What hair dye should I use for toning brassy-orange hair ¿purple or blue?

from orange to blonde

To tone orange, brassy hair, you have to use a dye with blue tones.
Purple neutralizes yellow tones, so it won’t affect brassy hair.

Let’s discuss blue dyes a bit more in-depth.

While blue dyes exist, they’re used to create vivid fantasy colors.

So, if you apply a blue hair dye on brassy, oxidized hair, it will dye it blue.

Are you curious why?

These types of dyes are not only used to neutralize unwanted tones but also to dye hair.

So, what can you do to get rid of the unwanted orange tones?

Apply a hair dye with a blue tone.

This will immediately eliminate the tinges of orange and create one even color.

But what color of dye should you apply? And what is a blue tone, anyway?

If you’re wondering how you should tone your hair, don’t worry. We’ll reveal all our secrets in this article.

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You might also be interested in: Three Ways to Neutralize Orange Tones Without Going to a Salon

What Color Neutralizes Orange Tones?

Brassy orange tones usually appear after bleaching dark hair, such as chestnut or chocolate brown.

When a dark hair is bleached, it can turn a brassy orange, or to be exact, a 7.45 intense copper mahogany.

Brassy colors can also appear as red hair fades.

Then often happens with reddish or coppery tones. As the color fades, more tones of the base pigment appear.

No matter if your hair is brassy because of faded hair dye or bleaching, you can neutralize the tones the same way.

Apply a hair dye with a blue tone.

You might be wondering why you can’t just use a blue hair dye.

Well, the reason why is very simple.

Permanent blue hair dye is made just like brown, blond, or any other hair dye.

Just like how you can’t tone your hair with blond hair dye, you can’t tone hair with blue dye: it will simply turn your hair blue.

It won’t neutralize but cover the brassy tones, just like applying a black hair dye.

Makes sense, right?

To eliminate brassy tones, you should use a permanent dye with a blue tone.

But before we discuss tones in detail, it’s important to figure out the base color of your hair is. That is, what number it is.

Without knowing your base color, it will be tough to choose the correct hair dye to tone it.

Fixing dark brassy orange isn’t the same as light brassy orange.

While they are the same color, they’re 3 or 4 shades different.

There are two ways to determine your base color.

If you’ve bleached your hair:

If brassy tones appear after you bleached your hair, you’ve probably bleached dark hair.

Colors that turn brassy when bleached are:

Level 3 dark brown
Level 4 brown
Level 6 chocolate brown

Starting from that base color, your brassy hair is probably a 6.45 or 7.45.

So your hair is within the range of light colors, between levels 6 and 7.

If you dyed your hair red:

If you dyed your hair red and fades, it’s much easier to determine your base color.

Check what number dye you used, which might be a 6.6 or 5.6.

Once you have that number, you know your base color.

However, there are many shades of red available, and they have different color numbers.

So it’s important to remember what dye you used since an 8.6 reddish-blond isn’t the same as a 7.6 intense light reddish-brown.

Clear?

This way, you can figure out what number corresponds to your base color.

To neutralize the brassy oranges tones in your hair, simply apply the same color, but with a blue tone.

For example, if you previously applied a 6.6 coppery light brown, apply a level 6 dye.
While if you applied an 8.6, you should dye your hair again with an 8.

You might be wondering how this neutralizes the brassy orange tones.

To answer that question, let’s take a closer look at tones.

Why Blue Tones Subdue Orange Ones

No matter if your orange hair appeared after bleaching or when a red dye faded, a blue-toned dye will fix it.

What are color tones?

Color tones, also called secondary tones, are shown by the number after the period on the box.

That second number shows the dye’s secondary tone, such as golden, ash, copper, etc.

For example, let’s look at the number corresponding to brassy orange: 7.45, or intense coppery blond mahogany.

The number 7 shows the color of the dye: blond.

While the .45 shows the tone: mahogany copper.

Or reddish-orange.

Using these numbers, you can identify any shade of dye and its tone.

Secondary tones are used to neutralize unwanted shades.

Blue, for example, neutralizes brassy orange.

So, to neutralize a brassy tone, choose a dye with a blue tone, or number 2.

If your base color is 7.45, apply a 7.2
If your base color is 6.45, apply a 6.2
If your base color is 5.45, apply a 5.2

Makes sense, right?

Don’t change your hair color; apply a dye with a blue tone to neutralize the orange.

This will neutralize the unwanted color, no matter if it came from bleaching dark hair or faded red hair dye.

Can you see why knowing the color number is so important?

Once you know that, apply the same color with a blue tone, shown by a 2 after the period in the number.

But what if you want to change your hair color entirely?

Maybe you want to try a sunny blond or deep color.

Well, you can. Choose a dye with a number 2 tone.

And keep in mind these tips:

Don't lighten more than two tones Lighting that much requires bleaching
On the other hand, you also shouldn't darken your hair more than two shades. Or you'll have to use bleach to change the color if you don't like it
Stay within the same color palette: if you have brown hair, choose a lighter or deeper brown
If you're a blond, choose a light or extra light blond.

But no matter what color you choose, it must have a number 2 blue tone.