Toner is typically used to correct or change the tone of your hair color, especially after bleaching. When addressing gray hair, toners can help to blend the gray by adding a subtle tint. Gray Coverage: Toner is not a permanent solution for gray hair. It can mask or blend grays rather than cover them completely.
Effectiveness: If you have a small amount of grey hair or if your hair is already dyed, a toner may help blend the grey by adding a subtle hue that matches your natural or dyed color. However, it may not completely cover grey hair, especially if the grey is more prominent.
What's the best way to touch up my gray roots at home? The best way to touch up gray roots at home is with a root touch up kit or root concealer that contains a permanent, cream-based color or dye with 100% gray coverage.
You can fix brassy and yellow roots with a toner by toning down to a darker shade. Toners won't lighten the hair, and if this is your goal then you will need to re-lighten the hair with bleach, not use a toner.
Yes, you can use a toner instead of a dye, especially if you have white or gray roots. Toners are typically used to adjust the tone of blonde or highlighted hair, neutralizing unwanted brassiness or yellow tones. However, they do not provide significant color change like permanent or semi-permanent dyes.
Balayage for grey hair works in a similar way to blend greys, by accentuating the natural greys you already have. As balayage uses a freehand technique that creates natural looking highlights, it's a simple way to side-step root touch-ups and creates a chic, low-maintenance look.
For those who don't have dyed hair, hair toner can still help diminish certain unwanted tones in your hair. For example, purple shampoo will reduce orange tones in blonde hair. It also acts as a top coat on your hair, so it provides a lot of shine and gloss.
Using root touch-up products to conceal greying
This can include touch-up powders, grey concealer sprays and blending brushes. Doing so will diminish the contrast between the greyer area on your crown and the dark brown shade of the rest of your hair.
You will Need to Use Bleach First
If you have dark roots, and blonde lengths, you will need to get real. You can't just apply a toner to dark roots and expect to get it up to the level of your lengths.
Pick a lighter hair colour
A lighter colour will then look better. Your hair follicles produce less pigment as you're turning older. If there's no more pigment being produced in the hair follicles, your hair turns pigmentless.
Neutral shades like soft blonde, mushroom brown, light copper, and caramel blonde balayage are the easiest to blend gray into (and maintain over time without wanting to shave your hair off).
Along with a drop in melanin production, grey hair produces less sebum – the natural oil that keeps it soft and supple. As its texture changes, your hair might feel more dry, coarse, or wiry. This means it won't absorb hair dye like it used to.
Yellow is the opposite of purple on the color wheel. So when your gray or lightened hair has unwanted yellow tones, purple shampoo acts as a toner and can cancel out brassy hues.
Whether it's gray, lavender or rose gold that you are after, using hair toner for no more than 20 minutes should give you the right balance.
You can even apply hair toner to targeted areas, such as highlights or roots, to adjust the shade.
A root smudge applies toner or gloss the same shade as your natural color or a shade slightly lighter than your natural color to your roots, “smudging” it down until it reaches your highlights.
By carefully selecting the right toner, you can neutralize any unwanted tones and enhance the overall color vibrancy of your brown hair, especially after highlighting. Additionally, toners can add shine and depth to your hair, giving it a lustrous and polished appearance.
Root cover-up sprays are among the quickest and easiest solutions for covering gray hair. These formulas contain a temporary dye that mists onto your mane, quickly concealing grays so you can go about your day. Our pick: L'Oréal Paris Magic Root Cover Up.
If they have not been previously coloring I typically suggest a colored demi-gloss treatment like View that will increase shine and camouflage the gray. Alternatively, I will suggest some strategically placed highlights/lowlights to blend the grays and diffuse their appearance.
Cool-leaning colors in light to dark shades like platinum, ash, beige, and medium blonde are especially well-suited for gray blending.
Tresch also suggests using a gloss or toner like John Frieda Colour Refreshing Gloss or dpHUE Color Boosting GLOSS+ Deep Conditioning Treatment to easily camouflage sparse gray hairs.
Less hydrogen peroxide means that it's a healthier alternative to dye. For this reason, many stylists will opt for toner. Unfortunately this formulation also means that the results are semipermanent, rather than permanent. Every 3-4 weeks, hair toner will need to be refreshed to maintain the same shine and color.
Is purple shampoo a toner? Any product that dispenses pigment to adjust hair tone can be considered a toner, and that includes purple shampoo. Its pigments work to neutralize brass.