Everyone wants to be blonde…or at least it seems so based on what clients, Reddit, and other social media platforms say. I wonder why we seem to idolize it so much. I can assure you, based on upkeep alone, blondes do not have more fun. Almost daily, I see or hear about someone wanting to go blonde. I’m going to throw 5 potentially devastating truth bombs at you, so be prepared. And, if you’re still set on going blonde after this, it is 100% ok -it’s your hair. But, at least you’ll choose it with your eyes wide open.

1. Blonde is not for everyone. Don’t hate me, but more often than not, your hair shouldn’t be more than a few levels darker or lighter than its natural shade. Mother Nature knows what she’s doing when she gives you your hair color. I’m not saying you can’t play with it, just that you will have to compensate accordingly. I colored my hair dark for years. I had to wear a TON of bronzer so I didn’t look pale and like a sickly influenza victim from 1918. Since it’s very easy to look washed out when you go blonde, especially with a dark natural hair color, you have to decide if that’s worth it. How to work around this if you’re set on some blonde? Get balayage or highlights with a few shades woven in, so the lightest color is not the only color. It will help keep some necessary contrast between hair and skin.   
2. Blonde is expensive to achieve. If you do go blonde, frequent appointments are not negotiable. To make hair blonde, you have to basically pulverize the color molecules out of your hair. This requires bleach, and that’s going to cause some damage. The extent will depend on how dark your hair was initially and how light you want to go, but everyone who bleaches their hair will have to deal with this. The hair’s cuticle has to open to let the pulverizing take place, and never completely closes after that. Why is it an issue? Because it means that the beautiful color that your stylist transforms your hair into from the crazy, yellow-white you see when they first take the foils out, will not last for very long. The cuticle stays open enough to let that color fade much faster than you would want, leaving you with plain bleached hair instead of the shade of blonde you wanted. This means frequent touch-ups to keep the bleached part on point-and that’s not even counting bleaching the roots to match the rest as your hair grows!    
3. Blonde is not DIY. I know it’s expensive, for the love of everything above, DON’T DIY BLEACH. I know there will be a lot of people who say they have done it and it was fine, but it really wasn’t. Not if your hair was more than 1-2 shades darker than the blonde you chose. I can almost guarantee that it was more orange or yellow than you had hoped for, and lighter in certain parts of the hair than others. There is a literal science to it that you might not even consider. But for the sake of argument, let’s say you did successfully bleach your hair by yourself. There is a step 2 that most people who bleach their own hair don’t do: toner. As I mentioned in the previous truth bomb, toner is what takes bleached hair and makes it the color you want. From a vanilla blonde to a golden beachy blonde, every shade of blonde requires a toner to look good, and that is where classes on color theory and practice on hundreds of heads come in handy. 
4. Blonde hair is rarely long hair. Have you ever seen a person with long platinum blonde hair? Probably rarely, if ever. If you have, there’s a pretty good chance that extensions are involved if you have. Now that you know a little about going blonde, you know that hair gets pretty damaged when you use the bleach to remove the color molecules. But bleach also breaks down the disulfide bonds in your hair. These are what give your hair structure. It also weakens your hair’s hydrogen bonds and salt bonds. When these bonds are broken, your hair will be weaker and more prone to breakage. It can be as mild as little breakage on top of your head when you get highlights, to mushy “wanted to be platinum” hair that dissolves like cotton candy when you comb it. This is why it’s hard to keep hair long when it’s blonde. A tiny bit of breakage is not generally a big deal-but consistent bleaching will mean consistent and possibly increasing damage. 
5. Blonde is not temporary. Ok, so blonde can be temporary, but you can’t just go back to your natural color instantly. Lots of people go blonde only to realize it’s just not for them, and want to dye it back to their natural color. The trouble is that it’s not that easy. Sometimes your hair will need a color fill before dying it back, or your natural brown could look green or muddy. Even if you don’t need a color fill, you will have to touch up the color often since it will fade fast (remember those open cuticles from tips 2 and 3?). You can change it back after blonde, but it will take a little upkeep. Way less than being blonde, but more than it might be worth if you go blonde on a whim.

So, there you have it, 5 difficult truths about going blonde. I promise I didn’t put these here to dissuade you from your dreams of getting sunkissed strands of gold. Go blonde if that is what you really want to do! It could very well be the best idea you’ve ever had, and you never go back to your natural color again. I just want to give an honest look behind the scenes at what it can take to be blonde, so you can go in knowing exactly what you have signed up for. Blondes don’t necessarily have more fun, but they do log more time in the salon chair.