PSA: Do not use acidic bonding shampoo in a bleach bath
This hopefully is glaringly obvious for most people here but it was not obvious to lil ole me so I am spreading the horrifying lesson I just learned. When they say "just use any shampoo you have on hand" for a bleach bath, DO NOT use acidic bonding shampoo! The acidic nature of the shampoo mixed with the alkaline developer will cause an exothermic reaction and if it gets to your scalp, you're cooked. Literally.
I have 2nd degree burns all over my scalp from 10 minutes of contact.
I heard bubbles and blisters forming under the top layers of my scalp and could hear them snap crackle and popping as they formed, like rice krispies in milk.
I confirmed that I do not have crepitus or subcutaneous emphysema but those are urgent care or ER level injuries. I am watching closely at home to make sure these don't become infected or get worse.
If this level of burns happen to you, immediately rinse your scalp under cool (not cold, not warm) water for 10-20 minutes on each of the burns sites. This will rinse off remaining product and it will cool down the dermis layers of your skin so the burn doesn't continue to spread. Do not scrub the scalp or apply ANY product and gently towel dry the ends only. Seek medical evaluation as soon as feasible. This 20 minutes of rinsing my scalp saved me. I did this all at midnight so the only doctor available was the ER. Rinsing helped the burn to stop crackling and popping and I was able to at least get some sleep and wait to be evaluated at an urgent care.
The acidic bonding shampoo has a warning about exothermic reactions causing more severe sunburns in **sunlight** but nothing about bleach. It's basic chemistry, but I wasn't thinking and didn't see an explicit warning about it. and all the bleach bath tutorials say explicitly that you can use "any shampoo you have." That is simply not true. Don't be me.
OH. and because the reaction caused so much heat, the first 3 inches of my hair are now platinum from a level 7. The rest of my hair is the tone I needed and wanted. And I'm too burned to even consider color correcting right now.