This tutorial will show you how to make your own purple shampoo to use as a DIY hair toner to banish those brassy shades. It works on both bleach lightened hair and natural blonde locks.
Being blonde isn’t always easy. Achieving that perfect tone can sometimes take a lot of time and be costly, not to mention damaging to your hair.
Whether you’re a natural blonde or you lighten your hair, those yellow, brassy tones can pop up and throw off your whole look.
Enter: this incredible, quick and easy DIY hair toner.
How to get rid of yellow roots?
Toner is what you would normally use to remove any unwanted yellow or orange hues left in your hair after lightening.
With regrowth, toning for me is a must. Toning your hair is a final step that is needed to brighten your blonde and banish that yellow.
What is a hair toner?
A hair toner is a product that doesn’t alter the colour of your hair (nor take any colour away), but simply adds a tone on top of your existing shade. You can think of it as an “adjuster” in that it can help correct or adjust your hair colour by offsetting unwanted pigments.
In the salon, your stylist will apply an oxidative toner to finish off your colouring job. Oxidative toners are usually mixed with peroxide to help you achieve the result you like, but they can be damaging to your hair… especially if you bleach the crap out of it like me.
Luckily, there are safe, non-damaging, and at home methods to getting a result you are happy with!
Why a DIY purple toner works
Purple dyes or even purple shampoos are opposite yellow on the colour wheel. If you know anything about colour theory, purple and yellow are complimentary colours. When combined, the hues from the purple help cancel out the brightness of the yellow, leaving you with a cooler tone.
Since purple cancels out yellow, finding the right balance between the two will leave you with a natural, more neutral tone.
If your hair is more orange instead of yellow, you should try using a blue dye or blue shampoo instead, for the same reason being that blue and orange are complimentary colours.
The ingredients
- Any cheap conditioner of your choice
- A semi-permanent ammonia and peroxide free hair colour in a violet shade, like Manic Panic Ultra Violet cream hair colour, or my other favourite, Pravana Chromasilk Vivids in Silver
- Application brush
How to make your DIY hair toner
Squirt a bunch of conditioner into a bowl. Use as much as you think will be needed to cover your head.
Using the brush, grab a glob of the purple dye and start mixing it into the conditioner. You only need a little bit! I usually do two globs of the same amount as shown in the above photo.
The shade should be a light to medium purple.
With your brush, start applying it to your roots, sectioning off rows and coating both the top and underside as you go. You can do this to wet OR dry hair! The conditioner is great for your hair as well!
Continue the process all over your head until all of your roots are covered. If you want to, you can massage the leftovers into the rest of your hair for even coverage.
I left my ends free because they were already the shade I wanted.
Let the mixture sit on your head for about an hour. You can check it every 10 minutes or so to make sure it’s coming along nicely.
If you leave it on too long or use too much purple, you run the risk of turning your hair lilac, so the processing time will depend on your own hair.
Finally, rinse it out, but don’t shampoo. Since this is a semi-permanent colour, the more you wash your hair with shampoo, the more the colour you’ve added will fade.
You can repeat the process whenever you feel a little too brassy!
I recommend keeping a little bottle of your mixture in your shower and washing with it every couple of weeks to keep the tone fresh!
Now you can sit back and relax without worrying about your hair casting awful hues!
Update:
I created a video showing you how I touch up my hair and create a DIY silver toner. Watch it here:
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so which manic panic blue would i use?
THIS WORKED PERFECTLY THANK YOU FOR SAVING MY LIFE. MY HAIR WAS SO YELLOW NOW I LOOK AMAZING WHITE PLATINUM AWESOME.
Yay! So glad it worked for you so well 🙂
I tried this and absolutely loved the outcome!! But it doesn’t last very long and goes back to the brassiness.. Is there one that is more permanent?
I’ve been using Pravana Chromasilk Vivids in Silver with this same technique and it seems to last longer than the manic panic. It still fades, as any semi-permanent dye will the more you wash it, but I find it lasts longer :). Also try training your hair to be washed less 🙂
Could I use the blue manic panic you think? I already have some at home is why I ask.
Blue would combat orange instead of yellow 🙂
what happens if i use blue instead of purple for my ash blond hair? Can it still combat the brassiness?
What I don’t understand is why I can’t use a tiny bit of PERMANENT purple dye mixed with my PERMANENT platinum dye when I dye my hair platinum, instead if using a toner? Why doesn’t anyone do that? What is the actual problem with doing this?
Or easier buy grey problem solved
Why not the violet tone in the Chromasilk Vivids? Or is the silver a purple tone too?
The silver is a deep purple tone 🙂 .. i’m sure you could use purple as well!
I’m sorry this didn’t work for you! What products did you use if you don’t mind me asking? It’s odd that your hair turned pink with these ingredients. Depending on the porosity of your hair, the length of time to leave it on can vary as well. Have you used a purple shampoo before? This works pretty much the same way as you’re only adding a tiny bit of pigment to tone the yellow out. It should only be applied to the yellow parts to tone them, especially if you already have platinum hair.
It’s ok. I’ve since done the process again, this time on ALL my hair, and am just embracing pink for a while (good thing it’s in style right now!)
I used Argan Oil ammonia-free, semi permanent color in Pure Purple. Followed the instructions you provided exactly, just on the root areas that were brassy. I left it on for *maybe* 8 minutes when I saw the pink color start to emerge and thought it was weird, so washed out immediately.
I use Blonda Tone correcting shampoo/cond once a week, but this time it just didnt seem to get the yellow out, hence why I tried the above method.
I loved the results you got, but just wanted to heed a warning to others to test a tiny patch first, in case this happens to them! I’m lucky and work from home, so it’s not the end of the world…
The purple you are using might be too red-toned which might explain the pink. If you do end up trying again, perhaps try a different product to see if it makes a difference :). Purples with more blue in them would give your hair a lavender shade instead of pink. Leaving it on too long would turn your hair lavender so watch it carefully :). I’m glad you were able to rock the pink either way!
I just did an at-home balayage hair painting with a box bleach. Normally it comes out fairly ash, but this time it was chicken yellow (although I’m happy with the highlight placement!). I have to help my friend with a home video and really didn’t want to run to Sally’s and spend more money on a toner. Then I realized that I had a tube of Joico K Pak Vero purple dye, so I mixed it with a ton of white conditioner and it’s still sitting on my head. So far, I’m soooo happy with what I see, it’s totally toned out the brassiness. I’m even ok with a bit of purple/grey as long as that chicken yellow LEAVES! Thanks for the help! I’ll update again Once I wash it out and dry it!
Will this work on blonde highlights in brown hair? Even though I have my hair professionally colored, my highlights get so brassy before it’s time to do them again. Would this mixture have any effect on my brown hair? Anyone??
What bleach kit do you use in the first place…love that color???????
I don’t use a kit, I use Wella lightening powder and developer. check my lightening article here: http://www.thewonderforest.com/2015/06/my-guide-to-at-home-hair-dye-and-bleach.html
Can i use purple food coloring?
I would not recommend that
Thatswhat i use and my hair is white
Tried this today and it worked perfectly! My hair looks amazing!
I have splat permanent blue dye could I use that?
I tried this and obviously did something wrong. I used the manic panic purple and my regular conditioner. My roots and ends are now blue and the middle of my hair is a silvery-blonde. Do you know of anything I can do to fix the blue in my hair quickly?
Hi Jessica!
I’ve heard that Head and Shoulders shampoo will help strip out temporary colour. Try that! The more you wash it, the more it will fade as well. I wonder if your hair was different shades to begin with?
I’m really excited to try this! I was looking for a DIY remedy for my yellowish orange blonde hair.
Hi I was wondering I don’t want to dye my whole head silver but just an ombré? Will that work too or can you tell me tips on how to do it at home instead of at the salon??
Does it need to be applied with a brush or can I use gloves and apply by hand?
I hope I’m not joining this post too late. i’m eager to try this but am unsure if I should go for a purple shade or a more blue shade of color to tone my orange roots. I have medium brown hair naturally but get highlights; this most recent time visiting the salon we went for a “base break” and now my roots that were once medium brown are Orange (very close to the orange color in your photo above but they are about 2 1/2 inch roots so I feel like they are more obvious). I use a purple shampoo every time I wash (approx. 3 times a week) and I don’t feel like it is doing much to tone out the orange/brassiness. I think I will only apply this mixture to the roots as I am very happy with the blonde in the rest of my hair so should I go with the blue-er shade of Manic Panic ? and then just continue using the purple shampoo when I wash?
I tried the purple, maybe a slightly lighter color than on the picture but my hair did not take at all. I don’t know if to try a darker purple or a different color? My hair is dirty blonde.
Go to Sallys or any beauty supply store and purchase a toner.
I just did this. My hair is naturally dark brown with 40% gray. I’ve bleached it to light yellow and toned previously. I used argan oil brand in lilac and left on for 1 hour. It worked great on my whole head, but the hair around my face must be more porous or something because that hair turned lilac. But I’m okay with it.
I always loved the look of silver hair.