Can you Mix Toner With Hair Dye, or is there any better option?

color sync

It’s not a good idea to mix toner with hair dye, especially if you lack colorimetry experience and training.
Otherwise, you’ll only achieve color saturation that’ll look quite bad in your hair.
What you can do if you want to tone your color is to choose a hair dye with toner in its composition. Later, I’ll give you a detailed list to know which one to choose.

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Oh, my little crazy head… why would you mix toner with hair dye?

Let’s make it clear.

To make that kind of mixtures between toner and hair dye, I studied colorimetry at the Styling Academy for more than 7 months.

Also, I take update training courses every six months to inform and train myself on the latest available options.

Having said that, what makes you think that mixing hair dye with toner would be as easy as mixing water and flour?

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It’s possibly easy. Whether it’ll be ok… I doubt it.

Toner and hair dye were created for different goals.

Toner neutralizes unwanted tones that appear on bleached hair. It also enhances hair dye.

For example, if you want to apply light golden blonde 9.3 and mix it with yellow toner, the resulting color will look golden. However, you need to know how to work with exact proportions, and that’s something you learn by studying colorimetry.

If you mix too much yellow toner with light golden blonde 9.3, instead of golden, it may turn yellow. It’ll look like a doll’s plastic hair than human hair.

Why does it happen?

Because toner is a professional product that contains strong pigments. It may change your hair color drastically.

If you mix toner with a hair dye containing undertones such as ash, gold, or copper, you’ll saturate the color. They already include toner in their formulas.

So, if you’re not a professional colorist, keep reading because I’ll tell you:

Why you shouldn’t mix toner with hair dye
How to get undertones without having to mix toner and hair dye

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Why you shouldn’t mix toner with hair dye

Stylists use the mix of toner and hair dye to enhance an undertone or to achieve a certain secondary tone.

When you apply hair dye, the color you choose is the pure tone itself—for example, brown, black, or light blonde. Then, to get secondary tones, such as ash, you need to add blue.

However, you must always respect the exact ratios. Each color has its own special proportion. For example, ash brown is not the same as mahogany brown.

So, I guarantee that it’s difficult to mix hair dye with toner without saturating the color and, therefore, it usually doesn’t look well on the hair.

You must consider many details when mixing toner and hair dye.

For example, if you’re looking for a more mahogany brown blonde, you’ll have to mix the hair dye with red toner.

But, to avoid the color looking too bright as fire, you’ll have to add a little green.

As you can see, mixing toner with hair dye is not a simple task. It’ll never turn out well if you lack colorimetry experience and training.

Now, is there any way to achieve an undertone without mixing hair dye and toner? Of course, there is, and I’ll tell you about it next.

How to get undertones without mixing hair dye with toner

I’ve good news: hair coloring companies have developed and alternative to keep you from playing colorist by mixing toner and hair dye.

Do you know what it’s about?

Hair dye with toner in their formula. How can you identify them? All hair dyes are indicated by numbers. For example, black is 1.

Hair dyes whose numbers have a period mark and a series of numbers are those that include toner.

What undertone would you like to achieve?

If you want an ash undertone, you must choose hair dyes ending in 1 because they have blue toner
If you want an iridescent undertone, you must choose hair dyes ending in 2 because they have purple toner
If you want a golden undertone, you must choose hair dyes ending in 3 because they have yellow toner
If you want a copper undertone, you must choose hair dyes ending in 4 because they have orange toner
If you want a mahogany undertone, you must choose hair dyes ending in 5 because they have red toner

Also, you must consider that the lighter your hair, the more impact the undertone will have. Therefore, you must be confident about the color you want to achieve. For example:

If you apply a 9.5 very light blonde mahogany, your hair will look pale red.
If you apply a 7.3 golden blonde, your hair will look caramel.
If you apply a 5.2 iridescent light brow, your hair will become platinum due to the purple toner color.