What Is A Hair Toner?
A hair toner is used to normalize or personalize a hair color by changing its undertone. You can use it to correct an unwanted warm or cool tone or add some pop to your hair color. It is mostly used with bleaching or highlighting to achieve the desired shade. Toners are often used when people want to try out cool-toned hair colors like platinum blonde, gray, or blue. They are also used to attain colors like ash brown and ash blonde.
How Does A Toner Remove Unwanted Warm Tones?
People with dark hair tend to have warm natural pigments, and people with light hair tend to pick up warm yellow tones with the regular use of sulfate shampoos, hair dyes, mineral deposits from water, and product build-up. A toner removes these pigments by using tones on the opposite end of the color spectrum to neutralize the warmth.
Brassy orange hair would require a blue toner and vice versa. Brassy yellow hair would require a purple toner and vice versa.
If you have light blonde hair that has been picking up yellow tones, a clarifying treatment that removes product and mineral deposits would be sufficient to tone your hair.
Things To Know About Toners
How To Make DIY Hair Toners At Home
Precaution: Please do a patch test to make sure your skin doesn’t feel irritated or itchy. If it turns red, itchy, or irritated, please consult a doctor before proceeding. Irritation could be an allergic reaction.
Use Ingredients From Your Kitchen
1. Baking Soda Shampoo
Baking soda shampoo makes an excellent clarifying hair treatment. This, in combination with the food color, is reported to remove product and mineral build-up while neutralizing the natural warm tones present in your hair. However, there is no scientific evidence to back this up. In fact, research shows that products with high pH (like baking soda) can increase the risk of hair breakage, cuticle damage, and frizz (1). Hence, avoid repeated use of this ingredient. Process
2. Apple Cider Vinegar Rinse
Apple cider vinegar is mildly acidic (2). Dull hair has a higher pH, and ACV can help lower the pH and restore balance to hair. Hence, it can help in getting rid of orange/yellow tones. It also acts as a deep cleanser to remove product build-up. However, there is no research to verify its efficacy. Process
3. Hollyhock Herbal Toner
Hollyhock, like apple cider vinegar, can help remove unwanted warm tones from your hair. Process
4. Lemon For Toning
Anecdotal evidence suggests that lemon can help in bleaching hair. Honey has humectant and emollient properties, which can help condition your hair (3). Using this mixture a couple of times can tone your hair to make it at least a couple of shades lighter. Process
5. Green Tea For Toning
Green tea was shown to promote hair growth in the dermal papilla cells of the scalp (4). Its green color is not too strong, which makes it a good toner. Depending on the color of your hair, you can try black or oolong tea as well. Process
6. Virgin Olive Oil
A study shows that olive oil can not only aid hair growth and prevent hair damage but also enhance the hair color (5). If you had slightly darker hair before bleaching or coloring your hair, olive oil could help darken your hair pigments to balance brassy tones. Process
7. Indigo For Toning
The dark indigo color is obtained from the indican substances from the indigofera tinctoria plant. Indigo can enhance the color and shine of your hair (6). This color will help even out brassy orange tones. Process
Hair Dye Boxes And Food Coloring
1. Ash Blonde Box Dye
Ash-toned box dyes help remove yellow/orange tones. They do this by neutralizing the warm tones with cool ones. Process
2. Purple Dye
Purple and blue are the most common colors used to tone yellow/orange hair. They are on the opposite end of the color spectrum and help neutralize the warm tones. Process
3. Green Dye
If you have brown hair or have dyed your hair brown, this is the toner for you. This toner is suitable to remove orange and red tones from brown or dark hair. Process
Why Opt For Homemade Hair Toner Solutions?
These toning solutions are not likely to get rid of strong orange tones. In such a situation, you can always get a professional to tone your hair. But light yellow tones are easy to tone out without the added expense of getting a salon treatment. Subtle changes in your hair care routine, such as switching to a sulfate-free shampoo, and regularly using clarifying treatments, go a long way when it comes to keeping warm tones out of your hair. Most of these treatments are also not as harsh as a chemical toning session would be. Keeping the warm tones out of your hair takes a bit of work, but the gorgeous color you get at the end of the day makes all the efforts worth it. How can I tone my yellow hair to ash? Yes. Use a purple or violet toner to remove yellow brassy hues and make your hair a cooler-toned ash color. You can also use natural ingredients like green tea or olive oil for the same. How do I get my yellow hair white? You can use a purple toner to turn your yellow hair white. How do I get my hair ash blonde from gold? You can use a purple shampoo or toner to remove warm gold tones and make your hair a cooler-toned ash color. How do you get snow white hair? Baking soda or apple cider vinegar are effective in removing brassy hues from gray hair, making your strands white.
