To tone orange hair, the best color toner to use is typically a blue or blue-violet toner. This is because blue is directly opposite orange on the color wheel, which helps neutralize the unwanted warm tones in your hair. Here are some options:
To cancel out brassy orange hair, you should use a blue toner or hair dye. In color theory, blue is opposite orange on the color wheel, which means it can neutralize the unwanted brassy tones.
Blue toning formulas can help counteract orange tones in the hair.
So, can you guess what the neutralizing color for orange is? You've got it: blue! Since red and yellow make orange, that means blue is the missing primary color. Blue and orange are complements on the color wheel, which means that blue will neutralize an orange hair color.
"Typically, when it comes to a tint, you'll find that the first thing that will fade is the orange-ness," explains Cecetaite. "Because the shade is a mixture of brown and orange, it's always the lightest color in the mixture that will fade first, so it will still stay a copper color but not as bright."
Orange is opposite blue on the color wheel. This means blue cancels out orange. If you've got dark hair with balayage, ombré or conventional highlights, if you've lightened your dark hair completely, or if you have a combination of dark and light hair with highlights, blue shampoo is your solution for brassiness.
If you have any orange left in your hair, T14 is probably the best for your hair over T18. T18 is only effective if your hair is a level 10 or higher (purely yellow). Putting the wrong toner in your hair won't necessarily harm it, but it likely won't affect the color at all.
Use Purple or Blue Shampoos
If you're looking for an at-home remedy, Kaeding suggests reaching for a blue or purple shampoo. It's a simple matter of color theory, relying on the complementary colors of a color wheel to cancel out unwanted tones.
HAIR COLOR REMOVER: Color Oops Hair Color Remover safely removes brown, black, red, and orange permanent hair dye that was dyed with a developer. Does not remove direct-application dyes or bold shades, such as pinks, purples, blues, or greens.
One of the easiest ways to tone out orange hair is by using a blue shampoo. Why blue? You may be familiar with purple shampoo, but that is for blonde hair that turns yellow. To combat orange tones you need blue to neutralize.
Orange hair to light brown: Try using a medium ash blonde hair dye, as it can help neutralize the orange tone and achieve a cool light brown hue. Another option is to wait for the orange tones to fade and apply a light brown hair dye over it, making sure to choose a shade with ash undertones to neutralize the orange.
Toning to balance out the warm tones
You can also use toners to correct the color and balance out the warm tones. By looking at color theory and choosing the opposite color of your hair in the color wheel, such as purple or blue shades, you can neutralize the yellow and orange.
Color Wheel: The color wheel shows the relationships between colors. On this wheel, blue is opposite to orange. Neutralizing Effect: When you apply a blue-based toner to hair with unwanted orange tones, the blue pigment counteracts the orange.
Directly opposite on the color wheel, blue tones are a natural fit for orange. These complementary colors look especially stunning when used in saturated shades, such as red-orange and indigo blue.
If your client's hair is on the yellow end of the orange spectrum, a violet shampoo can help to correct and neutralize their brassy hair. This is because violet sits opposite yellow on the color wheel, allowing it to cancel out those unwanted tones and leave strands beautifully balanced.
To avoid it going ginger or red then you must check what shade you are using. For example if the colour says golden, chocolate, mahogany, red, warm brown etc, these will all look 'ginger'. To achieve a rich colour, a basic shade must be added to create the depth (how dark it is).
Just as a purple shampoo neutralises brassy tones on blondes, using a blue shampoo on brown hair neutralises orange and red tones for brunettes.
For unwanted yellow tones, purple-hued products are recommended. Orange or brassy tones are best neutralized with blue, while red tones find their match in green. OVERTONE offers a range of award-winning Coloring Conditioners as well as Toning Conditioners designed specifically for these correction needs.
Put simply, hair that fades yellow is typically a dark to very light blonde. Meanwhile, orange tones usually appear in level 5, 6 or 7 hair – essentially, anything from your dark blondes Opens in a new tab to dark brunettes Opens in a new tab and redheads.
The blue pigment cancels out orange, and the purple pigment cancels out yellow. All this talk about color comes down to two important points. Blue shampoo removes orange tones from brunette or darker hair, while the purple shampoo is a great option when yellow tones appear in blonde or light-colored hair.