Maintaining Silver Hair

I get a lot of questions about my hair, how I was able to get it this light, and how I maintain it so I decided to make a quick little post about it.

My natural hair is very dark and even after years of dyeing it, it’s still pretty thick. I’ve also somehow been blessed with a scalp of steel (or the years of dyeing it have numbed my scalp who knows) so I’m able go through a double-process bleach in one sitting and not have my hair fall off.

I actually don’t trust myself to bleach my hair myself so I go to a salon to get it done.  Since I have very dark, thick, I did A LOT of research looking for local places that have good reviews specifically with bleaching dark hair like mine. I go through a double-process with 40 volume bleach. Not everyone’s hair can do this in one sitting so if you do plan on bleaching at home, bleach your hair once and wait a few weeks to bleach it again.

If you’re hair is as dark as mine, you’ll end up with something yellow-ish. I then have it toned using Wella Color Charm T18 with 20 volume developer and this is what it looks like freshly bleached and toned

For maintaining silver hair I use Shimmer Lights Purple Shampoo and leave it in for 20-30 minutes depending on how yellow my hair is. Don’t leave it in too long though or you might end up with lavender hair! Shimmer lights is also very drying so I don’t do it too often. I use Overtone’s pastel silver every other day to maintain the color - the longer you leave it in the darker the color but I tend to leave it in longer anyway since it’ll fade to silver over time. You can use my referral link for Overtone and get $10 off if you’re interested!

Shimmer lights is good for getting that yellow brassy blonde that happens when the toner washes out - it’ll come out more white than grey / silver after leaving it in.

Overtone is very pigmented - I usually use the pastel silver shampoo after shimmer lights to get the silver in on top of the white

Once every few weeks I also use Overtone’s deep treatment, usually when my hair starts to look kind of gross and feel dry. It always leaves my hair feeling much softer!

I’ve also tried Viral’s silver conditioner when Overtone’s pastel silver was out of stock - it’s much less intense than Overtone but still gets the job done. I still prefer Overtone since it’s much more pigmented, though.

That’s all I’ve got - if you have any questions feel free to reach out through email or twitter!