The other day, I was in the line for the supermarket’s cash register, waiting to pay for the more than one hundred items that I had collected.
And when I say the line for the cash register at the supermarket, I mean one of those unending lines where time seems to stop.
I had checked my emails on my cell phone. Also, I had played various rounds of Candy Crush and had Googled the latest gossip about my favorite band.
Until all of a sudden, something caught my attention.
A little bit ahead of me, a woman with brown hair had horrible red streaks in her hair.
That image took me to a time in my past where desperation was a common part of my life.
It reminded me of when I decided to take my long hair to brown tones, and after two or three weeks after dyeing it, some atrocious red highlights appeared.
It wasn’t easy to solve the problem but to tell you the truth, it also wasn’t a lot of hard work either.
Do you dye your hair within the brown spectrum and want to avoid the appearance of orange and red tones?
I promise to reveal to you all the secrets to preventing your hair from turning red.
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Why do some pieces of hair turn red?
To find the answer to this question, we have to refer to the famous chromatic circle. That circle tells us about primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, and the hair tone chart.
Let’s go to the chromatic circle.
I’m sure you already know that the primary colors are blue, red, and yellow.
The different combinations between these three colors create secondary colors: violet, orange, and green.
There is also a tones chart, which is the following:
- Black
- Brown
- Dark Chestnut
- Chestnut
- Light chestnut
- Dark Blonde
- Blonde
- Light blonde
- Very light blonde
- Platinum
Now, very good.
By dying your hair brown, different factors make it produce an oxidation effect in your hair.
For example, if you were on vacation for a few days at the beach and your hair was exposed to the water and the sun.
Chlorine in the water also rusts the dye in your hair.
The flat iron, the hairdryer, the shampoo you use directly impact some of the highlights in that that they can turn orange or red.
It is then that these red streaks or highlights appear in your hair that you, of course, don’t want.
What you should do is NEUTRALIZE those unwanted tones.Neutralization takes into account the chromatic circle and the color table.
From there, you can deduce that for the red tones to disappear, we have to apply another reflective tone that, in this case, are ashes that have a proportion of green, which is opposite of red on the chromatic scale.
Until now, I have told you the theory. Now, let’s see the possible solutions for the problem.
Even though various alternatives exist, I used one that worked wonders for me.
After finishing reading these alternatives, try to guess which one I used in my case.
3 ideas for saying goodbye to red highlights in your hair.
Some of these processes threaten the health of your hair, but I’m sure that they will get rid of those unwanted red highlights.
Use Toning pigments
Toning pigments can be found in three colors: green, yellow, and violet.
To neutralize those colored streaks in your brown hair, you should use green toning shampoo.
When the time comes to dye, your hair again includes the green toning shampoo in the mix, and you will note little by little how those reds start disappearing.
You can also include a small dose of green toner in your shampoo and conditioner every fifteen or twenty days.
Use dyes without ammonia to revive your color
I haven’t yet tried if this system is effective, but a friend of mine discovered the benefits of getting rid of the reds in your brown hair with ammonia-free dyes.
According to her experience, they neutralize the oxidized residue and stabilize the color.
Remove the color
Although less aggressive than bleaching, color removers extract the pigments from the dye.
You apply it the same way as you would a hair day, and once the process is finished, you can choose a new tone for your hair.
Guess which one I decided to do?
Ammonia-free hair dye?
Color remover?
Green toning pigments?
The winner is…
You guessed it.
I try to apply the least amount of chemicals possible in my hair.So that means the right answer is that I used green toner to get rid of the red shades in my brown hair.
To not get complicated with the number of pigments, I simply bought a toning shampoo for brown hair, which I used every ten days.
If you have recently dyed your hair, it’s good that you know that you are just in time to take certain preventative measures to prevent red highlights from appearing in the short term.
I will tell you next what I learned through trial and error because every hair is different.
How to prevent the appearance of red and orange highlights in your hair
Use a special shampoo and conditioner for dyed hairs, and even better if it is sulfate-free
Check Shampoo and Conditioner on Amazon
This is something crucial. Dyed hair has nutritional, strength, and maintenance needs that are completely different for hair that was never treated chemically.
Products for dyed hair give you proteins and nutrients that maintain your hair’s shine and make the dye’s effects last longer.
I recommend you the Shampoo and conditioner from Art Naturals because they are free from most chemicals that ruin the colored hair.
Protect your hair from the sun’s rays
With this, I don’t mean to say that you need to live your life like a cloistered nun.
But it is important that if you are going to spend a lot of time outside because you are going to a summer camp or because it’s finally time for the much-anticipated vacations to a paradise beach or because a good friend invited you to spend a glorious weekend in their house with a pool. Bring a chic hat for the occasion, or a colored bandana.
Don’t you see? You can add a little sophistication to your hair care.
Avoid flat irons and hair dryers
I’m not saying that you can never have that perfectly straight hair ever again. But please, don’t flat iron your hair every day. Heat sources work against the dye in your hair, sucking out the color and slowly leaving those unwanted tones.