How to Make a Homemade Hair Developer? (Step By Step)

Hair developers are a must for doing hair colour. Developers help to enhance the vibrancy of hair colour, by lightening your present hair colour to a few shades down.

They actually do it by activating the hair cuticle to open up and receive the dye to the core.

So, a hair colour without a developer isn’t possible anyway. But what if you have run out of a developer while you are about to apply a permanent dye to your hair?

No worries! This article has got you some amazing tips on how to make homemade hair developer.

But first let’s learn about what a hair developer is, it’s types, it’s ingredients and it’s work!

What is the main ingredient in hair developer?

We all have seen our hair stylists mixing hair developer into the colour dye while colouring our hair. But have you ever asked the stylist what’s actually in a hair developer?

If not, let me tell you a hair developer is made of a chemical called hydrogen peroxide. It’s a bleaching agent and helps to lighten the present colour of your hair so that the new colour settles in the shaft perfectly.

Now, there are different types of hair developers in which just the strength or the concentration of hydrogen peroxide changes:

More the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide, the more the shaft of your hair will open up to receive the colour (also the bleaching of the previous hair colour will accelerate).

Now, let’s learn in detail about the specific work of the hair developers with different volumes (different concentrations of hydrogen peroxide):

1.) A 10 volume developer with 3% hydrogen peroxide

This will give the most minimum colour pay off. It works well when your previous hair colour is of some lighter shade and the new hair colour is very close to the new shade you are about to apply.

For all these you do not need the hair cuticle to open up to the fullest, a little lifting of the hair cuticle will let in the colour dye to enter the shaft and colour it. 10 volume developers will work by just lifting the tone or the tint of the hair colour to a shade or two.

However a 10 volume developer will not work well on darker hair or for turning grey hair into black. It works best for redoing the same colour once again.

2.) A 20 volume hair developer with 6% hydrogen peroxide

If you want to make the present shade of your hair lighter down to 2 or 3 shades, this developer will work fine for you. This developer will work well in lifting the hair cuticles to a great extent and bleaching it enough to let your dark hair take in the lighter shade and colour it.

However this developer is also not enough to turn a black hair to blonde or grey.

See also: What Shade or Color Will Black Hair Dye Fade to?

3.) A 30 volume developer with 9% hydrogen peroxide

If you want to change the colour of your hair completely, say from a very dark shade to a lighter shade or from brown or red to pink or purple, you will need a 30 volume developer.

This developer will lighten your present hair colour to 3 to 4 shades lighter. It is also required when your hair has become stubborn and is not accepting any colour due to continuous colouring. 

But you might need to do a patch test before applying a 30 volume developer as it might cause a burning sensation in the scalp and the eyes.

4.) A 40 volume developer with 12% hydrogen peroxide

This is the highest concentration of hydrogen peroxide in a hair developer and is not very commonly used. It can be used to eliminate stubborn black patches in the hair while turning to a very light shade.

Can you use a conditioner instead of a hair developer?

A hair developer and conditioner are both things of different worlds. One can never substitute the other. While a hair developer helps to lift the hair cuticles in order to bleach the hair shaft and lighten the hair colour, a conditioner works by sealing the hair cuticles in order to lock in the moisture in the hair.

A conditioner can rather help in sealing the colour of the dye after the hair colouring process. so, you can never use a conditioner in place of or as a hair developer.

Ways to make home-made hair developer

If you think making a homemade hair developer means you can skip on chemicals, then NO! This cannot be the case any way because without hydrogen peroxide the work of a developer cannot be done. 

Therefore, even if you opt to make a developer at home all by yourself, you will still need to get hydrogen peroxide from the store.

Let’s now take a quick look into some of the ways by which you can make homemade hair developer within a blink:

1.) Make a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water

Just by adding hydrogen peroxide to water in different ratios, you can actually make homemade hair developer! But you need to learn about the ratios for creating different volumes of developers:

• For 10 volume developer you need to mix hydrogen peroxide and water in the ratio of 1:1
• For 20 volume developer you need to mix hydrogen peroxide and water in the ratio of 2:1
• For 30 volume developer you need to mix hydrogen peroxide and water in the ratio of 3:1
• For 40 volume of developer you need to mix hydrogen peroxide and water in the ratio of 4:1

After making a paste of hydrogen peroxide and water apply it immediately to the hair shaft (leaving the scalp as much as possible).

2.) Make a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and bleaching powder

If you want to lighten your hair colour to a considerable level, only hydrogen peroxide won’t help because the main work of it is to just activate the hair cuticles to open up, but the main work is done by the bleaching agent.

So, take a bowl and mix equal parts of bleaching powder and hydrogen peroxide in it and apply to the hair to get the perfect colour of the hair dye you are going to apply.

3.) Make a paste of hydrogen peroxide and any antiseptic ointment for the scalp

If you are someone whose scalp gets irritated with developers, then you should definitely try this hack. Empty a tube of the antiseptic in a bowl and mix a few drops of hydrogen peroxide in it (as per your requirement). Apply to the scalp and wait for 30 minutes. Shampoo right away.

See you soon!

Hey, my beauties. It’s time to wrap up from this post. Keep in touch with the site for more information and advice on skin, hair and fashion.

Till then…..

Keep it simple, keep it fashionable!