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I have light brown hair and want to naturally lighten it with lemon juice, but I have highlights already. Will the lemon juice make the highlights disappear?
By alex from Liverpool, England
Don't do it! Healthy hair has a pH of 4.5 to 5.5 lemon juice has a pH of 2.0 - 2.5. This mean that lemon juice is about 1000 times more acidic than your hair. If you choose to do this you need to water it down. Unless you're hair is naturally light (level 7 or lighter) it will only turn orange (not a good look for anyone). If you have artificial highlights (with bleach) the lemon juice could cause the hair to break.
If you want to lighten your hair but yet still keep the "natural" look have a friend give you a soap cap. It's equal parts of shampoo, low volume developer, and a powder lightener. Work it from the ends to the scalp. It shouldn't be on the head any longer than 10 minutes. I hope this helps
So, I'm a (16) yr old guy with short dirty blonde hair, I took 1/2 cup of room temperature water mixed with 1 1/2 Tbsp. of pure bottled lemon juice and 2 1/2 Tbsp. of olive oil and mixed it into a bowl and damped my hair and basically just lathered it into my hair. Let it sit for 30 minues to 1 hour, depending on how light you want your hair.
And just saying, it came out fantastic, to a great light caramel color, I didn't think it would work so I tried it. The reason I added olive oil was because I found that lemon juice really dried out my hair and made it unhealthy looking and feeling, and the olive oil really moisturizes your hair and helps sustain the color. Once you sit there for 30 minutes to an hour just rinse with water. I did this in the pm, so in the am I just took a shower using deep conditioner shampoo and my hair looks great and feels great! This is a highly recommended remedy for you!
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I have naturally dark brown hair, but I dyed it black 5 months ago. I want to know if lemon juice will lighten it since it's summer now?
By ashley from CA
Lemon juice will not lighten chemically colored hair. (06/08/2009)
By Susan
Use straight peroxide, might have to do it several times, using a hair dryer to heat so it will activate it. After doing so use a good conditioner or your hair will be extremely dry. (06/08/2009)
By Robbie
I think lemon juice will dry out your hair. I don't think it will change the color. If you don't like the color, can you try another color? (06/09/2009)
By Janet
Lemon juice won't do much by way of lightening hair that's been dyed black, but it will lift a teeny tiny bit. Lemon juice is also a great natural hair conditioner because, like vinegar, it is acidic. There's nothing to lose by giving it a try.
You can try peroxide, but when it lifts it will have a brassy tone so if you do it be sure to experiment first with some hair clippings in a clear glass bowl to make sure you'll like the final effect. You can check every five minutes to see the lightening effects/progress.
Hope this helped. (06/09/2009)
By Deeli
I'm naturally light blonde, and decided to dye my hair red. I didn't like the colour so I put a dark brown/black colour dye over the top. I wanted to go back to blonde, but couldn't dye it as it would fall out from over dying it. So I used lemon juice and sat out in the sun for a bit, and the colour faded a lot. It turned it a ginger colour so lemon juice does work. (05/28/2010)
By abigurl
