Hydrogen Peroxide on Dark Hair?

Elaine Margarett

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What would be the effect of a bottle of hydrogen peroxide being splashed onto brunette hair? Would it depend on how dark the hair? If plain water was immediately applied to the same spot as the HP would that negate the effect?

TIA,
EM
 

cornflake

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Nothing.

Drugstore hydrogen peroxide could be used to lighten hair but you'd have to like, cover it, leave it in, and then it'd get just marginally lighter (depending on the starting shade), after a WHILE -- half an hour? Forty-five minutes? If you use something to enhance it, might be a better effect, but, yeah, if you pour a bottle from your medicine cabinet onto your head and rinse it off? Nothing. It's not like bleach splashed on clothes.
 

Cindyt

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It would lighten the hair. I used it on mine in the sun at the lake years ago and it took more than one bottle to noticeable y lighten it. I imagine water would dilute the HP.
 

Night_Writer

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Plain water might not rinse out the peroxide completely. A little might be left behind, and it would continue to lighten the hair. You'd have a little bit of a lightening effect.

Odd question, by the way.
 

frimble3

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Odd question, by the way.
Not if the OP was looking for some ad hoc way to identify someone. I read a short story once about a barber who realized that the man in his chair was a dangerous criminal. He put some sort of hair treatment on the criminal that gradually developed and turned his hair bright, fiery red. Once the criminal was out of his shop, he contacted the police and told them who to look for.
 

cornflake

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Eh, or if a character knocked a bottle and it splashed on someone's hair and thus the someone was angry because she had to cut the dyed circle out of her hair, or if two sisters were fighting and one tossed a bottle at the other one's head in an attempt to bleach it like you would throwing bleach at jeans, or... six other things?

I dunno, didn't strike me as odd, question-wise.
 

snafu1056

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That's how Ponyboy dyed his hair blonde in the Outsiders.

Supposedly lemon juice will have the same effect.
 
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Tsu Dho Nimh

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The fizzy bottled stuff sold as an antiseptic won't do anything - it's 3% or so.

You need the hair lightening stuff, which is 30%, and you need to leave it on the hair for quite a while.

So net result is not much, unless the victim lets strong stuff sit there for 15-30 minutes to let her hair go orange.
 

Night_Writer

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The *odd* questions are what make this section fun!

I agree.

Odd questions are part of the fun! As odd goes, I'm not sure this is terribly so.

In writing there's probably no such thing as an odd question, because a story could be about anything. But out of context, it just seemed like a unique thought.
 

shakeysix

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We experimented at a slumber party once with hydrogen peroxide. We had a big bottle from the drugstore. I didn't buy it but it was bubbly and blistery. My dark haired friend ended up with a streaky, sick reddish orange color. She tried to cover it up for church the next morning but when her mother spotted her new look from several pews away, there was no averting the horror and fury. We all got in trouble and the mother who hosted the party was the angriest. Her own daughter went from a nice auburn to a two tone effect because we didn't get the stuff all the way to the roots. My own hair was ashy blonde naturally. I thought a little would turn it platinum but no--just made it brittle and pale in places. I was at the end of the bottle so didn't have enough to really screw up my hair. My mom was still all bitchy about the whole thing. Looking back from fifty some years, I can see her point. --s6
 
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L.C. Blackwell

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Yeah, I don't know about washing it out, but I know even if you use the 3% stuff and leave it in, it will have an effect. It may take longer, though, as in more than one application. We used it to treat a pet's skin infection at one point, and it turned her black hair into a dull, hideous dark-rusty orange color--made the hair, as described above, very dry and brittle.

Probably if you did wash it out right away, it wouldn't change anything. But I think you'd actually have to wash your hair, not just spot-clean it.
 
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Elaine Margarett

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Thank you all! I've enjoyed reading your responses. I didn't think it so odd a question, but out of context as presented I can certainly see it why you would think so. :) L.C. Blackwell, my character has it on hand because of a dog. And a big bowl of sloppy dog water with which to rinse it.
EM