Has Anyone Successfully Added Highlights To Their System?

[NYCHairGuy]

I thought it might be fun to try some streaky blonde highlights in the new system I'm about to start with, so I dragged out my old beat-up system to do a test run. Now, months ago I had thought this old system was too dark and fake-looking, so I used a very weak bleach mixture on it to lighten it up slightly. It seemed to work pretty well.

But it seems like all I may have done is remove excess dye. Tonight I tried both a medium-strength (20 vol.) and a maximum-strength (40 vol) mixture. Even leaving them both in for an hour produced very little in the way of results--the system hair stayed pretty much the same. By way of comparison, 15-20 minutes of the medium mixture would have lightened my bio hair quite a bit; the max strength mixture would have probably melted it off and left me with scalp burns.

So I'm guessing system hair doesn't lighten? The kind of thing I was going for:

 

[BaldBearded]

Some manufacturers offer highlights from the factory. They mix lighter and darker hair together to get the same effect without overprocessing hair that has already been processed.

I will repeat what I keep saying... order custom, from a reputable source, and leave this fuss to the experts.

 

[grincher]

I actually had 2 made with highlights. They turned out quite nice without the fuss. A little more but worth it.

 

[NYCHairGuy]

Some manufacturers offer highlights from the factory. They mix lighter and darker hair together to get the same effect without overprocessing hair that has already been processed.

I will repeat what I keep saying... order custom, from a reputable source, and leave this fuss to the experts.

You're right, of course--that would be the ideal way to do it. But you know, 2 months wait time, the possibility that the highlights are placed badly or are too dark, too light, etc. I just assumed it would work like bio hair, and so wanted to see both how long it took and how much damage/breakage there was as a result. I'm really surprised that the lightening mixture appeared to have no effect. Kind of made me wonder whether it's about that particular piece (which may or may not be human hair--they said it was but it didn't feel like it to me) or system hair in general. That's why I asked if anyone had done it successfully.

 

[Noah]

Yes, I always order subtle highlights. I find it gives the hair a bit of movement, which cancels out any bulkiness or wigginess that might come with an undercut style.

 

[NYCHairGuy]

See, now I'm really wondering why it didn't work. People bleach knots on system hair, yes? So why would the knots lighten but not the rest of the shaft?