How I Keep My Bleached Blonde Hair Healthy: Tips For Kim K.

It’s hard out here for a platinum pimp! Thank you @FredericMennetrier for touching up my blonde!

A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Mar 9, 2015 at 5:17am PDT

“Haley,” Jazmine asked me last week, “Why is Kim Kardashian getting her hair dyed again? Didn’t she just get it done? Why is it, as she says, hard out there for a platinum pimp?” And I was honestly so glad she asked because I love talking about my hair, my hair is my greatest achievement in life, I’m assuming that is the reason Kim K. copied my look, because she sees the real joy that comes from a well-maintained and artfully-tousled head of bleached blonde hair.

What is my secret, you ask? Why is Kim getting her hair done yet again? WELL:

The thing about bleached blonde hair is that it is fucking ugly as shit. Sorry!! Bleach contains some of the worst chemicals on the planet, I’m pretty sure, and as the name implies it is a powerful stripping agent that, like, petrifies the color out of your strands of hair, or something. I don’t really know how it works. I just know it is dangerous and powerful and you probably shouldn’t inhale it or get it on your actual skin, but that doesn’t stop me from periodically rubbing it all over my scalp for beauty purposes.

The bleach is not really how you achieve the luxurious and stylish blonde hair that makes you look super cool. It’s the toner, the follow-up step too often neglected in this process. Without toner, the bleach wants to turn your hair yellow or green within, like, one shampoo. Bleach is a bitch that wants to turn against you. Toner is how you defend and protect your hotness. So, when Kim was taking that selfie, I’m assuming her hairdresser was giving her hair a touch-up tone, and by assuming I mean that’s definitely what she texted me, because we are very good friends who communicate frequently.

Depending on your coloring and your Blonde Ambitions™ you’ll want a toner with a bit of a tint to it; blue for very white-blonde, purple or pink for a nice dusty-white blonde. I find purple to be the most flattering undertone for my skin because it neutralizes both red and yellow, so my hair and skin look nice and even.

I care way, way more about the toner than I do about the bleach. I’m not really a blonde who cares a lot about roots because, like, who am I trying to kid; the point here is to not look like a natural blonde. That’s also why I’ve never bothered dying my eyebrows. Like, it’s a look.

But we are not all Kim K. and we can not all afford regular salon toners in between runway shows at Paris Fashion Week. Instead, I alternate between two purple conditioners: Aveda Blue Malva Conditioner and Christophe Robin Shade Variation Care in Baby Blonde.

Currently I’m washing my hair twice a week; it used to be less but I’ve been working out pretty frequently and I just hate that ponytail dent I get from having sweaty hair. Plus I just hate sweating in general but apparently that is a key component to exercise?!? Ugh thanks Obama. Anyway.

Normally I wash my hair on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mondays, I’ll just shampoo my hair and use the Aveda conditioner for, like, I don’t know, however long it takes me to exfoliate my face and have an imaginary conversation with someone I want to impress and then stare at a spot on my shower wall before remembering I have to get back to work ha ha whoops and then I’ll rinse it out. It’s a nice in-between conditioner for blondes, I think, and just keeps my hair nice and bright, but it can’t really correct for that bad brassy yellow we’re trying to avoid. Because we are in this together now.

The Christophe Robin mask is the real shit. I bought it because when Emily Weiss was blonde she recommended it on Into The Gloss, and I would do or buy anything Emily tells me to do; if she was like “jump” I’d be like “ok but why? Does jumping shrink your pores or something? Whatever how high I’m already jumping.” On Thursdays, I’ll just wash my hair and then plop a healthy dollop on my head and really work it into my hair, making sure to coat all the blonde parts; right now I have about an inch of roots so I just ignore that part because if it’s not blonde honestly who cares. I’ll pin it up with a few old clips and then go back to work for a few hours. Sometimes this is when Jazmine and I have a Skype meeting and review submissions so I’ve started to associate the smell of the mask with pitches; that’s why sometimes I’ll be in the shower and all of a sudden think, “huh, I wonder what happened with that piece we accepted,” and then I’ll go email the writer, in case you’re wondering how I run a very serious and important women’s digital media empire.

Secretly I do think there is nothing better about my job than my ability to, first, work from home with a bunch of expensive purple goop working into my heavily processed damaged hair for several hours. Three, normally. Sometimes so long that the man who lives in my house will be like, “you know that shit is still in your hair, right?” and I will respond “yes of course I know also who are you why are you always here can I get a Man Exterminator or what” but I will secretly be glad because, ha, I totally did forget that shit was in my hair. I won’t rinse it out as soon as I go back in the shower; normally I do a face mask and, like, I don’t know, shave my legs or whatever other bullshit beauty conventions I feel like participating in that day, leaving the mask on my head for as long as possible, and then I’ll rinse it out. It feels so good when you rinse it out. Oh my god. Like. Yeah. You just need to feel it.

THEN it’s time for my second favorite part of my job: the ability to let my hair air-dry. IS there anything more luxurious than letting your hair air-dry?! No. There is not. This is a key part to not fucking up your heavily processed blonde hair, too; blow-dryers are hot blasts of air directly from Satan himself. My commitment to air-drying my hair is the main reason I can never go back to a real job. Also because I have no real skills, lol. I DIGRESS.

By the time this process is done, I have not only accomplished a bunch of important professional shit, my hair is incredibly soft and the perfect shade of whiteish-blonde; sometimes if I haven’t evenly distributed the mask properly there will be a few streaks of purpleish strands, but, like, it looks cool, so who cares.

And now you know exactly how much time I spend doing and thinking about my hair! It’s a lot!! But you and Kim Kardashian and Jazmine have all benefited from my knowledge, so I feel like it was all worth it.