Can Apple Cider Vinegar Really Give Your Hair Highlights?

Tools and materials:

• Apple cider vinegar
• Spray bottle

1. Fill a spray bottle with apple cider vinegar

To get started, I’ve filled up a spray bottle with 3/4ths apple cider vinegar and the rest with some filtered water. Just give it a shake and it’s ready to use.

2. Spray

It’s really easy to use this technique. All you do is spray it all over the parts of your hair that you want to lighten. I’m going to try it all over. You can even just do the ends to test before doing your entire head. You don’t need to spray the entire bottle; just do it until your hair is quite saturated. It smells really strongly of apple cider vinegar for a while, but it fades as your hair dries.

3.Sit in the sun

Sit in the sun for a minimum of 15 minutes to ensure that the sunlight helps bleach and lighten your hair. I’ll probably be sitting out in the sun for about an hour, because it's winter and it’s cold, and I love the sun. Afterward, let it sit on your hair for about three hours more, and then just rinse it out with water without shampooing or conditioning. You can shampoo and condition only after the third day. I’ll be doing this technique for the next seven days, as it’s important to do this technique over a few consecutive days because it won’t work if you just do it once.

Day 1:

Here’s the “before” shot - or what my hair looked like on the first day.

Day 2:

Not much has changed except now my hair is oilier, so thankfully I can wash it tomorrow. You can’t see too much of a difference, it’s still pretty dark, so I’ll go outside again today for another hour and hopefully it will start to compound and my hair will start to look lighter. 

Day 3:

It’s a little bit cloudy today, and there’s not too much sun so I’m not sure how it will go in lightening my hair. It hasn’t changed too much, but in the end, I’ll do a final photo and see if it’s lightened a little bit. Tonight, I can actually wash my hair and clean it, which I’m excited about. I’m just going to sit outside for about half an hour since it’s a bit chilly and not much sun, but I’ll give it a go anyway.

Day 4:

I still haven’t noticed too much of a change. My hair’s a bit damp here since I just sprayed more apple cider vinegar, but you can sort of see a very slight lighting in my hair, mainly at the back. Other than that, it hasn’t been super strong. It probably works a bit better in the summer when the sun’s stronger, but I’ve come out at midday to try and get the peak amount of sun. I’m going to stay out for a couple of hours to see if that might help get a lot of sunshine onto my hair and lighten it. Hopefully, we’ll start to see a bit more of a change.

 Day 5.

Day 6:

It’s sunny today! I’m so happy because it’s been cloudy the past two days and I don’t know how effective it’s been, but it actually looks like it’s lightning now with some tricks of the light which I’m really excited about. I’ve refilled my bottle since it’s almost empty and I’m going to spray it on again and sit here for a good two hours. Maybe in the summer you only need to sit outside for 15 minutes, but because in the winter, the sun is less strong, you should stay outside for longer. My hair is super greasy and needs to be washed tonight, so I’ll spray it, leave it on for a couple of hours, and then go wash it off.

Day 7:

Just gonna do a bit of sun-tanning today, get a bit of vitamin D while I’m outside and position myself so my hair gets the best sunlight.

Can Apple Cider Vinegar really give your Hair Highlights?

Here’s the final product of the apple cider vinegar rinse for the week! I must say it’s not as loud as I thought it might go, but it’s winter, so the sun isn’t as strong as I said before. If you’re doing this, I’d recommend staying outside for two hours rather than just one. I’m actually pretty happy because it got lighter and tinted in some sections, especially the bottom. I think if you did this for longer or in the summer, it would be much more effective, though I’m quite happy with how it turned out. Let me know what you guys think!