The key to fixing orange hair is usually to neutralise the orange with its opposite colour – blue. Here are some tried and trusted tips we've curated to banish your orange strands at home.
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.
Grays. If you're looking to tone things down a notch, grays are your go-to. Gray, with its cool undertones, can mellow the boldness of orange wood without diminishing its charm. It's like putting on a stylish pair of glasses—it adds sophistication to the look without stealing the show.
As you can see from the color wheel, the color opposite to orange it on the color wheel is blue, as well as blue-green. So the way to neutralize the orange would therefore be to use blue-based colors.
mix in some colour corrector. if the foundation appears more orange, add in some light blue corrector and use the foundation as normal. since blue is opposite to orange on the colour wheel, blue will neutralise the orange tones in the foundation.
Match Your Foundation and Setting Powder
It can also help neutralize your foundation as it oxidizes to prevent an orange appearance. Opting for a setting powder from the same brand as your foundation can also prevent an orange-hued face.
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.
Use Purple or Blue Shampoos
It's a simple matter of color theory, relying on the complementary colors of a color wheel to cancel out unwanted tones. 3 "Using a color-correcting purple shampoo will undoubtedly cancel out the overly warm, orange tones and keep that cooler, brighter blonde you desire," says Cunningham.
Just as a purple shampoo neutralises brassy tones on blondes, using a blue shampoo on brown hair neutralises orange and red tones for brunettes.
Just look at Orange, then look at the color on the opposite side … that's the opposite. On a traditional Red-Blue-Yellow color wheel from your painting or art class, Orange is created by mixing Yellow and Red. To create the opposite you just have to consider the one primary color you're missing: Blue.
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.
When a color is too bright and needs to be toned down, or you want to create a shadow, mix a small amount of the color opposite on the color wheel to “neutralize” the color. For example, add a small amount of ultramarine blue to cadmium orange to take a little of the fire out of the orange.
Blonde blends better with grey
Grey hair in blonde hair or grey roots in blonde hair blends better than with darker hair. So blonde is a good choice if you want to make your grey hair or grey roots less noticeable.
The key to fixing orange hair is usually to neutralise the orange with its opposite colour – blue.
Whether you're using purple shampoo, blue shampoo, or another hair toner, it is usually a simple fix that will get rid of the orange or yellow brassiness without you having to book another salon appointment.
BLUE PRODUCTS
Similar to the super popular purple shampoos for blondes, blue shampoos & masks are perfect for reducing orange tones in your hair. These work because they are opposite on the colour wheel from orange, so when the two are mixed together they cancel eachother out.
Blue is the best color to cancel out unwanted orange tones in lightened brunette hair. If you're brushed up on color theory, you can probably suss out why. If not, we'll explain. Blue sits directly across from orange on the color wheel (making them complementary colors).
For lightened brunettes and dark blondes, a blue toner for orange hair—namely, blue shampoo—will be your best friend. As you can probably imagine, blue shampoo contains cobalt-colored pigments that help offset orange and other copper-leaning tones.
Softer orange shades, such as peach, coral and salmon, are friendlier and more soothing. But for many, it is a hard colour to pull off. Orange sparks more controversy than any other colour and generally elicits a stronger “love it” or “hate it” response.
Blues help to balance out orange on the skin. An overly orange complexion as well as any orange-hued dark spots of hyperpigmentation can be corrected with a blue color corrector. Like the green concealer, blue can be used on any skin tone.
It all goes back to the basic principles of the color wheel; blue and green fall directly opposite from red and orange, which means that the cooler blue and green tones will neutralize and counteract the warmer ones, says Dupuis.
Blonde Highlights
There are three reasons we recommend blonde highlights when covering grays. First up, the difference between blonde and silver is subtle, so gray roots won't appear as visible – even if it's been six to eight weeks since your client's last appointment.