Okay, so I'm a hair dye virgin and have been reading about bleaching hair (for Spike, not me).  But the thing I can't seem to find is: how long would you leave the bleach on for?  Anyone?

Back in the day, when I was blonde, it took a long time. But, I have very dark hair.  How long you leave the stripping agent on depends on how dark your hair is.  Everyone calls it "peroxide blond", but you can't get that white shade using just peroxide - unless you put your head in the bottle and stay there for hours. lol  If we assume that Spike's natural color is the dirty blond/light brown that William's was, then he probably only needs to leave the stripper on for ten or fifteen minutes.  In fact, he might even be able to get away with using peroxide, but it would have to be 20% solution and he'd still have to apply it manually over and over until he got the shade he wanted.

I was gonna say about 10-15 mins, too.  I've never colored my hair, but my aunt is a hairdresser, and I've spent an unseemly amount of time in beauty salons.  Slayme's right about the peroxide not getting the hair white enough.  When I was in seventh grade, there was this boy who bleached his hair with peroxide.  Sometimes it'd come out nicely blond.  Other times, it'd come out nicely orange :-P

With medium to dark hair you have to use a stripper first to take out all your own color. Feria by LOreal has a great stripper (#200 bleach blonding...guy on the old box looked like he could be Spike's brother LOL)
http://www.nationwidecampus.com/productinfo.asp?pid=9155&cid=404
and if you only need to go up to 3 shades lighter they have a lifter that doesn't do as much damage.   Then pick the blonde you want and do the regular color.  This is how it worked when I was doing blonde frmo my medium auburn.  I used the stripper to get rid of any red residue too for a true blonde instead of strawberry.  The stripper had to sit about 25 - 39 minutes after application and the final color another 25 minutes after the stripper had been rinsed out (or next day if you wanted to go that way and give the hair a break between).

There are also some all in ones now and LOreal has a whole line of "super blonde" that suggest a one step process.  Most at home color process "self times" now so that after the 25 - 30 minutes it recommends passes it automatically stops without burning the hair.

I haven't done the blonde in years but it hasn't changed THAT much!  Hope this helps.

Kathleen

how long would you leave the bleach on for?  Anyone?

Hey, I sent this question to my sister who is a hairdresser and she said, "Not very long. You have to watch it cause bleach can't be timed like color. But if its light like that(light brown hair/dirty blone) then i would say 15min maybe, but the best would be to keep a close eye on it."