How to remove orange undertones from hair after a permanent colour

“My hair was orange after giving me a blonde dye.” If you have a dark mane in your hands, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Therefore, today I am going to tell you how to remove the orange tone from the hair after a permanent colour. The truth is that it is a super common problem, especially on dark brown hair, but luckily it is very easy to solve.

If your problem is that your hair has been orange after bleaching, you will need to follow a few different steps. In the article how to remove orange tone from hair after bleaching I explain how.

If what you have is a yellow tone, read how to remove yellow tone from hair.

Why does hair gets orange undertones?

First of all, we need to understand the reason why orange hair is left after applying a dye.

When I applied my first blonde dye I was 16 years old and had worn my hair dyed black for a while. I remember using an 11.1 thinking it was going to be the solution to all my problems. Ha! The only thing I got is a butane orange hair. I was so embarrassed that I remember not even wanting to go to class the next day.

Luckily, those days are long from my first experiments with dyes. And today I know how to fix it because I know why it happens.

Why does hair get orange undertones after permanent colour?

As you may know, every virgin hair has a natural color and a base tone. The darker the hair the more it pulls red. The lighter the more it pulls to gray. For example, a black hair has a reddish tinge when rinsed with developer.

The developer lightens and the dye deposits the color. When a suitable dye is not used, the hair is oxidized, resulting in this ugly orange color. Therefore, the question is how to remove rusty color from hair.

Well, this is done through some kind of coloring. In this case developer is not of much use since we do not seek to clarify but to nuance. Therefore, to correct it, the dye is used: what is the coloring itself, which gives the beautiful color to the rinse of developer. However, the dye itself does not clarify. This is why we need both dye and developer when applying permanent dyes.

What happens is that in some cases the reddish or orange hue is so strong that the dye does not correct it completely. And that’s why we end up with orange hair on a dark base when we dye blonde.

Brown or dark blond hair has light orange or yellow lightening backgrounds.

Blonder hair completely loses this warm tone and the lightening nuance is completely neutral: gray. This is what we commonly know as ashes.

Ashy nuances are highly desired because they are reminiscent of the natural reflection of blond hair.

How to remove orange undertones from hair after a permanent colour

The solution to remove orange hair after dye is to apply another dye. If the color is not very exaggerated, it may be worth it with a color bath or a toner to remove the orange, but in general you will have to resort to a dye. I’ll tell you.

Can you cancel out the orange after a permanent colour with purple or blue shampoo?

There are many people who try to tone orange hair with purple or blue shampoo. But the truth is, a shampoo doesn’t have enough strength to correct a permanent dye. If it were yellow or a pale orange it could be tried, but in general, no. You can’t tone up hair that has turned orange from a permanent colour with just a shampoo.

Purple shampoo does not serve to remove a tone as strong as orange. I say it strongly in the sense that it is not as lightened as a yellow, for example.

How to tone up orange hair after permanent colour with another dye?

What dye should I use to remove the orange color? Well, to neutralize a color we must use its opposite. In this case the opposite of orange is violet or blue. For this reason, to neutralize the orange color we must look for a dye with a nuance of this color: a blue or purple tint.

This is a permanent blue hair colour. To use them as a hair toner that has remained orange after a dye, you can add them to the mixture of another blonde dye or apply them for example in a mask for a softened effect.

As an alternative to blue, we can use a purple dye to tone our dyed hair that has ended up orange. The best in terms of quality is the next one from Wella:

If blue and purple dyes do not convince you, what you can do is resort to a gray tinting ash dye:

As a last option, if the purple, blue or ash dye does not convince you, you can also reapply a blonde. But beware! This time make sure it contains an ash tinge. The ash tones in the box dyes are usually those that end in .1. It is also indicated in the color of the box (for example: “super light ash blonde”).

Here’s an example of 10.1 ash blonde dye you can use:

If you only want to remove the hue but are satisfied with the color use an ash in the same color you had. If you were already using an ash dye, try a darker shade. For example, tincture 7.1 to turn off orange usually works well. And don’t be afraid, it’s not going to darken you much because you already have it clear.

Or honestly, start using another better quality dye. Some cheap supermarket dyes tend to give more problems of orange reflections than others more expensive or sold to professionals.

Another option in this case would be to buy a 0.1 titne and add a droplet to the mixture you were already using. Again, this is a dye for sale only in commercials, you will not find it in the supermarket or drugstore.

To make a color bath or toner, use the same dye but with a developer of less volumes, apply with wet hair for 10 minutes. That should be enough for this kind of technique.

If the problem is that it was orange and also darker, what you can is what you expected, you can do two things:

• use a lighter dye than you used and also ash, or
• Bleach your hair to get the tone height you want.

If you choose to bleach, for example, to go from orange hair to platinum blonde, then you will have to nuance, of course.

If you wear yellow hair it may be possible to tone only with a shampoo, but correcting an orange with a purple shampoo is not possible. I tell you how to remove yellow tone from hair.

Finally, remember that, over time, hair always tends to orange and yellow highlights due to the developer of the dyes. To counteract it, you can use a purple shampoo in order to maintain the tone.

How to cancel out orange undertones on dyed hair with bleaching

That is the general recommendation. Now, you have to take into account if what you want is:

• tone an orange so that it is not so loud and that it is light brown or dark blonde, or
• lighten hair to a lighter shade.

the solution will be to bleach the hair.

If you are facing a case of hair that has turned very strong orange or you wanted to get to a blonde that did not lift enough, the safest option is to bleach.

Here is a post on how to bleach your hair at home step by step.

If you do not want to damage the hair, you can only do some highlights. The density and quantity will depend on how much you want to lighten or correct the orange.

In this post you have my review about this bleaching powder. They protect the hair a lot and lift many shades. I love them.

How to cancel out orange tones from hair after using chamomile

Sometimes it also happens that the hair is orange because of the chamomile. If we try to lighten a very dark hair with chamomile, the only thing we will get is to end up with very unflattering coppery reflections. If this is your case, follow the same instructions that I tell you below. As if it were a dye applied incorrectly.

And now you know how to remove orange tone from hair after a permanent colour. As you can see, the most common solution to fix it is usually ash dye to remove orange. And if you need something more intense, you’re probably going to have to bleach out.

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Until next time, my darlings!

Deliria Rose