If your hair is orange, you'll need a blue toner. Try a blue shampoo to tone the brassiness and get rid of the orange. This color toner is commonly needed for darker hair.
A toner can neutralize the unwanted brassy orange and yellow tones in your hair and give you a cool-toned hair color. It is a translucent deposit of hair color that contains just enough pigment to improve your hair color. You can use it mixed with peroxide right after you bleach your hair.
What colour cancels out orange brassy hair? Blue is the main colour that cancels out orange brassiness.
If it remains, your hair is either resistant to lifting (that's why a colorist would normally do a patch test to see how your hair will react) or you rinsed the bleach too soon. This means that you can get rid of orange hair by repeating the bleaching process.
The major and minor tone could be anything from a 0 to a 9, and to balance orange hair, you will typically look for a 1 (ash) or 8 (pearl) in the formula.
Toning neutralizes unwanted brassy tones to reveal a cooler blonde or light brown shade. The trick is figuring out which color toner to use, where the choice is usually between blue and purple, depending on your hair color. Toning neutralizes unwanted brassy tones to reveal a cooler blonde or light brown shade.
You can't hope that the orange will fade over time. The only way to get rid of orange roots is to color correct the unwanted shade. You can do this by using a toner or pigmented shampoo.
As it turns out, you can use a blonde hair dye to neutralize your orange hair — the secret is to look for a shade that's ashy. Ashy, cool undertones are the key to canceling out the warm, unflattering orange tones that currently adorn your strands.
Purple shampoo is a toning shampoo specially designed for blonde hair. It features crushed violet pigments that neutralize style-ruining brassy and yellow tones. On the color wheel, purple is the opposite of yellow, which is why purple pigments cancel out brassy, yellow tones.
Many factors influence the toning results, including the colour of the toner that you have applied, the time you leave the toner on your hair, and the natural base colour and tonality of your hair. Moreover, toning on darker hair will produce different results as compared to toning on lighter hair.
It's all to do with the way the Color Wheel works. Blue is the exact opposite of bright yellow and yellow-orange. Using blue is therefore a great way of dealing with hair which is too yellow or too orange or too brassy.
There's two reasons why your hair is still brassy after toning or colouring. Either the undertone of the toner/colour is wrong, or the product is too light for you.
Toning the Orange Out
When you decide to fix your bright orange mane, you need a toner for orange hair color. Toning helps neutralize the unflattering orange (brassy) shade into a cooler light brown or blonde shade. However, you'll need to find the best toner to accomplish the job.
You can use either Pearl Blonde 10V, a violet based (purple based) toner. Or you can use Extra Light Cool Blonde 10.2, which is a very purple based ultra-white blonde color. Or you can use Blondify Natural Violet Blonde 010V, an ammonia-free, PDP free toner.
Black is dark and super pigmented, which means it can cover any hair color. So if you want to hide your orange hair, you can use a black box dye like Garnier Hair Color Nutrisse Nourishing Creme in Natural Blue Black.
Orange most often ends up a lighter shade of orange. Yellow will usually turn white. Greens will turn a light yellowish green or white. Darker blues turn red or pink.
Wait at least 4 weeks after toning to give your hair time to heal. If your hair is dry or brittle, you should wait at least 7 to 8 weeks before toning it once again. Never use a second or subsequent toner on your hair within the same week to repair a poor colour result.
For example, when toning a very warm level 7 (think orange), using a strong ash based level 7 (7t or 7na) alone may neutralize the orange but may leave you without depth, balance or additional tone. So, in this case, mixing with a level 6 N, Nb or Nw would give you much more depth and richness in tone.
Your hair has to be a little damp or towel dried while applying a toner. To be precise, you should always use a hair toner when your hair is 70% dry. You will achieve better results if you put toner on damp hair and not dripping wet or completely dry hair.
Your hair turns brassy/orange when you lighten it because the warm colour molecules are the last to be lifted during a lightening process. For a successful, balanced lighter colour outcome, you need to first lift out all the warm colour pigments.
Maintenance level: How and where your orange color is placed will determine how often you need a touch-up. If it is a single, uniform color, Debolt recommends a touch-up every four to six weeks, with 12 weeks being the recommendation for lighter or darker orange highlights.
Summary. While toning gives a beautiful finish to your hair, doing it wrong can have terrible effects. Toner, when used correctly and as directed, usually does not damage hair. However, if left on the hair too long, used too frequently, or applied to already damaged hair, it can cause some damage.