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If you are absolutely desperate, go for a gloss or a demi-permanent color, says Friedman. This is definitely not the time to be a risk-taker, and you should follow the instructions exactly as they are outlined on the box, she adds. Also, stay far away from toners that contain ammonia in the formulation — this is how people end up with orange hair. To get the full salon experience at home, this toner doubles as a gloss for shiny, perfectly toned hair. Using this product in place of a conditioner, you can reduce brassiness and tone the hair while giving it that freshly-styled shine. It’s supposed to reduce brassiness in blondes in just five minutes, but the results last a whole three weeks.
Rita Hazan True Color Ultimate Shine Gloss
These contain violet micro-pigments that neutralize unwanted yellowness, resulting in a more brilliant blonde. Brassiness on brunette hair, meanwhile, typically reads more orange than yellow. As such, toners for brown hair are usually blue in color, since blue lies across from orange on the color wheel.
How Much Do Hair Toning Services Cost?
Anyone who has ever colored their hair has likely heard about toner before. Not to be confused with the stuff you swipe on your face, hair toner is an essential part of the bleaching or highlighting process that colorists seldom skip. Here’s what it is and why it’s so important, plus a few of our favorite hair toning products to use at home. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't know much about hair toners until I asked a hairstylist or two. To sum up, they're really useful if you're trying to eliminate unwanted tones from your hair color. You absolutely need to choose the right one for your specific color, otherwise, it could end very badly.
Does Toner Only Work on Pre-Lightened or Bleached Hair?
Caster says when choosing a hair toner, you should consider the color wheel, explaining that purple neutralizes yellow and blue neutralizes orange. So, if you went from brunette to blonde, a purple shampoo toner would be your best bet to counteract those yellow tones you often see with color-treated blonde hair. However, if you are a brunette and you begin to see those orange and “brassy” tones peeking through, opt for a blue shampoo toner. If you’re a brunette, look for a green or a blue toner, like the Redken Color Extend Brownlights Shampoo, to neutralize unwanted orange or red tones. The Matrix Brass Off Toning Kit for Brunettes features a trio of products to get rid of brassiness and add more cool tones to your hair, emphasizing the brown without any of the rusty undertones. Keeping up with beautiful blonde hair can be expensive, but leave it to a beloved drugstore brand like Garnier Nutrisse to spare your wallet.
SunGlitz Beige Blonde Brightener/ Toner
When applied, the color looks like a greeny blue, but the results are bright, silvery strands. If you want a more intense color refresh, this permanent toner can give you salon-level results from home. It’s a permanent toner, which means it requires the use of a developer, which can sometimes damage fragile hair.
Most natural hair colors exist on a spectrum of blonde to black. When you bleach your hair, you’ll get lighter strands—but probably not in the exact shade you want. Once you’ve pre-lightened your hair to the appropriate level, a hair toner can help cancel out unwanted tones, allowing you (or your colorist) to create a more customized, dimensional color.
What to look for when shopping for the best toner for blonde hair
Hair Toner 101: Stylists Explain What Hair Toning Is and Why It Works - MarieClaire.com
Hair Toner 101: Stylists Explain What Hair Toning Is and Why It Works.
Posted: Fri, 17 Jun 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
In case you need more proof that hair toner is the ultimate color-saving product in your beauty arsenal, this product doubles as a top coat and hair gloss. If your hair is looking brassy, yellow, or orange, slab this on after you shampoo for shine and softness. Hair gloss, which offers a dose of temporary color and added shine to your mane. Tons of celebrities are going red, but Redway says you don't have to dye your whole head to get in on this color trend. Plus, this new Revlon product is available in 10 shades, so you can refresh your hair no matter the color.
Colorists know this, and that’s why your hair always looks slow-motion-hair-commercial-worthy after a salon session. Professionals use a toner to brighten and balance your specific blonde hue, and you should too. Toners are particularly useful for counteracting brassiness—unwanted orangey, red, and yellow shades that can make your blonde look dingy—as well as adding mirror-like shine.

According to Byrd, purple shampoos are great for blonde (natural or color-treated) or gray hair because they help counteract unwanted yellow tones. Besides being the last step in any coloring process, you can use hair toner at home to eliminate brassy tones coming through. Also, you can schedule a toner-only service in between color treatments to freshen up the hue without going through a full-color service. Toner will only last about six to eight weeks, so plan salon visits accordingly.
“Hair toner is any semi- or demi-permanent hair color that helps enhance the tone of your hair,” says hairstylist Meri Kate O’Connor, colorist at Cooper West Hollywood. And if that sounds a little general, welp, that’s because it is—hair toner is basically an umbrella term forany pigment-spiked product that cools, tones, and enhances shine. However, a toning shampoo differs from an actual toner, but they work in relatively the same way. In general, to color correct your color-treated hair with a hair toner, you should be guided by the color wheel rule and choose a shade of the toner that sits opposite the overtone on the color wheel. Thus cool-toned and blue hair toners can neutralize yellow, orange or red undertones of hair, while warmer, red-based toners will cancel out bluish and green overtones of color-treated hair.
In contrast, blue toning products are perfect for brunettes since the blue cancels out orange tones and increases luster in the hair. Magic, also known as a hair toner, helps to take out any unwanted warm or brassy tones after a color or bleach treatment. It is a product that can help personalize a color for each client. Hair toners can be in the form of toning shampoos, demi-permanent colors, or gloss. They are not meant to change the color of your hair, but to adjust it for a more natural, healthy, and shiny look.
Knowing which toner to choose for your hair comes down to the basic rules of the color wheel. Opposites attract, so say for example, you want to soften some of the warmth in your hair color, then you’d go for a toner in a shade that sits opposite your current hue on the color wheel. "It's a quick service that works wonders on hair to tone color, refresh highlights, and correct uneven tones," adds Cunningham. "When doing a root touch-up, I'll apply alkaline permanent color to the regrowth (aka roots) and acidic Redken Shades EQ Gloss to the previously colored hair, to get the best results and minimize damage." Friedman prefers to use glosses over a traditional toner to blend color together to achieve harmony between hues and because glosses are effective "on universal hair types to give hair more body with a boost of protein."
At the time of publishing, we were not able to find any toners for blonde hair from a Black-owned and/or Black-founded business. If you know of one we should consider, please email us at and we will evaluate the product ASAP. While toners were once reserved mostly for the pros, there are now a wide selection of at-home options available.