Do I need to bleach all the way to pale yellow/white?

can you provide a picture of what you have now, you might be able to tone the brassiness with some direct dyes then use the color of your choice, but without a picture its hard to give suggestions

A picture would be very useful. You may be able to tone to a darker ash blonde using a blue toner (but i'm not great with blondes I'm afraid).

Just an aside, you really need to wait at least a month between bleaches, to give your hair time to recover, and give it some TLC in the meantime. Otherwise you run the risk of irreparable damage and your hair breaking off.

I do think it would be a better bet to try to tone it at least for now whilst you rest it before bleaching again.

I've heard of some people using Adore brown dyes diluted heavily with conditioner to make blonde shades but I haven't tried it myself.

Hi All!

Thanks for the replies, here are the pics (slightly different lighting). Just to let you know, I did try toning with a darker ash after lightening (just with a high-lift dye) about a month ago and it just made it a deeper auburn. I've also tried using manic panic in Ultra-Violet diluted with conditioner as a toner (after seeing this done quite well on Youtube) but it left me with some very purplish streaks & the remainder was only toned down a teeny bit. I've also tried using shimmer light a few times but this is what I'm left with...yikes!

In the meanwhile thank goodness that I'm currently working from home & the times I've had to go out I've used Roux fanci-full mousse and that's managed to do a good job but it washes out as soon as you shampoo and also leaves my hair super stiff.

I know it's probably best to wait longer before bleaching but I can't stand this color anymore! I usually wash my hair everyday (gets oily super quickly) so I've stopped washing as of yesterday & am thinking I might bleach it on Friday with coconut oil applied before & I've also purchased Ion's "Step 1 Booster" which is supposed to do wonders to protect hair while bleaching (similar to Olaplex I believe). It feels like it's in okay condition, but having said that I already have a very short pixie-type cut so I don't have much left to chop off if I damage it (fingers crossed!).

I ordered Ion's demi-permanent in level 7 (medium ash blonde) and two permanents in level 8 (Light ash blonde & cool ash blonde which has more of a violet undertone) so that I had some options. I really don't want to use any product containing PPD so this really limits my choices.

So, having seen the pics I don't know if any one has any further thoughts/suggestions??
Thanks!

Its still a little hard to get a real idea of the true color of your hair because I think the lighting is being deceiving, but with that said, your hair does look too orange. You would need to try and tone it with blue dye not purple (blue counteracts orange)but just beware its going to go darker when those tones get neutralized.

The other problem is the ion dyes notoriously come out 1-2 shades darker than expected, so I think your best bet is going to be to wait a full month from the first time you bleached and then do a bleach bath and try to lighten it further. From there you should be able to tone it to the color you want using direct dyes

Hi,
Yes, the lighting did make it look a bit more pinkish but it's really not that far off from how it looks in real life (hence, wanting to bleach it asap!).

The manic panic I tried to tone it contains both a blue & violet base so that should have done the trick. I also tried blue shampoo (Cosmepro's "light blue shade") but it didn't do much......
sooo, I'm sitting here with conconut oil slathered in my hair & will be bleaching it later! I know a lot of folks have said to wait a while but I've also read enough accounts online of people having bleached more frequently and there were no crazy disasters so I'm going to take my chances.

I also read that Ion can be darker so I selected a few levels higher than what I hope to end up with. Wish me luck!
ps - If it turns out well I'll post some update pics (& if not I'll be wearing a hat for the next few months!)  😉

Hi again,

I thought I would post the updated pics as promised. The middle pic (sorry, wrong order uploading) is after bleaching with 30vol & leaving the bleach on for ~30 mins. It turned out quite gold in colour (more so than this picture shows) but at least it seemed in good shape (I slept with coconut oil last night & added Ion's Step 1 booster to the bleach mixture).

In an attempt to tone away the bright gold I diluted manic panic's "ultraviolet" semi with a ton of conditioner and left it on, again, about 30 minutes. While it did a really good job of toning down the over all bright/brassy colour, as you can see it's left me with very purplish streaks throughout  *cat* though they don't look as bad as in the pic, but still something I wouldn't leave the house with!....So, two questions:

1) Does anyone know why only parts of my hair have picked up the especially purplish colour?, and
2) Can I use a demi (Ion's no-ammonia #7 in medium ash blonde) over the semi toner to achieve a medium ash colour without it turning my hair an awful green or something else or do I have to wait until the manic panic completely washes out?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

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