Biray Alsac
Arizona Daily Wildcat
May 5, 1998

Stripping Down for Summer

It seems that the trend of highlighting and bleaching hair is once again on the rise.

"Everybody wants to be a blonde," says Dasan Schmitt, MCB sophomore, who dyed his hair twice, once with a mohawk, in the past year. It seems that everyone "likes the look."

What is bleaching exactly? When you bleach your hair, it swells the hair shafts and removes all pigment and protein. Believe it or not, pigment has weight and after the bleaching process, hair tends to feel lighter. That is why conditioners are needed to replenish the proteins and restore the health of the hair. Stores now have a wide variety of deep conditioners to choose from.

Because everyone's hair is different, whether you have fine hair, thick hair, dark or light, when bleaching to blonde, you have to be aware at the amount of peroxide you use and the length of time that you leave it in, or else you'll fry your hair. In other words, it will feel very dry and straw-like.

Vincent Martin, a hairstylist at Azure Hair Salon (2626 E. Ft. Lowell), sees about 15-20 people come in to get some form of bleaching or highlighting done to their hair each day. Approximately 3 to 4 people come in to get their full head of hair bleached blonde.

However some people don't entirely go for that white blonde look. Brandy Walker, a journalism sophomore, says that she bleached her hair over spring break, "when I got tired of my old hair color. But I don't like the really white bleached look, so I tried to make it look as close to a normal blonde as I could."

Especially if hair is dark brown like Walker's is to begin with, when the roots start showing, you have to either change it to a different color or continue with the bleaching. "It's hard to maintain it, but I think I'll do it over the summer, or at least until I'm broke," she says.

It's a nice summer look, but is it worth the trouble? Although bleaching keeps growing in popularity, the most performed service in the salon is hair repair, or fixing the bleach blonde back to a respectable color.

"Many people come to the salon because they bleached their hair at home and it didn't turn out right," says Martin. Once the hair is damaged, it's hard to say what you can do to save it, but Martin does the best he can to cater to the needs of his customers. "You have to be careful when dying it back to another hair color, because you can run into problems if you don't know color theory."

Back in the old days, only women dyed and colored their hair, but it's no surprise now to see men bleaching as well. Chris Suffecool, a philosophy sophomore, says he's bleached his hair at least three times and will probably continue to do so. "The first time I did it burned my scalp like crazy," he says, "but after that it was OK." When asked if he would ever do it again, he responded "Yes, but I think I want to try different hair colors like purple."

So, what is your hair color going to be for the summer? Will you be tempted to dye and fry? If you do decide to bleach your hair for that perfect summer look, make sure to leave it to the pros, because "if it's done right, it can look fresh," advises Martin.