- You can mix a neutral and an ash hair dye as long as you respect their tone levels. For example, you can’t mix a blonde with a brown tone.
- The result of mixing the neutral and the ash hair dye will be a medium ashy shade.
- To achieve a perfect hair dyes mix, you must respect the proportions: 1 part hair dye, 50% neutral hair dye and 50% ash hair dye, and 1 part peroxide.
- Generally, this mixture is used in very high blonde tones because it brings the warmth of blondes without falling into the coldness of ashy tones.
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Mixing different hair dye shades is common in beauty salons. The idea is to achieve different shades, to customize a color to suit the needs of clients, and to provide greater depth to the hair.
Now, before you jump into any kind of hair color mixing, you should understand what is an ash hair color and what is a neutral hair color.
Actually, when we talk about ash and neutral tones, we are referring to the secondary tones present in the hair dyes.
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To make it clear for you, hair dyes have several numbers on their box:
- 1 black
- 2 brown
- 3 dark brown
- 4 mahogany
- 5 light brown
- 6 dark blonde
- 7 blonde
- 8 light blonde
- 9 very light blonde
- 10 extra light blonde
These numbers represent the level of the colors in the palette.
Still, you may have noticed that some shades have several numbers which represent the undertones:
- 0 neutral
- 1 ash
- 2 iridescent/ pearlescent
- 3 gold
- 4 copper
- 5 mahogany
As you can see, 0 is neutral and 1 is ash. They’re the two colors you want to mix.
And you’ve probably noticed too, that no hair dye is 0.1 or 0.0. It’s because 0 doesn’t correspond to any shade level.
So, to be able to mix ashy and neutral hair colors, you must always choose the shade level first.
- If you want light blonde, you should choose 8.0 light blonde and 8.1 light ash blonde.
- If you want light brown, you should choose a 5.0 light brown and 5.1 light ash brown.
The success of this mix is that you choose the same color level in the two shades.
You can’t mix different levels, such as light blonde 8.0 and ash brown 4.1, because you won’t get the result you’re looking for.
Once you choose the shade level, you only have to mix the neutral and ash hair dyes to see the results. Can you imagine what color it will be?
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What’s the resulting color when you mix ashy and neutral hair dye?
The color resulting from this mixture will be an intermediate undertone between ash and neutral, i.e. medium ash.
For a better understanding, let’s look at some examples:
- If you mix light blonde 8.0 and light ash blonde 8.1, the result will be a medium-light ash blonde 8.05.
- If you mix light brown 5.0 and light ash brown 5.1, the result will be a medium-light ash brown 5.05.
What will this shade look like?
That’ll depend on how light the level of the hair dye is. If you do this color blend with brunettes or dark blondes, it won’t make a difference.
That’s why for the medium ash undertone to be noticeable, you hae to use at least a level 8 light blonde.
I use the mix of neutral and ash hair dye in the salon when a client wants a very high blonde shade but, at the same time, she’s looking to avoid a cool undertone like ash 1, while maintaining the warmth of the blondes.
Did you notice that the result was a number in the examples above?
You might be wondering where that number comes from. The answer is simple: it comes from a formula.
In this case, the formula to get the exact color result is:
HAIR DYE NUMBER + HAIR DYE NUMBER = RESULT / AMOUNT OF HAIR DYES = FINAL SHADE.
It seems difficult, but it isn’t. Let’s take the examples above:
8.0 light blonde + 8.1 light ash blonde = 16.1/2 = 8.05 medium light ash blonde.
5.0 light brown + 5.1 light ash brown = 10.1/2 = 5.05 medium light ash brown
Remember that the color levels have to be the same.
Do you want to know what color you get when you don’t use the same shade level?
7.0 dark blonde + 4.1 ash brown = 11.1/2 = 5.55 light auburn reddish brown
6.0 dark blonde + 7.1 ash blonde = 13.1/2 = 6.55 dark auburn reddish blonde
These are almost crazy colors. I don’t think they are what you’re looking for.
Now that you know the level of the ash and neutral hair dyes to use, let’s look at how to prepare the mixture.
How to prepare the mixture of ash and neutral hair dye
First, you need to get the ash and the neutral hair dye kit. Remember that they must both be the same color level.
Materials:
- Ash hair dye kit of the level of your choice (.1).
- Neutral hair dye kit of the same level (.0)
- Plastic container
- Hair dye brush
Preparation:
- In the plastic container, mix half ash hair dye and half neutral hair dye. The total amount of hair dye should never exceed the amount of one hair dye container.
If you don’t respect these amounts, the resulting color won’t be in harmony with the undertones. It’ll have more ashy or more neutral pigmentation. This is why you should keep the proportions in mind.
- Add the developer in the plastic container. Use ONLY ONE of the developers included in the kits.
In this case, you are mixing two hair dyes, but the amount of hair dye is still the equivalent to one because you added 50% of the ash hair dye and 50% of the neutral hair dye.
For this reason, the developer in either kit will be more than enough.
If you add more developer, the color won’t take enough in your hair. Instead, it’ll start to lighten due to the hydrogen peroxide.
Once you added all the elements, you just need to get a homogeneous mixture blending them very well.
Conclusions
When you mix an ashy hair dye and a neutral hair dye, you have to choose the same level for both colors. This way, you’ll get a unique, personal, and harmonious medium ash color.
