How to Naturally Lighten Your Hair at Home

How to Naturally Lighten Your Hair at Home

There are many reasons to lighten hair with natural ingredients. Salon hair lightening can be costly and time consuming. Plus, salon bleaching and even at-home hair bleaching kits  commonly lead to hair damage. If you are wondering how to naturally lighten your hair at home, read on. We have all the tips and ingredients you’ll need for gorgeous summery locks.

How to Naturally Lighten Your Hair

Still on the fence in deciding if you should lighten hair with natural ingredients? Here’s how chemical bleaching systems work. The bleach or hydrogen peroxide used in these treatments react with the melanin in strands (the component that gives hair its color), oxidizing the melanin and causing it to become colorless. These chemicals weaken the cell membrane, causing strands to become dry, brittle, and prone to breakage.

Chemical bleaching systems also often contain questionable ingredients, and while more research is needed to prove they are detrimental to human health, research shows some hair coloring products to be carcinogenic to animals, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology.

Fortunately, there are natural alternatives to lightening hair that can be done right at home. Here’s how to naturally lighten your hair for beautiful results without the unwanted side effects.

How to Naturally Lighten Hair With Lemon Juice

Lightening hair with lemon juice has been around for ages. That’s because it truly works thanks to citric acid, which naturally lightens skin and hair. While lemon juice can lighten hair a shade or two, the outcome depends on your original hair color. If you are already a darker blond, you may end up with light blond hair. But if your hair is darker, it may turn more of a reddish hue.  

There are a couple of ways to go when figuring out how to naturally lighten hair with lemon juice. You can go with the old-school method: mix a couple of tablespoons of the juice with a cup of water in a spray bottle and spritz onto hair, then allow to soak in under the sun for an hour or two before shampooing. Another way to lighten your hair naturally without the sun exposure is to add the juice to your hair conditioner or a hair mask and allow it to sit on hair, under a shower cap, for two hours before shampooing out. ST. TROPICA Beach Goddess Coconut Oil Hair Mask is perfect for this!

How to Lighten Hair With Natural Ingredients

Lemon juice may get all the credit as a natural hair lightener. But there are other natural ingredients that work their hair lightening magic too.

Honey has natural enzymes that reduce the pigment in strands, acting as a hair lightener. Give this natural sweetener a boost by adding cinnamon to the mix, which activates trace amounts of hydrogen peroxide in the honey. Combine two tablespoons of honey with one tablespoon of cinnamon and mix well before adding to a hair mask and working through hair. Allow to remain on hair for one hour before washing and conditioning as usual. You may need to repeat this process one or more times to achieve desired results.

Chamomile tea is another natural ingredient with hair lightening abilities. This delicious tea contains flavonoids that lighten and brighten locks. Super simple to use, just allow brewed tea to cool then spritz onto hair, making sure to saturate from roots to ends. Don a shower cap for thirty minutes to one hour, then shampoo as usual. The results from using chamomile tea will be more subtle than other methods, making it the perfect choice if you are wondering how to lighten hair naturally overnight. Simply leave on hair while you sleep and shampoo in the morning.

How to Lighten Black Hair Naturally

If you have darker brown or black hair, there are ways to take your hair a couple of shades lighter using natural ingredients. Any of the above methods will work for darker shades too, you just may need to repeat one or more times to achieve desired results. 

One trick that makes the process more effective is to start with healthy hair. Be sure you are caring for your hair and scalp regularly with natural formulas that protect, strengthen, and support healthy strands.