It’s time to ditch the harsh bleaching kits and learn how to naturally lighten your hair at home… without bleach!
Bleach can cause serious damage to your hair and scalp, and it’s best to avoid it if at all possible.
Luckily, there are several ways to lighten your hair at home without it!
What about henna?
Henna is often used as a natural alternative to hair color, but it doesn’t really work for lightening your hair. It only deposits color and doesn’t provide any lightening effect.
Normally some type of bleach, such as peroxide, is used to lift color from the hair. But this often comes with the risk of hair breakage and scalp damage.
Fortunately, there are a few tricks you can use to naturally lighten hair without bleach and without harsh chemicals.
All the methods below are food-based, totally natural, and actually healthy for your hair!
Important Notes
Before you get started trying to lighten your hair at home, please note the following:
- These natural hair lightening methods will likely only lighten your hair 1-2 shades.
- You will not go from brunette to beach blonde with these methods, especially not within a short amount of time.
- Some methods will cause more lightening effect if used multiple times over several weeks, and some people may be able to lighten by 2-3 shades over time if they do this.
- Keep in mind that even lemon juice can cause damage to your hair if used too often, so always err on the side of caution.
- If your hair is a very deep brown to black color, you may have minimal success with these methods. It’s possible you won’t even notice a difference.
- These methods work best on hair shades medium brown or lighter.
How to Naturally Lighten Hair at Home without Bleach
Lemon Juice
Lemon juice is hugely popular as a way to naturally lighten hair, but beware of commercial hair products that claim to use lemon juice–they’re often full of unwanted harsh ingredients (and precious little lemon juice!).
Stick with real lemon juice instead to lighten your hair at home. Bottled or fresh works well, but fresh can be a little pricey (and probably not worth it for hair lightening).
You can naturally lighten hair with lemon juice by mixing one part lemon juice with one part water–this will reduce the acidity of the lemon juice and minimize damage to your hair.
Use this mixture to spritz your hair, or rinse and leave in at the end of a shower.
The longer the lemon juice stays in contact with your hair, the stronger the lightening results will be.
Go out in the sun for 30-60 minutes after spritzing to enhance the lightening effect.
Chamomile
Chamomile is an old-fashioned remedy for lightening hair naturally.
Brew some strong chamomile tea, and rinse through your hair daily (after shampooing) until you see the desired results.
You can also put it in a spray bottle to use for a spritz before you head out in the sun. Chamomile is very gentle on the hair, so this method is safer to use regularly.
Honey
Honey is well known for its nourishing properties for the skin (I love using honey face masks), but it can work wonders for your hair too!
Honey naturally contains traces of hydrogen peroxide that will gently lighten your hair.
Stir a tablespoon or two of raw honey into a cup of water, then apply evenly to your hair. Let this sit for 30-60 minutes, then rinse thoroughly.
Or you can put on a shower cap and leave it on overnight.
Olive Oil
Olive oil is famous as a moisturizer, but it also contains gentle lightening agents.
Coat your hair with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and leave it to soak in for at least 30 minutes. Shampoo and rinse hair as usual to remove.
Olive oil is moisturizing, so it’s good to use on dry, damaged hair, and can be used safely on a regular basis.
Grab Some Sun
What’s the easiest way to naturally lighten hair without bleach? Go out in the sunshine!
The sun will naturally lighten hair, but it can also enhance the effects of all the above methods.
Use any of these remedies before heading out in the sun, and you’ll notice a big difference!
Note: These methods will work in combination as well. For instance, lemon juice and chamomile can work as a rinse or spritz. Or mix olive oil and honey for a lightening hair mask that nourishes your hair.
Have you tried to naturally lighten your hair at home?
Have you tried any of these ways to naturally lighten hair without bleach? How did they work for you? Have any other tips? Let me know in the comments below!
Enjoy this post? More natural hair care posts:
- How to Get Healthy Hair Naturally
- Herbal Apple Cider Vinegar Hair Rinse
- Is Olaplex worth it?
- K18 shampoo review
What about keeping white hair white. Some things actually turn white hair yellow.
Thanks,
Good question, Peggy. I’m not totally sure, but lemon juice may work without yellowing.
Hi! My guess to keeping white hair white would be using honey since it does contain peroxide and honey moisterizes as well. Perhaps a small dab of conditioner or Olive oil to help with the stickiness. Leave on over night with a shower cap or daytime at least seven hours. This is all guess.
to keep white hair white, and a tbsp of grape juice concentrate to your shampoo, and wash away all yellowness, from pollution.
Cool idea!
Purple or white?
Purple grape juice. The purple color with counteract the yellow.
I know it’s an old question, but no one answered, and in case anyone read it and is wondering the same…
That’s an awesome idea!
One of my sisters has really really light hair (Barbie doll hair) that gets yellow on her sometimes. A stylist suggested the chamomile rinse to her. Seems to work.
For hair that has yellow in it use a blue shampoo at local salons or purple for orange hair.
Purple shampoo
Will these tricks work for dark brown hair? Every time I have tried to lighten with out dying my hair has come out orangy.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think these methods are gentle enough to add subtle highlights without causing orange coloration. Let me know how it works if you try it!
Hi,
If your hair is brown and you lighten it using something natural it will automatically turn an orange shade as that is the next lightest colour to brown. It’s common knowledge among stylists.
Thanks Magil–I wasn’t 100% sure about that when it comes to natural methods. Is this true with sunlight too?
I had a black cat once and during the summers she liked to spend time in the sun and her fur became more coppery coloured than black.
Yes I have brown hair and in the summer I get lighter and get highlights we also had a pool and my kids would go from brown to almost white I’m pretty sure it’s the sun and I would also think the chlorine has a part in it as well we went Friday m Ohio to Daytona then to key west and my hair turned at least 4 shades lighter my boyfriend said he didn’t recognize me and I really liked the color and would li love to try to duplicate it
YES Correct.
There are natural ways out there to add ash color to ur hair? purple or blue. it would beat buying a bottle of purple shampoo at a salon shop..
The reason your hair comes out orange after you try to lighten it is because of the underlying pigments of your natural hair color, which im guessing to be a dark to medium brown. Orange is the underlying pigment in dark brown hair, where as red is the underlying pigment in black hair. Also, gold is the underlying pigment in medium blond hair. I suggest going to a stylist to cancel out the Orange tones which will probably be a double process color! Good luck!
Great tips! I’ve always wanted to try honey for hair lightening, but never got round to it. Your article might be just the thing that finally makes me try it! 🙂 How interesting that olive oil has lightening properties as well – would have never guessed!
If you try it, I’d love to hear about your results!
Try honey and conditioner mix.lightn ans softn hair
I’ve tried honey and tried olive oil with no results! That’s not true, my hair was awfully sticky and the olive oil was a pain to wash out – I looked like a grease ball for 2 days. For me the lemon + chamomile + sun has always yielded the best results
I tried the Lemon and Chamomile that works well.
Love this. Great chemical free options. I invite you to share at my hop today Hugs
Thank you for sharing! 😀
What effect will these have on black (read: very black) hair?
Thanks,
Zerene
That is something I’m not sure about–I know it’s very difficult to lighten hair on the very dark end of the spectrum. I will say this: if lots of time out in the sun doesn’t lighten your hair at all, these methods aren’t likely to make a tangible difference either.
Henna worked pretty well with my black hair. It turned browner with some underlying red pigments sounds weird but looked suprisingly good! Might try honey with lemon , I’ll update you!
Thank you so much for the information! It made me remember my late great grandmother and I had to give this a shot. A spritz with lemon and honey works fabulously on my blonde hair! I shared my experience on my blog. I can’t get enough of the smell!! 🙂
Awesome! That’s one thing I love about doing this the natural way–your hair actually smells GOOD. 😀
I make a Hot Oil Treatment with 2/3 olive oil and 1/3 lemon juice = instant highlights!
Hi! I need to try that!!
What do you think about “bleaching” hair with lemon/water mixture in the sun? Bad idea? Good idea?
I think it’s better than commercial products! Just make sure you do a moisturizing treatment (maybe with coconut or olive oil) afterward to keep your hair healthy.
It works like a charm! I get sun kissed highlights! In general it’s my blonder parts that mostly lighten. I add chamomile tea instead of mixing with water. I don’t know if it gives me any better results, but I certainly like to think it does!
I originally had light brown hair with natural blonde highlights from sun exposure but I recently went kinda crazy with hair dye. Long story short I ended up with orange hair. I went into the salon and asked that I get my hair back to its natural color and I came out with BLACK hair. I want to lighten it up because the black color makes me look dead. In other words: do these tricks work on color treated hair?
I would be really hesitant to say, because the game changes with hair dye and I would hate to say the wrong thing. So sorry to hear you don’t like what your salon did. Hopefully it will lighten up naturally over a few weeks – that seems to typically be the case.
I had a similar experience when I dyed my hair and it was much darker than I had planned. I called the product company and they suggested using baby shampoo to remove the color faster. The also said to be sure to condition after.
What would happen if you used the honey and olive oil hair mask and left it overnight? (Btw my hair’s dark brown) Thanks 🙂
I really couldn’t say, individual results will vary a lot. These methods are very gentle, so you would notice a difference, but it will be subtle.
I have dark golden blonde hair that looks more like brown than a dirty blonde. If I were to attempt to lighten my hair using these examples would it still look like natural shade or would it turn orange or white?
It really depends on the individual and the exact shade of your hair. Because you’re only likely to get a shade or two lighter altogether, it probably won’t look very light, maybe something more golden. But again, it’s really hard to tell without trying.
I have caramel/dark golden blonde hair. I want my hair to look more like blonde in the picture above. If I were to use the lemon juice mix, how many times would I need to use it before it gets to be around that colour? In other words how much lighter does your hair go after one use of the lemon mix?
I really can’t give a firm answer because it’s really based on a lot of conditions. You might only notice a slight difference at first. Ultimately you can probably get 1-2 shades lighter, maybe more if you use the sunlight in combination with the lemon juice.
I have been moisturizing my hair with olive oil every two to three days for the past two weeks. I braid my hair at night and then lightly coat it with oil and wash it out in the morning. I had no idea that it had lightening properties…I was only doing it for the deep moisturizing effects to keep my ends from splitting! Anyways I noticed today that my hair is lighter and my natural highlights are much more prominent!! A pleasant, subtle surprise!!
That’s really cool!
Thanks for the tips!
I naturally have black hair that’s pretty dark, but the sun has lightened the tips a little bit. Would these methods maybe make my hair a bit lighter? Thanks!!
If your hair lightens in the sun, then they definitely could work.
I have really black natural hair. How can I lighten it and a certain part of it??
I have heard about honey and lemon juice, but not the other ones! These are some great ideas and also good ways to lighten hair without worrying about the damage that bleach comes with. Of course, if you want dramatic results, you have to use bleach, but these are perfect for the natural, sun kissed look. Very cool, I’ll have to try them out this summer!
Glad you enjoyed the post, Maddie! Let me know know how it works out if you try any of these methods.
By the way, if, (after lightening your hair) you need some tips on how to care for your newly colored hair, this is an excellent blog for hair care tips, especially regarding hair color. Check it out! http://www.aroundthehair.com
I have really really dark brown hair and it’s really long so I don’t want to damage it with bleach but i am definitely giving the honey and olive oil a try.
Does all dark hair lighten naturally with the sun?
It’s not always that sunny where I live but whenever I am in the sun I have never noticed even a slight change in my hair colour.
Not all hair will lighten in the sun unfortunately. My hair turns obviously lighter when I spend a lot of time in the sun, so it’s something you would definitely notice.
Hi! Would it lighten if I put honey in my hair and then laid out in the sun with it in?
Yes, the two combined would be more powerful (although as always, it depends on your hair type).
I have Dark Blond Hair would this work for me? 🙂
It will likely make a difference on dark blonde hair, but remember you’ll only see a slight difference at first. Each time you use these methods you’ll notice a bigger difference.
great my hairs dark brown very dark brown im going to put in lemon honey and oil for 30 mins (no sun)
then rinse it out