How to Dye Hair Platinum Blonde at Home

Achieving platinum hair color takes a lot of effort and a lot of bleaching, and it can be very damaging to the hair if done too quickly or incorrectly. However, this trendy hair color is well worth the effort since, once achieved, it looks stunning and makes for the perfect canvas for other fashion hair colors!

In this article, we’ve added a bleaching guide so you can achieve flawless platinum blonde hair at home. We’ve got some maintenance tips to help you keep that white blonde hair gleaming bright, and to help you feel stylish, we added some makeup and fashion advice for platinum blondes as well!

Dyeing Hair Platinum Blonde on Your Own

If you’re insistent on taking on the challenge of dyeing your hair platinum blonde at home, all by yourself, we have some advice that’ll help you do it safely without damaging your hair too much.

Be aware that unless you’re starting out with very light hair, you shouldn’t try to achieve white blonde hair overnight. This process usually takes a few weeks or even a few months if you are truly committed to keeping your hair and scalp as healthy as possible.

Before bleaching your hair, give it extra support by using conditioning masks or protein treatments. Avoid shampooing it too much, however, and skip any products that might block the bleach from taking hold, like hair mousses, sprays, gels, or silicone-based hair oils.

If you have never bleached your hair before, we highly recommend that you first experiment by doing a strand test on a small clump of hair towards the back of your head, so if anything goes wrong, it won’t be too visible. This will also allow you to ensure that your scalp is not too sensitive for bleaching.

You Will Need

Bleach and developer or a platinum blonde hair dye kit
Disposable gloves
Old shirt
Non-metal hair clips
Non-metal mixing bowl
Sulfate-free shampoo
Hair dye brush
Toner and developer are optional

The Bleaching Process

Best Platinum Hair Color for Your Skin Tone — @carleejo.locks

Start out by gathering all of the equipment you’ll need and preparing your work area. A bathroom is usually the best place to bleach your hair, but make sure it is well ventilated since bleach fumes can be quite harsh.
Put on an old shirt that you don’t mind damaging with bleach.
Using the pointed end of your hair dye brush or a comb, part your hair into four sections and clip them all up. You can part it into more or fewer sections depending on how much hair you have – if your hair is very short, you might not need to clip it up at all!
In a bowl (or disclosed bottle if you’re using a platinum blonde dye kit that includes one), mix together your bleach powder or cream color and developer. The amounts of each will vary based on the manufacturer you chose, so make sure to read enclosed instructions.
Once you have a nice, even mixture, unclip the section of your hair you would like to start with and start working quickly, applying the bleach in sub-sections until the entire section is covered.
Apply the bleach with the hair dyeing brush a few centimeters (about an inch) away from your roots and pull it down all the way to the ends. You can massage it in a little bit to make sure all hairs are thoroughly coated, but be gentle because too much friction can damage the hair.
As the entire section is covered with bleach, clip it back up and move over to the next section, working in the same way to cover it with bleach.
Once you’ve finished covering the bulk of your hair with the mixture, you can now treat the roots. The reason you apply dye to the roots last is that the heat from your scalp will cause them to process more quickly, so if you apply the bleach to them first, they will become significantly lighter than the rest of your hair.
If it’s your first time dyeing your hair and you’re taking a long time, you might want to rinse out your first few sections before moving on to the roots or final sections in order to avoid over-processing those areas. On the other hand, if you can cover your entire head in under 15 minutes, you probably don’t need to worry.
Once your entire head is covered in platinum blonde hair dye, allow the bleach to take hold and lighten your hair. It might tingle a bit, but if it starts to burn, wash it out right away.
Check on it every ten minutes to see if you’ve reached your desired color, but never let the bleach sit in your hair for longer than 45 minutes.
Once enough time has passed, or you’re happy with how light your hair has become, hop in the shower and wash it out with cool or lukewarm water and a gentle, sulfate-free shampoo. You must use shampoo in order to get rid of all remnants of bleach, which can damage your hair and scalp if left behind. Follow that up with a hair mask or conditioner.
Get out of the shower and gently towel-dry your hair.
Once your hair is dry, examine it in the mirror to see how evenly it took to the color. Also, consider the condition of your hair and whether it feels strong or a little damaged.
If you’re happy with how your hair looks as it is, you can just leave it be and enjoy!
If your hair didn’t take to the bleach evenly, consider how damaged it feels – you can go back and correct the slightly darker areas with just a bit of bleach right away if the hair still feels strong, but if it feels a little dry or damaged, it’s better to wait at least a week before making corrections.
If your hair has taken to the bleach evenly, but it’s not light enough to constitute platinum blonde, wait a few weeks before trying to bleach it again.
If you’re happy with your hair’s lightness level but find that it looks too yellow or brassy, you will need to mix and apply toner in a similar process to how you applied the bleach. If your hair feels strong and healthy, you can do it right away, while if it feels a little damaged, then make sure to wait a few days and to apply a few conditioning treatments first.

How to Maintain Platinum Blonde Hair Color — @kathynunezhair

Maintaining the Brightness of Your Platinum Hair

Once you’ve bleached your hair down to a platinum blonde shade, it’s not going to fade or get darker, but it can still become dull or brassy if you don’t care for it properly. Additionally, platinum hair is going to be easier to damage than darker hair that is saturated with pigment. This is why you want to be extra careful when caring for your white blonde hair. Here are our maintenance tips:

You can do a surprising amount of damage to your hair when washing it, so try to limit how often you shampoo your hair. Wear a shower cap to avoid getting the hair wet during most showers and try to only shampoo once or twice a week.
When you wash your hair, make sure the temperature of the water is low – lukewarm or cool is best for maintaining the integrity of your platinum hair.
Following the same logic, also try to limit heat styling, and opt for gentle options – towel- or air-drying is always better, but blow-drying on low heat with a diffuser can also be okay while still giving you very neat results.
In order to actually maintain the cool undertones in your platinum hair, use a shampoo that can fight that brassiness. We highly recommend the Milk_shake Silver Shine shampoo, which is available at Walmart. Purple shampoos are another option, but they can deposit a bit of a purple tinge, which might be too much at the platinum level.
Be ready to re-dye your hair every 4-6 weeks, either by yourself at home or with a colorist. If you’re opting for salon coloring, you can expect higher costs but a healthier and more complex color.
Dry shampoo is the secret to keeping your hair looking fresh even when you’re avoiding shampoo. We love Batiste’s Original Dry Shampoo formula, which is available at Amazon.
Without care, platinum hair can take on a bit of a dull, matte look. The best way to counter that is with a clear hair oil or cream that will add moisture and shine but won’t tint the hair. Our favorite is Olaplex No. 6 Bond Smoother Reparative Styling Crème from Sephora, especially if your hair feels brittle.
If you go swimming in the pool, make sure to wear a swim cap and to wash your hair immediately after you get out in order to avoid having the chlorine change the color of your platinum hair.
During the summer, UV rays can alter your platinum hair color as well, so use UV-blocking hair products or wear a hat when going outside.

How to Care for Platinum Blonde Hair Color — @zunnyhair

Your Makeup Routine for Platinum Blonde Hair

Platinum hair can be a major change, and you might have to adapt your makeup to suit it.

Complexion Makeup for Platinum Hair

There is something about the lightness of platinum hair that will really draw attention to your face, since it’s one of the few hair colors that are almost always going to be lighter than your skin tone, no matter how fair you are. As a result, it often means having to take a bit more care to perfect the complexion.

Makeup Tips for Platinum Blonde Hair Color — @lolaliner

We recommend introducing spot concealing into your routine to mask any redness or discoloration in your skin rather than amping up your foundation coverage level. This is because the other issue with vivid platinum blonde hair is that it can emphasize cakey foundation or too much powder. Because of this, it is better to keep the complexion looking satin or dewy with minimal powder and light or medium-coverage foundation.

When it comes to blush, contour, and highlight shades, we recommend staying away from any tones that have a lot of red or orange to them. There is something about the combination of pale yellow and red that doesn’t look healthy or natural.

Instead, stick to softer shades of pink or rose for your blush, and keep your contour shades neutral and leaning towards taupe. For highlight, champagne, pink, pearl, and gold tones can all work well as long as they match the rest of your color story.

Eye Makeup for Platinum Blonde Hair

When it comes to eye makeup, you don’t need to make major changes, but we do still have a bit of advice. First, when it comes to your brows, you might have to change things up a fair bit, especially if you started out as a redhead or dark brunette.

The main pitfall is using an eyebrow pencil or pomade that is overly warm with too many red or yellow tones, as those are guaranteed to stand out and look unnatural next to your platinum blonde hair. The key is to find an eyebrow product that has the same cool-gray undertones as your hair, even if it can be a few shades darker. In Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke’s eyebrows with their brown-gray tone are a great example.

Makeup Tips for Platinum Hair Color — @lolaliner

When it comes to eyeshadow, liner, and mascara, pretty much anything goes. You can keep your mascara and eyeliner black if that’s what you’ve always loved, but you can also use softer dark brown or gray shades (not to mention you can play with colors if you want!).

As far as eyeshadow goes, since platinum hair is neutral-cool, you can complement it with warmer eyeshadow colors or match it with cool eyeshadow. Earth tones always look great, of course.

The only look that can be a little more complicated to pull off is a smokey eye – depending on your features, and overall coloring, very heavy eyeshadow can look over the top, although at the same time, you can look to Rose McIver’s look in iZombie to see an example where that kind of contrast works quite well.

Choosing a Lipstick for Platinum Blonde Hair

Finally, what kind of lipstick can you wear with platinum blonde hair? The answer is pretty simple – you can wear nearly anything you like. If you’ve previously shied away from trendy but unusual shades like taupe or gray, now is the time to experiment with them, since they tend to look quite harmonious with platinum hair.

With that said, natural nudes, roses, berries, and peaches will always look fantastic, especially if they match the undertone of your skin. Brick reds and orange tones can be a little tougher to rock, especially if your hair is a very cool, all-over platinum without any warm threads. They can look okay if your skin leans towards warm, but likely won’t work on those with cool undertones and platinum hair.

Lastly, for drama, those glamorous neutral or blue-reds are always awesome, especially with platinum hair, as are neutral burgundies, bright fuchsias, and even unusual colors like blue or neon pink – as long as they work with the rest of your look, of course.

How to Maintain Platinum Hair Color — @zunnyhair

What Colors Should Platinum Blondes Wear?

You don’t need to change up your wardrobe at all after switching to platinum blonde hair! You can keep on wearing what you’ve always loved, but even so, if you want some wardrobe upgrades, we’ve got some tips to help you out.

Platinum blonde hair is very trendy, so embrace some more trendy casual street style looks, including distressed finishes and grunge or ‘90s touches.
Watch out for monochromatic beige looks (the “stick of butter” trend). We’re not saying not to wear white and beige, but just be a little extra critical, as the intense similarity between the color of your hair and your outfit can end up washing you out.
If you only want to rock one color (for example, while wearing a dress or a jumpsuit), your color will work as a neutral, so any color will work, from lively yellow to glamorous red to deep and rich blue.
You can opt for a very soft look by pairing your white blonde hair with a pastel outfit, although in that case, we’d suggest breaking things up a bit with a few darker neutral accessories.
Metallics like silver and gunmetal can look really great with platinum hair if you want to dress for a night out, while gold might not work with cool platinum blonde tresses.