What happens if you put too much developer in hair dye? And what if you don’t add enough?

 

 If you’ve already prepared the dye mix and you put too much or too little developer in it, I recommend tossing the mix and preparing a new one.  

And yeah, you might need to run to the store to buy more dye, but that’s better than ending up with a hair color you don’t like, or worse yet, an uneven color.

 

As you can see, the proportion of developer and dye is very specific, and you must measure out exact quantities to get the best results.

It’s like when you want to follow a recipe to bake something. The best bakers will tell you that it’s uber important to use the exact quantities of the ingredients that you need.

 

If you have too little yeast, your dough won’t rise. If you don’t use exactly the right amount of flour when you make a cake, you won’t be able to form the dough to bake it correctly.

It’s the same with dye and developer; if you don’t use exactly the right proportions, you won’t get the results you were looking for.

 

 The good news is that if by any chance you’ve added too much or too little developer, don’t worry, because there is a solution.  

So, stick around, because I’ll tell you:

 

It doesn’t matter if math wasn’t exactly your favorite subject in high school because you won’t have to do any complex calculations. I’ll give you the exact perfect recipe, so your dye never fails you.

 

 

What is the exact ratio of developer to dye

Like I said at the beginning, the exact ratio of developer to dye is 1:1.

That’s why, if you prefer to buy the tube of dye and developer separately, you’ll need to use the following rule:

Now, what happens if you use a box dye color kit?

 

In that case, you don’t have to worry so much because inside that box of dye, you have the exact quantities of both products that you’ll need when it comes time to dye your hair.

It’s important that, in either case, you use the exact necessary quantities. Because, if you don’t, the products won’t be able to do what they were meant to do.

 

 The dye needs to have the exact right quantity of peroxide to be able to open your hair cuticles, allowing the new pigments to deposit.  

If you add too much developer, the pigments will end up too diluted, making the color that ends up in your hair softer and weak.

If you are looking for a vibrant red, you might end up with a pale pink, which might be a true disaster, depending on what you were looking for.

 

And if you add too little developer, the mix won’t have the strength necessary to open the cuticles to deposit the new color. The result? An uneven color that will make you have to wear hats until you can dye it all over again.

 

If you realize that you messed up the proportions when you make the mix, you still have time to fix it. And that’s what I’m about to tell you about.

 

What to do if you mess up the proportions and you use too much or too little developer in the mix

Let’s start with a hypothetical situation in which you accidentally went a little ham with the developer.

Do you remember what will happen to the dye?

 

 

So, before you use the dye or toss the mix you made, you can still fix the problem. How?

 

By adding more dye to the mix.

 If you opt to add more dye to the mix, you need to be very careful not to saturate the color. It’s a possible solution, but it’s not the easiest one. 

Because in this case, you’ll already have lost count of the quantity of each product you used.

There is a better and easier solution: Redo the mix, using the exact quantities you need.

 

You’ll need to add more developer to the dye until you end up with a homogenous and creamy mix.

 

 Many people don’t even realize that they made a mistake with the proportions until after they’ve already used the dye on their hair. 

And once they rinse the dye and dry their hair, they see the uneven color. And that is because the mix had more dye than developer, so the new pigments weren’t able to penetrate the hair cuticle fully.

Can you do something to fix that?

 

You can dye your hair again, but this time using the correct proportions of developer and dye.

My recommendation would be to wait a week to dye your hair again to avoid overwhelming it with chemicals. And during that week, you should do some hydration treatment on your hair to strengthen it.

That way, when you use the dye again, using the right proportions, you’ll do much less damage to your hair than you could otherwise.

 

Conclusions

It’s crucial that when you make the mix to dye your hair, you use the exact right ratio of dye and developer, which always is 1:1.

If you overdo it on the developer, your color will end up dim and opaque, and if you use too much dye, your color might end up taking unevenly to your hair.

Although both problems have solutions (adding a little bit of the ingredient that you added too little of originally), it’s always a better idea to toss the mix and prepare a new one, this time being very careful to use the right proportions.

 

Have you ever added too much of either developer or dye to the color mix?