If I had to pick one brand that’s been the most hyped in the blogging community this last month, then it’s Bleach London. Bleach is a London-based hair salon that has now branched out to launch their own product range, specialising in dip-dye kits, semi-permanents hair dyes that span fully across the colour spectrum (yes, green included), and toners. Now of course I’m hugely tempted by the pink hair dyes, but my first priority for now is still getting my hair as white as possible, so on a recent trip to Boots I decided to pick up the White Toner for £7. I’ve previously used the Directions white toner (my review of which you can read here) and was happy with it, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try this much hyped about brand.
My hair was badly in need of a toner. It had been about three weeks since I had used my second pot of Directions and although I’d tried to stay on top of it with silver shampoo and the occasional dash of L’Oreal’s lilac hair dye mixed in with my conditioner, yellow tones had started to show strongly through my hair. You may know that I have a hair weave, and my extensions are a silvery colour – thus my own hair starting to turn yellow was nothing short of a nightmare.
Process
The White Toner Kit contains a Developing Lotion, a Colouroant and a Reincarnation Mask for aftercare. It works in very much the usual way that box dyes do – you crack open the top of the lotion bottle, squeeze in the colourant and shake what your momma gave ya (and then shake the bottle too). You use the little nozzle to apply the toner to your head and then leave to develop for fifteen minutes.
This toner’s different from Directions in that rather than being a bright purple (the colour commonly used to tone down yellow) it’s simply a normal white creamy colour. So how does it tone it? My answer is that I don’t know, and I can only conclude it’s sorcery.
I had my usual struggle with application because I was only applying it to my natural hair and not my extensions, thus had to do lots of head flipping and tying up random bits of hair. Thank God nobody randomly decided to knock on my front door because I looked, quite frankly, like I should be sectioned. But eventually I managed to apply the toner evenly(ish…) to my real hair and then I left it to develop for fifteen minutes.
As you can see it actually did start to take on a lilac hue, which reassured me a bit. It was definitely developing a bit sporadically though, with some bits of my hair not seeming to turn at all despite being fairly well coated. As always I was tempted to leave it on longer than the 15 minutes, but the leaflet had explicitly said (in what I imagine to be an aloof, cool-person voice) that it did NOT need longer than this.
Results
Before / After
Okay, you can see that I seriously wasn’t joking about how yellow my top layer had got, right? I would totally be ashamed I’d even gone out in public like that, except I had spent the previous three days lounging on my sofa watching Geordie Shore and eating Penguins so it was alright really.
Anyway, the results are definitely mixed. It has toned the overall appearance of my hair down hugely, i.e. I can actually face the outside world now without too much shame. But there remain some yellow bits – nowhere near as yellow as they were before, but still a pale lemon kind of shade that I don’t want on my dream white head. I don’t know whether it’s because of the box dye that was previously on my hair before I bleached it – which is what this article on bleaching would suggest – but there seem to be these stubborn little sections that just do not want to go white, no matter how much I try.
Because my hair is in such a complicated state right now, I wouldn’t really think the toner was to blame for not turning all of my hair white. However, the weird thing is my roots:
I had freshly bleached them that morning and so I would have expected that, without any old hair dye on them, they would have been the section to turn out the best. As you can see though, they didn’t really change colour that much, and it’s not until an inch down my head that we get the whitey-grey we’re looking for. I have no idea why this is, perhaps something to do with how porous hair is just after bleaching? But then people usually have toners put on after bleach at the salon, so I’m not at all sure why it didn’t take.
Overall, I was pretty pleased with the Bleach London toner. I think it would work really well for people who just want to eradicate the very brassy tones in blonde hair, rather than necessarily get their hair as pale as I want it. It will definitely also be a good option for people who hate the fact that other purple-based toners like Directions can make hair turn lilac as, although it kind of looks it in the photo of my roots, it hasn’t actually done that at all.
This costs £7, which isn’t bad at all for what you would otherwise be forking a lot of money out for in a salon. I can definitely see myself trying this out again – and I promise , for the sake of the world, that I won’t leave it three weeks ever again. The world simply doesn’t deserve to be exposed to that again.
Have any of you tried Bleach London’s White Toner Kit? What did you think?
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I’ve heard loads about this brand too and was thinking of trying out one of their coloured dyes. The toner looks quite good so i think I’ll give them a go! x
Yeah I’ve heard nothing but good things about the colours, and at only a fiver they definitely seem worth the money 🙂 xx
I have just used it and do not rate it at all, my hair is bleached anyway. I followed the instructions and my hair is the same colour as it was before. Yours turned out so pretty. I’m gutted 🙁 I love bleach London’s other products x
Oh no! Do you have a lot of hair? Maybe you needed to use 2 bottles? My favourite now is the BBlonde Silver Toner, though that is for more of a silver colour than a white xx
What you stumbled upon is ‘hot roots/root glow’. Hairdressers in a salon will put a different strength of peroxide on roots to that on the rest of the hair to counter balance it.
This is kind of what home kits can’t do – I wonder if the bleach kit says do not apply to scalp?? – as many hairdressers will not apply 40vol/12% on a scalp due to burning.
Ah, thank you so much – that’s really useful to know! I never used to have any problems when I bleached my hair a couple of years ago but I think the toners etc on top might be taking differently because of this :/ xx
I was going to mention this. As I believe the peroxide used in this kit isn’t enough to lift then deposit. I believe it is just depositing color which is given it quite a musky look. I was here reading your review(sophie) because I usually use loreal po1 toner, and after reading this I will stick with it. You use it with 20vol so it lifts the hair enough to deposit the right amount of dye and is always a even color at the end! I would recommend giving that ago next time! 🙂 does look good though as it matches your exstenions.
Hello there, firstly thanks for the share. It really is helpful. I have a question though, my hair was bleached months ago from its original dark brown colour to a shade 8 copper/ginger. Well, now I want to have a light ash brown hair with dark blonde ombré balayage. I bought and tried the colour sand I also bought the London bleach white toner without checking if it’s ok to apply on my hair. It is gingery light brown now. What should I do? Hope I hadn’t wasted my money. Please help. Thanks 🙂
Hi, thank you for your nice comment – so glad you found it helpful 🙂
I’m not in any way a pro with hair and have never had hair as dark as yours to know how best to lighten it so I can’t be too much help I’m afraid! I’d think that the toner would be a good option for maybe adding an ashier hue to your current colour because it tones down warm colours – however, because it’s specifically designed for people with light, bleached hair I don’t think there’s any guarantee it would take. Your best bet is probably just to pop into a salon and ask someone there what they think, hopefully they’ll be able to give you some professional advice 🙂 Good luck! xx
Thankyou for this information I found it really useful xx
Hi,
You were saying that you wanted to get your hair as white as possible, which is my aim also as my hair is currently is white/ blonde mix like yours was before. Is the Bleach London the white toner that you would recommend to use to keep your hair white in between trips to the hairdressers?
Thanks 🙂
Hey, yep I definitely think this is a great choice for between salon trips as it takes away the yellow hues and also leaves your hair feeling really soft and in lovely condition! But I do also fully recommend the Directions toner that I’ve also written a post about – it does pretty much the same thing but is a bit cheaper 🙂 Also silver shampoos and conditioners are brilliant for keeping yellow tones at bay, and you can pick up really cheap ones from shops like Bodycare/Savers etc! Hope this has helped xx
Hi there, I recently used Bleach Londons White Toner on my bleached blonde hair. I have naturally dark blonde/light brown hair so needed to lighten about 6 shades to get the white blonde I was hopefully aiming to achieve! For this I used L’Oréals extreme platinum off the shelf dye. It worked! I was pretty much white apart from some stubborn yellow tones through the mid section of my hair. I decided to use Bleach Londons White Toner as it seemed to offer exactly what I was after….a white blonde with reduced yellow tones? I followed the instructions and left the toner on my hair for exactly 15 mins. Unfortunately for me, the result ended with a very grey/lilac effect on the roots and ends and the yellow tones still pretty much the same! ! Awww! Disappointing! I hav realised through all this experimenting that hair is complicated! I think the white toner would probably work well on hair that was ‘pure’ before bleaching. .ie; not previously had any semi or permanent colour added to it? Like a blank canvas! My hair has seen years of colouring so that may explain the uneven results I got using Bleach London?
Hey, I’m considering using this on my hair but it’s a lot more yellow than yours was, but I’ve had 3 lots of bleach on and it’s as white as it’s going to get. Some bits are really white others are yellow so I was wondering how many boxes did you use?
Thanks,
Leigh
I would definitely give it a go as it got a lot of the yellow out of mine 🙂 I only used one box but using two may have worked a lot better, so I would recommend giving that a go! xx
hi,
i bought this product today as well , but now i start wondering is it good idea to use it if my roots is about 2cm my natural colour which is light brown ( i coloured my hair about two month ago)im scared it will became yellow if i will put the toner on ?
Hi I used this today after bleaching my hair it went orange Yellow and white I’ve ended up with your before picture. I have another box I wander whether tomo I put the other box on ? Maybe it would take the remaining yellow like yours. X plus hair feels brilliant even after 2 chemical treatments.
I’m so jealous you got your hands on Bleach products! We have to order it into the US, but I’ve always wanted to try them out.
Ah no way, they’re so readily available here! 🙁 xx
Hi, I bought the Bleach london dye and then did the toner but my hair is still Orange? Can I apply the toner again? Really hoped this wil work for my hair.