You have bleached hair, and at some point either while the bleach is on or when you have taken the bleach off you have realized that the hair is “Gummy”, or “elastic” or super-stretchy. None of these things are good at all!

And if this is the case while you still have bleach in your hair, get it off asap with cool water.

What Should I Do If My Hair Is Gummy After Bleaching?

Unfortunately, there is only one real way out. The majority of the “gummy” hair needs to be trimmed off. The first thing to do is to get a high-quality salon treatment to treat your hair.

When your hair is gummy, it is also very hard to dry, will be extremely frizzy, untameable and constantly breaking, it will actually snap off as you are drying it. So, the best bet is to have a reasonable cut to trim the majority of the gummy hair off.

Things to Know About Gummy Hair

Suitable Bleach Level for Hair

When you are lightening hair with bleach, slowly (or quickly depending on the percentage of peroxide you are using) the bleach is actually consuming the color pigment molecules.

The darker the hair is, the more color pigment molecules the bleach needs to consume to get to the desired underlying reflect, this enables you to tone on the correct level and have a great result.

In a salon, it is a hairdresser’s job to decide the health of the hair vs the desired hair color, and what bleach level to mix to achieve as much lift as possible, and ensuring that the health of the hair is not compromised beyond return.

Gellified Hair

When the hair becomes gummy, the health of the hair has been compromised to such a state as it cannot ever be returned to a healthy state. The terminology used for hair in this state is called “Gellified”. It means becoming a “gel-like state”. And this is exactly what happens to hair that has been over-processed with bleach.