Are you ready for this month’s spotlight, Fox Fam? This time around, we’re featuring the newest product in the Arctic Fox Hair Color line - Bleach, Please! You’ve been asking for a bleach kit, and after months of development, she’s here! Read on to get all the deets.

So, who is she?

Bleach, Please is a complete hair lightening kit with a 3oz tube of violet-toned bleach cream, a 6oz bottle of 35-volume developer, and latex-free gloves. Just like the rest of the AF line, it is 100% vegan and 100% cruelty-free. If you already have our custom bowls and brushes, you can mix it up with those, but any applicator brush and non-metal bowl should pair perfectly! With a 35-volume developer, you can see up to 8 levels of lift. Bleach, Please is also supplemented with tons of ingredients to help protect and repair your hair, such as Polycare® Split Therapy which helps prevent split ends, as well as açaí, papaya fruit extract, castor oil, mango seed butter, cocoa seed butter, sunflower seed oil, and arginine. Açaí, papaya extract, mango seed butter, and cocoa seed butter all help prevent hair loss, reduce inflammation, and improves circulation. Castor oil is renowned for promoting hair growth, as well as improving the health of the hair by boosting keratin production. Sunflower seed oil keeps the locks hydrated, and arginine is an essential amino acid responsible for stimulating hair growth. All these ingredients work together to keep your hair as healthy and happy as possible, all while getting you to a clean, light base (and canvas for the most vibrant colors).

Before you bleach!

We’ve formulated Bleach, Please to be as gentle as possible - but at the end of the day, all bleach can cause damage, since it opens up the hair cuticle to remove pigment from the strand, which can leave hair feeling dry or rough. Keep this in mind and take care of your hair both before and after you bleach it! Every kit comes with full instructions, but the basics of bleaching will always apply. Always perform a strand test and a patch test prior to application to ensure you don’t have any kind of allergic reaction to the product.

Leading up to bleaching you'll want to give your hair plenty of TLC and conditioning to give it the healthiest starting point!

During the process.

Make sure you’re in a well-ventilated room when you’re applying the bleach, and always wear gloves to protect your hands. Your hair should be fully saturated for an even lift, and you’ll want to work as quickly as you can to ensure it all lightens to the same level! Leave your roots for last, though, to avoid hot roots - the heat from your scalp helps speed up the process, so bleaching the roots last will prevent them from getting noticeably lighter than the lengths of your hair. Rinse the bleach out within 30-45 minutes, checking your hair every 5 minutes or so, and don’t let the bleach sit any longer than 45 minutes regardless of the level of lift to prevent any serious damage from occurring.

If you do need multiple processes to get your hair as light as you need it, make sure to space out the processes at least a week apart - this will allow the natural oils in your hair build back up and help protect it during the lightening process. We only recommend using Bleach, Please on un-dyed hair, and it shouldn’t be used to try and remove dye from the hair, whether Arctic Fox Hair Color or others - doing so can cause unexpected color results or permanent staining of the hair! If you do need to remove color, please use a color remover formulated for the type of hair color in your hair! 

After care!

Bleach, Please makes the process simple, but lightening your hair at home can get tricky! If after using Bleach, Please, your hair turned out brassy or uneven, there are steps you can take to color correct. A little bit of brassiness won’t affect most Arctic Fox colors applied on top, especially if you’re using a darker or more highly pigmented color. But if you do want a light, cool-toned blonde, a toner will help remove any unwanted brassy tones! You can get a light toning effect on brassy hair by using Periwinkle or Girl’s Night, or a very diluted Purple Rain, either applied alone or added to your shampoo and conditioner like a purple shampoo! An uneven lift can be trickier to troubleshoot, though, especially if you’ve got a significant difference in color. There are a lot of different reasons that your hair might have lifted unevenly - had some parts of your hair already been lightened while others were natural? Could there have been any lingering pigment in your hair from a previous color, particularly a permanent dye? Did some parts of your hair process under the bleach longer than others? Sometimes just going back over the darkest parts of your hair for a shorter processing time after a few days will do the trick to even everything out, but if there’s a major difference or you’re not sure where the unevenness is coming from, consulting a professional for color correction is the safest bet. The health of your hair is always worth it!

Other things to know

Arctic Fox Hair Colors are known for their customizability, but bleach is different and can’t really be customized the way dyes can. But you can still use the kit for more than just all-over lightening! You can use Bleach, Please as part of a bleach bath by adding shampoo to your mix. By mixing up just small amounts of bleach at a time, you can use Bleach, Please just for root touch-ups and the kit can last you for multiple uses! Just make sure to store the bleach and developer sealed separately in a cool, dry place - once it’s mixed it has to be used up within 30 minutes or so, and can’t be saved afterward.

Or, if the provided 35-volume developer is a bit strong for your hair type, you can cut it with a lower-volume developer or substitute it entirely for a different developer while keeping our violet-based cream bleach for that extra toning effect. Just make sure the 2:1 ratio of developer to bleach stays the same to ensure you get the most effective lightening possible!

We can’t wait to hear what you think of Bleach, Please, Fox Fam! Let us know when you give it a try, and of course, feel free to reach out to us via email at support@arcticfoxusa.com if you have any questions or concerns. We’re always happy to help!