If you’re looking to dye your hair, you’re going to need toner. This article will aim to answer all of your questions about toner, helping you establish how long to leave toner in your hair, its benefits, and how to apply it.
How long you should leave toner on your hair depends on your hair’s health, the brand you’re using, and the color you’re going for. It can be anywhere from five minutes to forty-five minutes for toner to process. You should not exceed forty-five minutes. An average is between fifteen to twenty minutes for leaving toner on your hair.
What is Toner?
You’ll likely already know that if you’re looking to color your hair blonde, you’ll need to bleach it.
But you’re also likely to need a toner. Similarly, if you’re going brunette, you’ll need a toner.
Toner neutralizes any unwanted tones in your locks and plays a key role in maintaining the overall health of your strands.
If your hair color is too warm or cold, toner can fix that. It may also add shine and softness to your tresses, as well as reduce split ends.
Essentially, toner is your best friend if you’re a keen fan of coloring your hair.
Toners are usually a gel or gloss formula. They’ll work to neutralize any tones in your hair that won’t work with your new look, or will emphasize any colors that do complement your new coloring.
Toners, by the way, aren’t one specific product. They can be tinted shampoos or conditioners, glosses, and demi-permanent colors.
All hair has red and orange pigment running through it (unless it’s a very cool, icy blonde originally).
It’s these pigmented tones that bleach works to lift away. However, bleached hair can still leave your hair with unpleasant coloration.
If you’ve gone blonde, for example, you could find yourself with straw-like yellow hair or brassiness. Even newly brunette tresses can look somewhat orange and brassy.
That’s what toner aims to reduce – or correct, which is why it can be called a color corrector.
It will remove and minimize any warm or cool tones from your hair – depending on what look you’re going for – thereby helping you to achieve a more natural look.
The most important thing to remember regarding toner is that you have to choose one that sits on the opposite side of the color wheel to your chosen dye color.
That way, the toner balances out any discoloration.
What Type Of Toner Do I Need?
If you’ve dyed your hair brunette, you need to go for blue toning products. Blue toner reduces orange tones and brassiness.
If you’ve dyed your hair blonde, you need to go for purple or silver toning products. Purple or silver toner reduces yellow tones and brassiness.
However, if you’re going for a really dramatic change, you may need an even stronger toning product, in which case you’ll have to use an ammonia-based toner.
We detail more on that below, so keep reading.
How Long To Leave Toner On Hair?
If you’ve ever wondered how long you should be leaving toner in your hair, you’re not alone.
It depends on whether you’re using an at-home or professional toner, and how light your hair is. Lighter hair means that your toner needs to be left in for less time.
It also depends on your hair’s health, the color you want, and the brand you’re using.
Generally, you should aim for anything between five minutes to forty-five minutes for the toner to process.
A good rule of thumb is to start out with ten minutes and see what the color looks like.
Don’t exceed forty-five minutes without washing off the toner.
How Does Toner Work With Bleach?
If you head to a salon and need to bleach your hair, your stylist will determine how much bleach you need based on the hair color you’re starting at and how light you want to go.
This will usually be based on a scale of one to ten.
If your stylist plans to lighten your hair any higher than a level eight, you’ll definitely need toner.
This will balance out any warm tones which are always present in darker hair, reducing any brassiness and helping to bring out the shine and luster of your newly colored locks.
It will also mean that your newly blonde hair will look more natural and less yellow or even orange.
Benefits Of Hair Toner
It Provides Shine
If your toner is acid-based it will reflect the light, which makes your hair appear more shiny and glossy.
Toner Ads Volume
Similarly, toner works to add volume and body to your hair.
It does this by plumping your hair cuticle, making it fuller and therefore giving your locks more volume. It also seals the cuticle, too, which gives your locks some shine.
Toner Enhances Hair Color
Your dye will do very little without toner.
Toner works to add dimension to your color, making your locks warmer or cooler depending on how you’re dyeing them.
It also neutralizes any unwelcome shades and works to combat brassiness in the hair.
Toner Can Strengthen Hair
Toner can actually add strength to your strands. It creates a protective barrier around them, which will combat environmental stressors for a time, as well as helping to balance your hair’s overall porosity.
The Difference Between Home And Professional Toners
Inevitably, there is a difference between at-home and professional toners:
Salon Toners
When you head to a salon, your stylist will personalize the toner and color to suit you.
They’re professionally trained in ensuring that you come away with the best look, working to bring out either warm or cool tones depending on your color of choice, and correcting any colors that don’t compliment you.
Salon toners aren’t pre-formulated – your stylist will customize them according to what you’re going for.
They will therefore also tend to be much stronger, so shouldn’t be left on your hair for longer than 20 minutes.
At Home Toners
As mentioned, products like purple, silver or blue shampoos and conditioners are technically at-home toners.
They minimize or neutralize unwanted tones in your hair appearing between dye treatments.
You may also be able to purchase toning drops which can be mixed into haircare you’re already using in order to add a little toning maintenance to your daily routine.
You can purchase some salon toners for use at home, but unless you’re an old hand at bleaching, dyeing, and toning your hair, we don’t recommend doing so.
If any of these steps go awry, you could end up with streaky, patchy, or even seriously damaged hair. Remember, too, that you should always patch test.
What Happens If You Leave Toner In Your Hair For Too Long?
You need to be keeping an eye on the timer when you’re using toner. If you leave it on for too long, you may end up with purple, silver, or blue hair, without having intended it.
When Should You Use A Toner?
Anytime that you’re looking to bleach your hair, you’ll need to use a toner in order to bring out the colors that you want and neutralize yellow, red, and orange pigmentation.
Toner can be used on your roots or highlights. It’s important to remember these guidelines when approaching toner.
Neutralizing brassiness
If your main aim is to get rid of any unsightly brassiness or orange tones, you need a blue toner with lighter, ashy tones.
Lightening hair
If you’re looking for that cool-as-ice look, you need ice white tones in your toner, and to follow up with a purple shampoo that will minimize any straw-like yellow or orange colors coming through.
How Should You Use Toner?
Remember, we advise researching what kind of toner would best suit your circumstances, depending on your hair health, starting color, and the color you want to achieve.
Otherwise, these are the steps for using toner:
1. Using a 1:2 ratio, mix your toner and developer.
2. Work this mixture into your hair, paying particular attention to areas where you’ve noticed brassiness or unwanted shades. Using an applicator brush can help.
3. Leave for up to forty-five minutes before washing out. Follow up with a deep conditioner in order to restore moisture.
How Often Should You Use Toner?
Color fade is natural, and blonde hair will eventually start to develop brassy tones.
How often you should use toner depends on how frequently you wash your hair – over-washing will lead to faster color fade, and you may therefore need to use toner with greater frequency.
Aim to use a toner every six to eight weeks.
How Do You Know Which Type Of Toner To Use?
We mentioned the color wheel above, which is important when knowing which toner is right for you.
You want to use a toner that’s on the opposite side of the wheel to the tone you’re trying to remove, so that it balances out.
Green balances out red, blue balances out orange, and purple balances out yellow.
Remember that you may need an ammonia-based toner.
We’d only recommend using these if you have extensive knowledge of the color wheel and experience using toner.
Otherwise, you may end up with hair that’s colored totally wrong – like an awful green, for example.
Maintaining Toned Hair
There are a number of things that can result in your new look changing colors.
Color will inevitably fade over time, but environmental factors like exposure to UV rays and chlorine or saltwater, air pollution, and the hardness of your water will also impact your look.
There are ways to maintain toner hair, however:
Use Haircare For Color Treated Hair
This is something of a no-brainer. In order to make your new color last longer, you should use products designed to maintain it.
Purple or silver shampoos and conditioners are important for hair that’s dyed blonde; blue-tinted haircare products are important for hair that’s dyed brunette.
Use A UV-Protectant
It’s not just your skin that needs protection from the sun. Direct sunlight will cause your color to fade, but using a UV spray that’s designed specifically for hair can help to reduce this.
Avoid Swimming
Chlorine and saltwater will react with your toned and colored hair and may cause streakiness or color fade. Chlorine can actually also turn blonde hair green, too.
Avoiding swimming will minimize color fade. If you are a keen swimmer, remember to wear a swim cap. They may not be glamorous, but your hair will thank you.
Avoid Heating Tools
Yes, we love a flat iron and a curling wand too, but heating tools can really damage hair and contribute to major color fade if used unwisely.
At the very least, use a heat protectant prior to using your tool, so as to minimize any fade or other damage.
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