Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

Can you lighten dirty blonde hair with lemon juice?

Answers: Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

Read answers for this question below.

By 06/15/2011

One thing everyone needs to keep in mind is everyones hair is different. For some it might work just as well as dye, and for some it may not. The truth is with anything youre doing to your hair there will always be some damage. Whether or not its a lot or if the different processes cause different damage is entirely according to the persons hair. I think that a lot of this is some good insight but ultimately it is up to you, and depends on what you think is good for your hair. Hope that you understand where i am coming from! Thanks. (:

By 03/29/2011

Personally I prefer to drink water with a dash of lemon juice in the morning, and drink the chamomile tea at night...

By 01/20/2011

Lemon juice will indeed work but, having been a hairstylist for 35 years, here's a tip that would be easier than waiting for sunshine and just as safe of a choice for a natural sun kissed lightening for your hair. This formula lightens gradually, so it will not be an overnight shock change. Simply spray a 50/50 solution of 3% hydrogen peroxide on your wet hair after getting out of the shower, comb it through, and dry. ;-)

By 01/19/2011

First of all, yes lemon juice will work to lighten your hair. But, be aware that lemon juice will only work to highlight your natural hair color. What this means is, if you have dark hair, say dark brown, and you use lemon juice to lighten your hair, you will get a lighter brown highlight, not blonde. If you have black hair, you will most likely get a red-tinted highlight wherever you apply the lemon juice. That being said, lemon juice works best as a natural highlighter for blonde to dirty-blonde hair colors. Light brown hair usually returns good results when highlighted with lemon juice as well.

Lemon juice lightens your hair by working with the sun or UV rays. It will not work with a blow dryer. While the sun will lighten hair to a point on its own, the process is slow. The acid in lemon juice hurries the process along.

1. Do not wash your hair before starting the highlighting process. It is best to use unwashed (dirty) hair.

2. Apply lemon juice (not lemon flavored sweetener for drinks--but actual lemon juice. If you can't find lemon juice, get real lemons and squeeze them for this process) to the places you want highlighted. You can apply to your whole head to lighten color uniformly or you can apply it to strands as if you were getting highlights done.

3. After applying lemon juice to desired places to be lightened, head out into the sun. It is important to wear sunscreen as you will be spending at least 30 minutes in the sun. After 30 minutes come in, and wash lemon juice from hair. Repeat this process until desired lightening is achieved. *Note: It is sometimes necessary to perform this process once or twice a day for a few days instead of trying to achieve maximum highlights in one day.

4. Make sure to use a very good conditioner during the lemon juice highlighting process, as the juice and sun are harsh and will dry hair out. Use conditioner every day after highlighting. A deep conditioner is also a good idea to do every couple of days during the highlighting process to keep from damaging hair. Be extra careful of thin or brittle hair.

5. The highlights you achieve are as permanent as the ones you would get at the beauty salon and will not go away unless colored or grown out.

Using lemon juice is a good, natural alternative to getting chemical highlights. It does take a little patience, but the results can be very attractive with a little time.

Again, this method works best for people with blonde to dirty-blonde hair and usually works well on light brown hair as well.

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Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

To lighten your hair chem-free this summer, use pure lemon juice. I used to have my mom squeeze one or 2 whole lemons in my hair and comb through, while I was out playing in the summer sun. It worked wonderfully.

Jennifer

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

You can use lemon juice to protect your hair from chlorine while your swimming. I tried sunbathing with lemon juice in my hair, it didn't really lighten it (it's already light). Once dry, the lemon juice felt a lot like hairspray so you'll need to rinse it.

By Janie

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I tried lightening my hair with lemon juice, and had great results by doing the following. Every day for about 5 days I applied about a 1/4 cup of lemon juice to my hair and sat out in the sun for a couple of hours. Everyday I would part my hair differently, that way the lower layers of my hair would also get lighter. After sitting in the sun you need to wash out your hair with a good conditioner b/c the lemon juice makes your hair extremely dry and stiff. I have dirty blonde hair and now my hair is much brighter... It's been about a month and my color is still great.

By MADDIE R.

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I did an assignment for science on this and this turned by brown hair gold.

Open Ended Investigation - Tenaia Setter 8H
Does Lemon make brown hair blonde?

Why Do This Experiment?

Lots of people want to go blonde, they just don't want to use harsh chemicals, pay pricey professional colorist fees or try to figure out the right colors to buy at the chemist.

An old wives tale suggests that putting lemon on your hair and leaving it in the sun will cause your hair to lighten. The aim of this experiment is to find out if this hypothesis is true and to scientifically find out why the lemon reacts with hair in this way.

Title: Can the natural substance; "lemon" make brown human hair blonde?

Aim: To find out whether lemon can lighten medium brown human hair and efficiently turn it blonde.

Hypothesis: Lemon will act as a sufficient hair lightener. This is because the chemicals in lemon juice are very strong and are able to lighten your hair.

Method:

1. Squeeze three lemons into a jar. (Try to include as less pulp as possible)

2. Using the lemon juice, spread evenly throughout hair.

3. Carry on this process each day for one month. At the end of each week, record your results. Your results will be set into a table, on it you must include state of how much lighter is your hair (if lighter at all), and include a color picture of your hair compared to original color and results from previous weeks.

BEFORE THE PROJECT:

Hair was a solid brown. No sign of any visible lighter highlights.

WEEK ONE:

Hair in general visible lighter tone. Small golden streaks at the tip of hair. Light brown/golden streaks half way through hair.

WEEK TWO:

Hair is still visibly lighter again, although there are no signs of any blonde in hair

WEEK THREE:

Gold Highlights in bottom of hair have efficiently lightened. They can be seen very well in the sunlight.

By Tink

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

OKAY. FOR EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HOW THIS WORKS:

The lemon juice bleaches your hair when it meets sunlight. It's acid + UV light. Therefore, it WILL NOT work without the sun. Using a blow dryer IS NOT a substitute for the sun, because it is not the heat that bleaches your hair. It's the sun's UV light

By pandsta

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I read in a magazine that you can use lemon juice in your hair to lighten it. but you should mix water with it so it's not straight up lemon juice, otherwise it can damage your hair

By Mo

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

My hair was so dark and I hated because I always wanted to have blonde hair. Last week I tried lemon thing and it really worked, I squeezed together 5 lemons and I washed with my hair with lemon juice and it really worked, but not really blonde but my hair got lightener.

By MARY

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I agree with Enuffy. Some parts of my hair felt out, and my scalp was irritated, I even bleed (not much though) from it. Be careful girls. :)

By Marisa_Hawtt

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I've heard about this lemon juicing your hair before, and my mom always tells me to go ahead and try it. After having read through these comments this is what I've come up with, I am going to fill up a spray bottle with juice from REAL lemons 3/4 of the way full, and put water in for the other 1/4. then I am going to try it on a small section of my hair to see how it goes. I'm going to put it on dirty hair, so the natural oils will help protect it from drying out and anything else. then I will lay out in the sun for about 4 hours. when I'm all done I will wash it all out cause acid cant be good to leave in. and I'll see if it works, if it does work, then I'm going to do the same thing again, but this time with my whole head. I'll let you know how the test section goes.

By Girly girl

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I have light blonde hair. I squeezed 2 lemons on my hair this morning, sunbathed for an hour and then put a conditioner on it. It's now lighter (noticeably but it doesn't looked bleached) but isn't dry!

By Abi

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I just used it a couple days ago. I have blonde hair that I wanted to make blonder, so I have a lemon tree in my backyard, so I got one and squeezed it into a cup, then I scooped it on my hands and ran my fingers through my hair and i stayed in the sun 4 about an hour. When I got inside you couldn't really tell a difference, but it acted like hairspray. The hair became super stiff..

By Kiki

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I don't think lemon juice would be bad for your hair, however, like everything that you can do to your hair, if you do it to much, of course it'll ruin your hair. Thats why I (I'm not an expert of course) would say feel free to put lemon juice in your hair and go out in the sun for like 10 min MAX, but don't go and sit out on the beach in 10 UV ray for 5 hours, that will be bad for your hair

By Lighter-Hair

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

Hydrogen peroxide is so bad for your hair, it can make you actually loose your hair, and it strips layers from your hair, and it's terrible for your scalp. Lemon juice and Salt works much better for most people because it's less likely to cause irritation, and it's not a strong chemical.

By Camille

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

The trick to using Sun In /lemon/Juice/hydrogen peroxide (the main ingredient in Sun In) on your hair for lighter streaks is to USE IT ON DIRTY HAIR. That way the oils in your hair will protect it from the drying effects. The reason hairdressers don't tell you about lemon juice, etc., is that all of these methods work OVER TIME - I much prefer that, because it makes the color so much more natural, and because you can control it. (But you won't get the effect in one sitting -which is what you want from a salon.) The color effects vary from person to person depending on the original hair color. I use regular hydrogen peroxide plus colored shampoo for natural strawberry highlights.

By pamphyila

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

Lemon juice is not always bad for you hair. Because if you rinse your hair with lemon juice it can bring life and shine back into your hair. I guess its sort of damages it slightly cos sun and lemons. But you could also use a mixture of strong chamomile tea and lemon juice for faster results.

By Allison

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

Lemon juice is a good "lightener", but it does not do any thing dramatic. I have natural light brown hair, after putting about 1 lemon's juice on my hair, doing my normal daily activities, work, etc., all for about week straight, i ended up with some blondish streaks. I did not sit in the sun all day, i just did what I normally do. I washed my hair each night, shampoo and conditioner. That was my first experiment with it. Every summer now, I do this: squeeze out the juice of 4 lemons, put in one of those cheap spray bottles you can buy anywhere, mix it with about a third amount of water, and add either some body spray or scented oils in it. Smells great, naturally lightens just enough, and so easy!

By Nervarah

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

About 2 years ago when I was 12 and my hair was Strawberry Blonde I wanted a little change in my hair color so I tried lemons at first and sat out in the sun, my hair got a little lighter and it looked pretty nice. But then I was thinking that I wanted my hair to be lighter so I bought Sun-In and sprayed it all over my head. My hair got very blonde. I was loving it. Now that I'm 14 turning 15 soon, I decided I liked dark hair better and dyed my hair and now my hair is a really dark red. But that's not the point. The point is if you want your hair to be lighter without dying it, try SunIn! OR if you just want a little lightening, then sure try the lemons. Both work very good. Glad to help you all.

By Angie

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I tried lightening my hair with lemon after reading the comments on this page. I shampooed and conditioned my hair, brushed my wet hair, and then brushed in some Real Lemon juice. I noticed a little color change in my hair right away, then, I blow-dried my hair and when I was finished, it gave me a great caramel-golden blonde color that looks great! it's completely natural and it works so much better than those home highlighting kits! My hair isn't even dry or frizzy! You can use is as a highlighter or an all over color like I did

By Karen

RE: Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

Lemon juice is the only way I color my hair just because of the fact that it's so much more natural and doesn't give you orange residue. I squeeze a couple of lemons and mix it with some lemon juice concentrate from the bottle and put it in an old hairspray container (not the aerosol kind though). Definitely works wonders.

By Nat

Lighten Your Hair with Lemon Juice

I've hear you can use lemon juice to lighten you hair. Which works better, lemon juice in a bottle, or fresh squeezed?

Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

I recently heard that lemon juice can lighten your hair. I know that not everyone's hair is the same, but I thought I would try it out. I used a spray bottle with 1/2 water and 1/2 bottled lemon juice. I sprayed down my unwashed hair with the water. I laid in the sun for a little over an hour and I took a shower and shampoo/conditioned as normal. I did not blow dry my hair afterward because that can be damaging.

I started out with light brown hair but I was blonde when I was young, and now I have dirty blonde hair. I will keep doing this until I get the color that I want. By using a mix of lemon and water, my hair is not dried out. It is softer than it has ever been and I love it. Not everyone has the same type of hair, but I suggest that you try it out.

By orange hair tie from Utica, MI

RE: Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

I recently heard about lightening your hair with lemon juice from a friend, and this website. I thought I would give it a shot, since when I was younger my hair was completely blonde, and then changed to light brown. Hearing that concentrated lemon juice can be damaging to your hair, I decided to buy fresh lemons and squeeze my own lemon juice, then mix it with water and a few drops of oil to keep my hair soft. I sprayed the mixture in my hair, laid in the sun for about an hour, then showered using Suave Damage Repair Conditioning Treatment. Once my hair dried, it was softer then ever and a sweet caramel colour. I love it. (My hair is fine, so this is sure to work with fine hair.) (06/27/2009)

By Adddie Ann

Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

My hair is a very dark brown. It is not thin, but not thick. I am thinking of dying my hair with 1/2 lemon juice and 1/2 water in a spray bottle.

Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

Will a light bulb work just as well as the sun when I'm highlighting my hair with lemon juice?

Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

My hair is naturally light brown. I want it to be blonde, but I really do not want to use hair bleach or hair color. I tried sitting in the sun for 30 minutes with the juice of a lemon and a spoonful of water combed into my hair. I was wondering if there is any way you can get lemon juice to work better, so that I could get dark blonde hair all over?

Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

If I bleach my hair with lemon, will a blow dryer have the same affect as the sun? Does it have to do with heat or light?

Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

I have really dark brown hair (almost black) and I was wondering if I can use lemon juice to high light my hair?

Lighten Your Hair With Lemon Juice

Use lemon or lime juice and a blow dryer or the summer sun for an all natural and cheap way to lighten your hair. Wet your hair with the lemon or lime juice, then blow it dry or sit in the sun.