- If you bleached your hair a year ago, you can perm it.
- However, your bleached hair must be healthy to withstand a chemical process like perming.
- Therefore, before perming your bleached hair, you should test your hair’s porosity even if it’s been a year since you bleached it.
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According to the rule of thumb, if you bleach your hair, you can perm it after two weeks if you want to achieve a curly and voluminous mane.
However, that’s only the rule of thumb.
What do I mean?
You could be in any of these groups:
- Some people bleach their hair and know that, from that moment on, they’ll have to take care of their hair as if it were a newborn.
- Others bleach their hair and think their hair is the same as before. So, they don’t pay any attention to it.
So, it’s been a year since you bleached your hair, and you’d like to perm it.
Before you think about your future curls, give me an honest answer:
What group are you in?
Have you taken care of your bleached hair like a baby this year? Or, haven’t you nourished it even once a week?
If you identify with the first group, chances are you can perm your hair without risking it.
But even so, I recommend that you assess your hair to make sure it can withstand the heavy chemicals in the perm.
Only after assessing your hair will you know whether or not you can perm it.
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It may have been a year or two years since you bleached your hair.
What matters is how you’ve treated your hair during that time.
Sometimes, hair that’s been bleached for two months is in better shape than hair bleached one year ago.
So, the time after bleaching your hair won’t always determine if you can process it again.
Let’s think about this.
It’ll help you determine if you can perm your hair even if it’s been a year after you bleached it.
Are you ready to face the truth? Come on, I’ll walk you through it.
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Check your bleached hair health before perming it
There’s a lot of talk about hair health. But do you really know what healthy hair is?
Many people think that healthy hair has never been colored or bleached. However, being a stylist, I’ve seen bleached hair healthier than virgin hair.
So, what do stylists mean by healthy hair?
We refer to hair that is resistant to chemical processes. It’s hair that doesn’t break during the process.
You’ve bleached your hair. Then, the structure of your hair was altered on the outside and inside.
The cuticles were broken during the process, and your hair lost moisture and nutrients. And it’s been over a year since then.
How have you treated your hair since then? Have you taken care of it?
Let’s take a look at some questions you can ask yourself to get a clearer picture of your hair situation.
- Do you use heat tools, such as flat iron or blow dryer, sparingly? Do you apply a heat protectant to it?
- Have you invested in any products such as Olaplex or Wellaplex to use after bleaching?
- Do you maintain a weekly deep moisturizing routine for your hair?
- Do you protect your hair from the sun?
- Do you use sulfate-free hair products?
- Do you detangle your wet hair gently from the mid-lengths to the ends?
If you answered yes to these questions, you have taken good care of your bleached hair.
In that case, you can perm your hair.
However, to make sure that your bleached hair won’t be damaged by perming, you must pass the last test.
And that’s what I’ll talk about next.
Do the porosity test before perming your hair bleached one year ago
Why?
Perming is a chemical process that can damage your hair health.
Like bleach, the perm solution alters the external and internal structure of your hair.
Therefore, if your hair bleached one year ago isn’t healthy, it may break during the process.
To prevent breakage, you should assess your hair’s porosity. Hair porosity refers to a strand of hair’s ability to absorb and retain moisture.
The more your hair absorbs products, the higher porosity it has. Then, the further damage it could be.
That’s why you should do a porosity test before applying any chemicals to your hair.
What do you need?
A glass filled with water at room temperature.
Here’s the step-by-step:
- Fill a glass halfway with room temperature water.
- Drop a strand of your hair about a centimeter wide into the water.
- Look carefully.
What happened to your hair?
- If the strand floats, it successfully passed the porosity test and you can perm it.
- If the strand sinks halfway down, it’s slightly damaged and you shouldn’t perm it. Apply moisturizing and nourishing treatments for fifteen days and perform the porosity test again.
- If the strand has completely drowned, your hair is seriously damaged. If you perm it, it’ll break.
So, whether your bleached hair has mild or severe damage, you should repair it before perming.
- If your hair is severely damaged, I recommend products like Olaplex, Wellaplex, or Smart Bond, which repair the damage left by bleaching and lack of care.
- Alternatively, if your hair has slight damage, you can apply home treatments such as aloe vera and castor or almond oil masks every two or three days. They’ll help the cuticles grow.
Three weeks later, repeat the porosity test and check the result to see if your bleached hair will resist the perm.
Conclusions
If you bleached your hair a year ago, chances are you can perm it.
However, it depends on your hair health. Hair that was bleached a year ago and has been cared for isn’t the same as hair that was bleached a year ago and didn’t receive any treatments.
If in doubt, always perform a porosity test to avoid hair breakage during perming.
