What happens if you put silver dye on orange hair?

 

Today, the situation of one of my clients reminded me of a poem my aunt used to tell, “If I could have twenty disappointments less.”

Needless to say, my aunt was quite disappointed with her life, but that’s another story.

Why do I tell you that this poem reminded me of one of my clients?

 

Because Cristina, my client, came to the salon so disappointed that I thought she would burst into tears at any moment.

But thank God, despite her disappointment, she didn’t drown in tears and accepted my advice on hair solutions.

What was wrong with Cristina?

 

  Cristina had orange hair and, after watching a tutorial on YouTube, she put silver dye on her orange har.  At the time, it seemed to be the best solution to remove the orange and make her hair gray or silver.

What was the result?

 

Her orange hair didn’t turn gray. It was ashy dark blonde.

What was the problem?

 

  Cristina didn’t want a dark ashy blonde. Instead, she wanted gray or silver hair.  

 

Why hadn’t her hair turned gray as the YouTuber showed? She applied the suggested dye and left it on her hair for the recommended amount of time.

 

The answer is simple.

Cristina hadn’t considered a few important things. But the most important one was the color level of her hair.

That’s what defined the result.

 

I understand that you don’t like your orange hair and that you may even want to have gray or silver hair. There are ways to achieve that.

But you can’t ignore the laws of colorimetry.

Otherwise, you’ll end up as disappointed as Cristina.

So, if you want to put silver dye on your orange hair, keep reading.

 

Before applying silver hair dye, determine the color level of your orange hair

  The color level is necessary to define your target   because naturally dark orange isn’t the same as orange after bleaching.

 

Oranges usually appear when the base color is dark. Medium colors, such as brown 4, light brown 5, or dark blonde 6 have underlying orange colors.

These colors arise when you have bleached your hair to achieve one of these colors or when the dye fades after washes.

 

So far, we know why you may have orange hair. If you want to put silver dye on top of that orange, you need to state your objective.

Your decision is important.

  If you want silver hair and your hair is dark orange, you won’t be able to apply silver dye directly.   I’ll explain it in detail later.

Let’s start with the first option.

 

If you want to apply silver dye to your orange hair to turn it ashy, you should choose a dye that ends in .11 or .12

If your idea is to remove the orange and get ashy hair, you should apply hair dye similar to your color and ending in .11 or .12.

For example:

 

Your hair will maintain its color level, i.e. it’ll be neither lighter nor darker. However, the orange tones will disappear and you’ll get an ashy shade.

It’d be almost like gray but on your base color.

Many clients ask me: “Alejandra,   how can I state my orange intensity? ” or, “how can you tell if my hair is dark blonde 6 or light blonde 8?

 

If you can’t go to the salon, the best is to do the strand test before coloring your orange hair gray.

This way, you’ll know how your orange hair will react after you apply the silver dye.

 

The strand test is very simple and will only take thirty minutes at most.

You’ll spare more than one disappointment by investing thirty minutes of your time to do it.

 

If you want to put silver dye to your orange hair to turn it gray, you’ll need to bleach it first to a very light blonde 9 or extra light blonde 10

Silver isn’t actually a hair color but a hair tone. Therefore,   it should always be applied on almost white hair.  

 

If your mane is white, you’ll have to go through several bleaching sessions until you reach that level.

Bleaching is a process that removes all the natural or artificial color from the hair. However, it damages the hair fiber on the way.

If what you want is a silver mane, you should bleach your orange hair. I recommend that you go to the salon to prevent serious damage.

 

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So far, we’ve defined your base color and the target color if you apply a silver hair dye on orange hair.

We still need to define the type of hair dye you’ll use. If you continue reading, you’ll know why that is important.

 

What type of silver hair dye to use on orange hair?

You need to state what type of hair dye to use.

There are two alternatives: permanent and semi-permanent dye. However, only one is the right one according to what you want to achieve.

 

If you are going to bleach your orange hair gray, you should use a semi-permanent dye.

Semi-permanent dyes don’t contain ammonia and aren’t applied with a developer. So,   they need an extra light base color to make the silver look perfect.  

Your base color should be very light blonde 9 or extra light blonde 10. In this case, you’ll have to bleach your orange hair.

You can choose several semi-permanent hair color options that will give you excellent results. Would you like some examples?

 

If your hair is orange, and you want to achieve an ashy blonde, you should apply a permanent dye.

These dyes are applied with a developer and contain ammonia. It means that you can apply silver or deep ash colors on your orange hair   without bleaching it to remove the orange.  

But you’ll have to choose permanent dyes that contain ashy or platinum tones.

How do you identify them?

 

All dyes have a number code.

So,   you should look for coloring kits whose numbering ends in .11 and .12.  

 

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Those codes will tell you that the dye contains deep ash, extra ash, intense ash, or platinum pigments to remove orange.

 

Conclusions

Now that you know how to apply silver hair color to orange hair, let me give you some recommendations.

Silver or gray hair is hard to maintain. You need to touch it up with specific products to prevent it from turning yellow.

Try to use purple shampoo and wash your hair a maximum of three times a week for proper maintenance.