Coloring for Asian hair

[Jules]

I have your typical Asian hair, thick, black, and straight. I am starting to get some grays and am thinking about coloring my hair, maybe highlights. I have heard conflicting advice from, "well first they'll have to bleach your hair because it's so dark to do highlights" to "oh doing highlights on your hair is no problem". Help!!

[Toni]

Originally Posted by Jules

I have your typical Asian hair, thick, black, and straight. I am starting to get some grays and am thinking about coloring my hair, maybe highlights. I have heard conflicting advice from, "well first they'll have to bleach your hair because it's so dark to do highlights" to "oh doing highlights on your hair is no problem". Help!!

First of all, Welcome to you Jules. We're glad to have you here!!

Good question too and I'm happy to respond with some great news. You can go with covering the gray replacing this lost color pigmentation with color matched to your own. Or, you can safely go with highlights to cover the gray and masquerade them when they grow back out again. The latter goes further, of course, when trying to disguise gray hair.

You didn't specify how light of highlights you wanted to go for. I am guessing something not too drastic and if that's the case then one step processing, as we call it, will suffice. This would be an application of hair color that would lift out your natural color and replace it with the color of choice for your highlights. There are a number of ways to do highlights from foils, brushing it on, to the old-fashioned frosting cap. This will be between you and your stylist.

Should you want to go much lighter with your highlights, then yes, you will need to do a two-step processing which involves bleaching out your very dark color pigmentation first.

The great news I spoke of? Asian hair is what is used in beauty schools everywhere on practice mannequins. It is used as it is the best, strongest hair on the planet. So you have great hair that can take the bleaching or whatever chemicals you decide to with. Your hair can endure anything. You just need to determine what maintenance you are prepared to do on a regular basis once you commit to your color option.

Best of luck. If I can be of any more help, let me know.

[Jules]

Toni,

Wow, that's a lot of information to process. I think that what I would like to do is maybe do an all over color to start. I would like to do highlights in the future, maybe a deep brown with a hint of red in it. Even if I went with a deep brown would they still need to bleach my hair? Just the sound of bleaching it scares me. As far as using Asian hair in beauty schools, I never heard that before. I can see why they do use it. Everyone always comments to me that they wish they had my straight, thick hair. I guess we'll never be happy with what we have.