 blonde when you use chemical bleaches.

On the other hand, bleaching brings lots of risks to your health and hair. Chemical bleaching can damage your hair, weaken its structure and cause breakage or split ends. Moreover, chemicals used in the bleaching process can cause redness and itching on your scalp. You should consider properly before choosing this technique or use the gentle techniques I’ll mention below.

Understand Lighten Dark Brown Without Bleach

Lightening dark brown without bleach are hair lightening techniques using natural ingredients which contain low acidity and lightening substances. These ingredients are not difficult to find, they are usually used in your kitchen. That means these lightening techniques are really health-friendly.

There is a list of ingredients usually used to lighten dark brown hair:

- Lemon juice

- Honey

- Chamomile tea

- Apple cider vinegar

- Baking soda

- Salt

How to Lighten Dark Brown Hair Using Lemon Juice

Lemons are the most inexpensive method of lightening hair color. However, can lemons be always used to lighten hair color? No, lemons won’t affect the hair color, which has already been colored. Lemons will be effective on hair that has natural color.

While using lemons, you need to ensure you are using freshly-squeezed ones and not the one which was used days ago. Since lemon contains citric acid, it is considered the best and natural alternative to bleach. Lemon juice will not only lighten your hair color but also give you a different shade.

Although you will have to use a lot of lemon juice to get the desired results, it is one of the most popular methods to lighten hair color. Since you want to know how to lighten dark brown hair using lemon juice, you have to follow these steps:

Take lemon and water in equal quantities in a bowl. For instance, you will need 1/2cup lemon juice and ½ cup water. Put it in a spray bottle.

You should spray the juice from the bottle evenly on the hair strands you want to lighten. Keep spraying until it is damp.

Sit under the sun for an hour. The oxidation process will get activated from the UV rays. Don’t use any heating process as an alternative.

Rinse it using cool water, and don’t forget to apply the hydrating conditioner as lemon juice can turn your hair dry.

You can repeat this process every week until you don’t get the desired result.

Gradually, you will notice that your hair color has lightened perfectly. After this treatment, you should take proper care of your hair by applying sun protection for hair.

How to Lighten Dark Brown Hair Using Honey

Honey is popularly used to hydrate the skin and hair. However, it can also be used to lighten your hair color as it contains trace amounts of hydrogen peroxide.

Some people don’t know how to lighten dark brown hair using honey. They need to know that honey can be used in various ways to lighten the color.

Here Are Some Of The Best Ways To Lighten Hair Using Honey:

Method 1:

Take a small amount of hair conditioner in a bowl and mix it with 1/3 cup of raw honey.

Make your hair wet at night. Then, apply the solution to your wet hair. Massage evenly every strand of your hair.

Wear a shower cap and let it stay on your hair overnight. Rinse your hair well using normal water.

Repeat the process twice a week until you get the desired results.

Method 2:

Take 1 cup of warm water and mix it with 2 tablespoons of raw honey.

Apply the solution thoroughly throughout your hair.

Leave it for an hour before you wash it using normal water.

Repeat the process of applying honey with warm water until you get the desired result.

You should always use raw honey to lighten the hair color. Pasteurized honey might not provide the same effect.

How to Lighten Dark Brown Hair Using Chamomile Tea

Although chamomile tea is popularly used to lighten hair color, which is already light, it can effectively turn dark brown hair into a lighter color. Like all the methods, you have to repeat the process several times to get the desired result.

Although chamomile is a natural ingredient, it can cause skin allergies to some people. To check you don’t get any irritation from the use of chamomile, you should do a small patch test on your skin. If you don’t get any allergic reaction from chamomile, you can safely use it to lighten your hair color.

If you want to know how to lighten dark brown hair using chamomile tea, you need to follow the steps mentioned below.

Put 2 bags of chamomile tea in one cup of boiled water. Leave it for 4-7 minutes until the water becomes lukewarm.

Put the solution in a spray bottle so that it will be easy to apply.

Spray it on your hair evenly until it becomes damp. Comb your hair properly to make sure the solution is applied to every strand.

For best results, sit under the sun for an hour.

After rinsing it with cool water, you should apply a conditioner to hydrate your hair.

These easy-to-follow methods won’t cause any damage to your hair if done properly. However, you need to make sure you are applying sun protection for your hair before leaving home because the UV rays can cause damage to your hair.

How to Lighten Dark Brown Hair Using Apple Cider Vinegar

Apple cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar is used for various hair care purposes because of its slightly acidic nature. You may know some of its benefits such as dandruff treatment, reducing frizz, and clarifying hair. But, Did you know apple cider vinegar can be used as a hair lightening agent?

Apple cider vinegar has the same characteristics as lemon juice. The acidity of vinegar can interact with pigments in hair, including eumelanin (responsible for the dark color) and pheomelanin (responsible for the red and blond shades), to change the shade of hair.  The result will not show immediately, you have to wait at least 2 weeks to see the change of your hair shade.

To get the best result without damaging your hair and scalp, you should combine 1 part of apple cider vinegar with 6 parts of water in a spray bottle. Then spray this mixture on your hair. You can let your hair exposure to the sun to help activate this process. After 30 minutes,  rinse your hair with lukewarm water and apply hair conditioner.

Is It Safe To Lighten Your Hair By Yourself?

Unless you use bleach, it is safe to lighten your hair at home. However, if you don’t follow the instructions properly, it can result in itching and burning. You need to remember the following things while lightening your hair by yourself.

1 - You might have an allergy to certain natural products. If you get any allergic reaction, you should stop using the ingredient and immediately consult a doctor 

2 - You should avoid using hair dyes for lightening your hair as it may result in a burning sensation on the hair scalp. Additionally, without visiting a salon, you might not get the desired result. If you want to lighten your hair using dye, you should take the help of professionals as they know which products will cause the least damage.

Conclusion

We hope you understand that it is possible to lighten hair without using bleach. Since you want to know how to lighten dark brown hair, we have shared natural ways to lighten your hair which you can do by yourself.