Brassy Hair: What Causes it and How to Get Rid of It

We here at oVertone are passionate about color theory, which is why we are super excited by our latest additions: meet our Toning Conditioners.

If you’ve ever left the salon loving your blonde, but finding that it’s morphed into a combination of yellow, orange, or red (aka warm tones), your hair has become brassy, and it’s time you toned. Toning corrects the warmer tones by adding in cooler tones, and increases the overall shine level of your hair. 

Considering the impact toning can make on your hair, it’s surprisingly simple—especially with oVertone’s new Toning Conditioners. It’s probably the easiest way to maintain your salon color at home. 

What Is Brassy Hair?

Brassy hair can happen with bleached or lightened your hair. When you bleach or lighten your hair, the warm tones from your natural color have a tendency to come out. The biggest culprit of brassy hair is lightening dark hair, because darker hair naturally contains more warm tones. 

How Do I Get Rid Of Brassy Hair?

All it takes is a little color theory know-how. If you’re struggling with brassy hair, the good news is, it can be easily corrected at home with oVertone’s Toning Conditioners. The important thing is to choose the right shade!

Why Toning Conditioner and not shampoo?

You may already be familiar with purple toning shampoos that many committed blondes use . We wanted to continue to lean into oVertone’s life-long love affair with hydrating and nourishing products. Shampooing with warm water opens up the cuticle of your hair, which allows our Toning Conditioners to deposit pigment when your hair is most porous—towards the end of your shower. Also, toning shampoos tend to be drying, and our Toning Conditioners are specifically formulated to moisturize and restore hair health.

Our Most Important Tips: 

Choose The Right Color

It’s important to choose the right cool shade to balance out warm tones. Your best go-to for figuring out what cool tone to use is the color wheel (see below). Colors on the opposite side of yellow or orange are the cool tones you’re looking for. That’s why we recommend our Blue Toning Conditioner for brassy orange undertones, and our Purple Toning Conditioner for brassy yellow undertones. 

Prevent It From Happening In The First Place

While it might not be possible to COMPLETELY avoid brassiness, there are steps you can take to prevent it as much as possible. One of the biggest ways to avoid brassy hair is to avoid products with sulfates – an ingredient you won’t find anywhere near oVertone products. Sulfates have the tendency to strip away dyed color and heavily contribute to brassiness. We recommend checking out our post about how sulfates mess with your colored hair. 

Day to day conditions can also contribute to brassiness. A day out in the sun and swimming in the pool or an ocean can definitely be the culprits behind an unexpected color change. Look for leave-in conditioners with UV protection, and check out our blog on how to protect your color when swimming. 

Another common cause of brassiness or other color shift is hard water – which basically means high mineral content in tap water. Many people live in places where the mineral content in the shower water is high. Installing a shower filter can help to reduce the mineral content, which will help protect your color in between refreshes with your favorite oVertone color products.

Do A Strand Test Before Committing

Obviously, we always recommend strand testing, but especially when toning, it’s absolutely essential in order to know if you’re using the right color, or how long to leave it on. 

Rinse after 2-3 minutes

We weren’t kidding when we said toning is easy with oVertone. Once hair is saturated, no need to let it sit like you normally would with our Coloring Conditioners. Simply rinse out after 2-3 minutes. 

If you’ve recently lightened or bleached your hair and it’s beginning to turn into a color you can’t stand — don’t worry. Toning is non-damaging and can quickly return your hair to the cool color you love.

Shop Toning Conditioners