I have natural black (more like very dark brown actually but will call it black for simplicity ) curly hair. I've always loved coloring my hair but ever since I damaged it a lot, I stopped doing it. The last time I had my hair colored (by myself) was back in 2018.

Since I did it mostly by myself, I did a lot of damage to it and I didn't want that to happen again obviously lol. I let my hair grow for like 2 years and now I just got bored with my boring black hair so I decided to just go to a salon that I could trust.

I found a salon nearby (Marlon's Creations salon) which has great reviews and also my bff got her hair colored there recently so I gave it a try. I've never trusted my hair to salons since 2014 so I have to make sure I'm in the right salon to gain that trust back.

I have a good feeling about this salon so I first asked them if they have a hairdresser that knows how to deal with curly hair since you don't treat curly hair the same way as you treat straight hair.

After a few chat, I booked my appointment. :D

The process

The minute I opened the door, all of them literally said good morning lol which was a nice vibe. They were very friendly and polite. And yeah, since natural curly hair is rare here, they were looking at my hair with awe.

I was seated here immediately and the head stylist (dunno what they are called really lol) asked me what I want to do with my hair. I explained what I want at the same time show a photo inspiration and then he immediately instructed his team to start working.

They started combing my hair first to separate the hair for a better distribution of the bleach. They took them quite a bit of time haha but they made it through anyway.

And yeah, I felt like a VIP with all of them working at the same time haha.

Since this is going to be highlights, there has to be a bleaching process. Bleaching will literally damage your hair (to destroy the pigments or whatever) and I know this will take me a lot of maintenance but I'm all prepared for it. I wanted this lol.

I was a bit shocked they were gonna use a 40 volume on my hair in one session but I trust that they know what they are doing and they checked how my hair was doing before doing it. I did bleach my hair but it was at the worst condition before so I wasn't sure if the 40 vol is still gonna affect differently on my hair but we'll see.

After a lil wait, it was time to wash. My hair was so light! But thankfully it didn't break haha.

After washing, they had to detangle my hair again and break it into sections. You can see the light ones are already fuzzy, those are damaged hair. Damaged straight hair from bleaching won't be that noticeable since they are just straight lol. But in curly hair, it will be SO noticeable cos you will see the curl pattern actually changes.

Like imagine you are unfrying the bacon, it goes from curly to straight. Maybe a weird example. xD But yeah once curly hair gets too fried from bleaching, it actually becomes straight cos it loses it's curl at the same time it's very dry and dead.

In my case it wasn't that fried since my hair was virgin and healthy.

Here they are now adding another bleach to the roots. This is a less-strong bleach so it won't lighten as much but it still hurt as hell. I felt my scalp burning. I have done it before but it didn't burn as much as it did this time so I asked them again and again to reassure I'm not having some weird reactions but they told me it was normal. It almost got to the point where I couldn't tolerate it (considering I have a high pain tolerance) but thankfully it subsided slowly.

Then they applied hair dye to my hair. The dye doesn't hurt since it's not something like a bleach.

After washing off the dye and treatment, it was time to blow dry my hair. :D

It was the head stylist who blow dried my hair which I was also thankful that he did cos he knows how to do it properly. I asked them for a cream conditioner or a styling cream first if they have, so they could apply it to my hear before blow drying it so it won't look stupid. He immediately understood what I meant and started scrunching my hair like that (like how it's supposed to be dried if you don't have a diffuser).

They took a photo of my hair as well for their portfolio + social media and here yo can see the color already. :D I look like Beyonce even tho she wasn't the inspiration to the hair color haha.

The result

_{Photo courtesy of Marlon's Creations salon}

And tadaa! Here is the result. :D
It was slightly different from what I showed but I like it anyways cos I wanted an ash too but not sure if it would fit me haha but since the hairdresser already know it would fit me, he just did anyway.

I love the color very much cos it just fits my skin and the highlights give it a nice look. The color is light ash brown with some highlights that were a combination of warm and gray tones. The gray ones were there to neutralize (so it won't be orange) and at the same time cos the hairdresser knows the color will fade anyway. Once the gray fades, it will give a nice neutral kinda golden look.

Oh, you can also see the hair clearly damaged as it was still in shock which normally happens to my hair. Some curls aren't defined and look fried or stupid haha but I am confident it will just go back to its okay state. Although it won't be back to the normal one, it will still have curls at least and they will be manageable after a few weeks and also after I've done some protein treatment.

Next day photos...

Two days after the bleaching, I went to the mall with Hive account@spintwister. This is the first time she saw my hair and also my first time going out with it.

I didn't wash it the day after since I'm letting it recover first and just try to build up some oil. It was already disgusting tho cos I wasn't used to the cream that they applied so I washed it before going out.

I was a bit worried my conditioner and sunflower oil (I have no curling cream yet) would not be able to make my curls good but it surprisingly did. My hair will need some time at the same time it desperately needs treatment especially my hair is very fine. I didn't have any breakage or lose hair tho when I detangled it which was a good news. :D