Can I Tone My Hair Twice? | Yes & No

“Can I tone my hair twice?” Surprisingly, this is a question that we get pretty often. While it may seem like a simple hair product, toner can damage your hair if used improperly. Learn how often to use it below.

Can You Tone Your Hair Twice?

If you’ve been dyeing your hair chances are you’ll also need to tone it. If you still don’t have your desired color range you may be wondering “can I tone my hair twice?” 

That makes sense… you’re eager to get results, but over-toning your hair isn’t ideal. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t tone your hair again.

The short answer is yes, you can. But you should wait wat least 2 weeks between applications. We’ll go over how, when, and why, to ideally tone your hair in greater detail below.

What Is Toning Your Hair?

If you simply clicked on this article without looking for it you may be wondering what toning even does. Much like hair dye toner deposits color into your hair but instead of changing the color completely, it’s used to even out the tone of your current (dyed) hair.

You may want to use toner to even out, or remove, brassy or overly-warm undertones in your dyed hair. 

For example, if you’ve decided to go blonde the bleaching process can leave you with unnaturally yellow or even orange hair. Using a toning shampoo can remove the leftover oranges and give you an ashier, whiter, even look.

Read Next: What Is Hair Toner?

Types of Toner

Toner is anything you can use to change your hair’s undertones. Tinted shampoos and conditioners, glosses, and even semi-permanent dyes can serve as a toner. They’re not meant to completely change hair color.

You use toner to tweak your current shade which can dramatically change your look but not alter the entire color. As an example, you can use a toner to go from yellow-blonde to platinum blonde. 

Gloss

A gloss treatment for your hair is usually used to make it, well, glossy. It’s supposed to help make your hair shinier. When you add some pigment to the treatment it can also be used to brighten, darken, or even your existing color. 

Colored Shampoo

Colored shampoos contain a colored pigment that you can deposit on top of your dyed hair when you wash it. For example, purple shampoo has purple pigment.

The color is used to neutralize unwanted or unnatural shades that can appear after a fresh dye job or as the dye starts to fade. Colored shampoos are only semi-permanent coloring.

You pick a colored shampoo based on what pigments you need to neutralize. So, for purple shampoo, purple is the opposite of yellow on the color wheel.

If you have overly lemon hair that you’d like to tone down, make it more natural, or even bring all the way to white, then you can use purple shampoo to cancel out the yellow.

Ammonia Based Toner

Ammonia-based toners are actual dyes that will change the color of your hair shaft. You may need to use this if your original dye job is so far from what you wanted that you need to re-dye your hair. 

It works the same as the other options but is a bit more heavy-duty. You need to pick your color based on the opposite of what color you want to be neutralized. If you’re trying to get rid of, say, orange tones, then you’ll want blue toner. 

What Color Toner Do I Need?

If you’re looking to use any of these treatments to even out your hair shade, the color toner will change based on what pigments you need to neutralize.

Toner for Very Light or Blonde Hair

If you’ve recently bleached your hair and would like to remove brassiness, then you can wash it with purple shampoo. As bleach fades, it reveals very brassy, yellow tones. You can neutralize these bold colors with purple- the opposite of yellow on the color wheel. 

Neutralizing the colors will keep your hair light but overall more natural. You can get an ashy to platinum blonde look based on how much toner you use and how often you use it. 

Toner for Brunettes

Brunettes can use purple shampoo if you have color-treated hair or highlights. You can even apply the purple shampoo just to the highlighted pieces to even them out. However, if you have an entire head of brunette hair, purple shampoo won’t do anything. 

If you want to change the look of your brunette locks (without additional dye), then you can use blue shampoo.

Natural brunette hair has warm, orange, and red undertones. If you want to even out your look while cooling off your overall color, you can use blue shampoo. It won’t be super dramatic, but after a few washes, you’ll notice a change. 

How Often You Should Use Toner

Now that you know all about toner and you’ve picked the right one let’s discuss how often it should be applied. You may be tempted to use it every day- especially if you’re unhappy with your current hair shade.

However, toning, even with a tinted shampoo (which isn’t as bad as dye), is a chemical process that will affect your already treated hair. You should use a toning shampoo a max of once a week. Ideally, you would wait 2-4 weeks between uses. 

You want to prevent breakage and severe damage to your hair and scalp. If you already see signs of dryness and brittleness in your hair, you should wait 6-8 weeks before applying anything new to your hair. 

Things to Consider

If you want to even out your hair color by toning it, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Don’t overdo it. You shouldn’t be toning twice a day or even twice a week. A tinted shampoo shouldn’t be used more than 1-2 times per week. 
• Ideally, you would wait at least two weeks after your dye job before applying any toner at all. And only if you feel you need to. At least four weeks would be safest for hair health. 
• Some toners will dry out your hair, make sure not to overuse these, but also do some deep conditioning with a color-safe conditioner. 
• There are other ways to make color last. Wash hair in cold or lukewarm water, use color-safe shampoos, use a toning shampoo once a week or every other week. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the most asked questions about toning your hair:

So, Should You Tone Your Hair Twice? 

So, can you tone your hair twice? In short, yes you can. But don’t tone your hair any more often than once a week. If possible, try to space it out by at least two weeks between toning.

This should be 4-6 weeks if you’re using an ammonia-based toner or if your hair is already dry and brittle. You can tone your hair as much as you want as long as you space it out properly and pay attention to hair health. 

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