How to tone down yellow/blonde hair without ruining the color?

First of all, I´m going to ask you to take a good look at your hair.

Not because it’s untidy or badly styled. I want you to focus on the color.

Is your hair a brassy-yellow tone or an overly light, almost white, dazzling blonde?

 

According to your answer, the solution will be completely different.

 

If you have brassy yellow hair right now, you’ve probably bleached it.

Therefore, either you have forgotten to tint the unwanted shades, or you have tinted them, but the neutralizing effect has disappeared.

This happens, and very often, because after all, a bleached hair, either on the whole surface or through highlights, needs strict maintenance.

 

If your blonde hair is too “light”, almost white, in a way that you’re even afraid to dazzle your boyfriend when he looks at you, it’s because you’ve got the wrong color. What you thought was going to look like a golden blonde, ended up in an almost white blonde.

 But don’t worry, luckily there’s a solution for both. 

 

To avoid despair, stay with me, because I will tell you:

 

Today you’ll finally wear that shade of blonde you want so badly in your hair.

 

How to tone down a brassy-yellow blonde

As I told you at the beginning if your hair is a brassy yellow shade, you have three options: apply a darker dye, use a purple toner, or bleach your hair.

How do you choose the right method?

 

First, you need to consider the health of your hair.

 For example, if it’s very damaged and prone to breakage, I don’t recommend bleaching because you’ll damage it more. In that case, you’d better apply a dye, which is the safest and easiest way.  

 

If  your hair is healthy , you can choose any of the three options, but remember that bleaching is a chemical process that requires certain knowledge. Therefore, you should leave it as your last alternative.

We’ll start with the simplest solution, i.e. using a darker color.

 

This is the easiest option. If you apply a darker dye, you will go out of the color range of yellow. What do I mean by this?

 

Blondes 8 and 9 have the most yellow pigments. If you apply a blonde closer to the mid-tones, like blond 7 for example, the color pigmentation changes, because brown and gold shades start to appear.

Which shade of hair color should you choose to tone down blonde?

 

  That is, the difference between the shade you have right now in your hair and the new blonde shade you choose, should always be of two shades.  

If that difference was of more shades, you’d darken your hair too much. And you want to tone down the blonde, not bring your hair down to brown, right?

 

Do you want to end up with your brassy yellow hair without changing your hair tone?

Then, you should choose a purple toner.

 

If you use a purple toner, you will neutralize the yellow without losing the level of your blonde. This means that if your hair is a light blonde 8, for example, when you apply the toner it will still be a light blonde 8, but you will have removed those unwanted yellowish tones.

 

 If your hair is very yellow and you want to use a purple toner, you’ll need to get this product from a salon and mix it with 20 volume developer.  

 

Here’s a step-by-step guide.

 

Toner lasts approximately 2-3 weeks, so you’ll need to renew it or replace your regular shampoo with a purple shampoo, which will help keep the yellow tones away from your hair.

Finally, you can bleach your hair. However, choose this option carefully because you can end up with burned hair.

 

While bleaching is a very simple process, you need some basic knowledge of coloring because it can cause irreparable damage to your hair.

If you bleached your hair and it became very yellow, your hair fiber did not finish expelling all the color. So, a new bleach will definitely fix it.

 

You need:

 

  Do not use developer of more than 20 volumes,  because you can lighten from 2 to 3 tones with it. If you apply 30 volume developer, you run the risk that your hair will not withstand the process and will break or burn.

 

Step by step:

 

Once the brassy yellow tones in your hair have been eliminated, use purple shampoo to maintain the color.

Now, it’s the turn of those women who went too far with the blonde.

 

How to Tone Down Overly Light Blonde Hair

You wanted a blond and you chose a shade that was too light?

 

This is more common than you think.  A very blonde hair is in shades 9 or 10, i.e. almost white.  

If your hair is in one of these shades, you can apply a darker color or gray toner. Best of all, neither will it damage your hair.

 

If you don’t want your blonde hair to be so light, you can apply up to 3 shades less. This way, you won’t lose the blonde base, but you can go several shades less. Also, in such lighter shades, the difference between two colors is an important change.

For example:

 

Once you choose the shade, you simply apply the dye as directed by the manufacturer, to make your hair look darker without losing the main pigmentation of the blondes.

 

This is a solution for those women who, before saying goodbye to the extra light blonde, want to try a temporary solution. That’s why, in my salon, many women decide to tone down their blonde with gray toner.

 

  Grey toner is a temporary solution to tone down a too light blond tone, as it lasts 2 to 3 weeks on the hair. It loses its pigmentation after each wash. 

This means that, if you want to maintain the color, you must apply the toner again every three weeks.

 

Just pay attention to which shade of grey you want to target:

 

Conclusions

Now, you know how to tone down your blonde hair. It all depends on whether your shade is a brassy yellow blonde or an extra light blond.

Which of these options will you choose to tone down your hair?