Advice needed on toning

Purple is fine, but on hair with that much yellow/orange it in, you'll never get a pretty lilac fade I'm afraid 🙁

Pigments in hair dye tend to wash out at different rates. Pink in purple tones tend to wash out faster than blue, so rather than being a perfect faded version of the colour you put in originally, you'll have a far more blue toned colour. Possibly all blue. Mixed with a yellow base that might make a pleasant green, but as your hair has some orange in it, that makes it muddy.

Blue and orange are opposite on the colour wheel, that means they compliment each other well and one makes the other "pop". However, mix them and they neutralise each other into non-colour, so anything from cancelling each other out, like when you use purple to neutralise pale yellow, to muddy brown, to black. So, red/pink and green are the same, yellow and purple. Think of it as a primary colour (blue) and then the secondary colour (orange) that is on the opposite side of the colour wheel.

That being said, and going back to my first sentence, if the colour in the first place is much darker than the colour you're going to put it on, it'll work fine, but the fade will be tricky. You might be lucky, but not always.

Now, Rich Amber should be fine. It's on the red scale enough I don't think the orange will be a problem. Toning won't hurt, but it won't help the fade much. I don't know how well Rich Amber fades, so I can't say what will happen. Green isn't too likely, but I can't rule it out as there is still blue in the dye and red washes out far faster than blue. If anything, I'd probably keep topping up with a little pink in your conditioner with each wash. If you want it to fade out entirely, you're likely to get a bit of a weird fade at some point!

Thank you so much for your reply, I understand a bit better now. I think I'll bleach bath my roots then just put the amber on. Could I be a bit more of a pain and ask if the adore pink blush would be suitable and do I literally just put a couple of drops in my conditioner? Thanks again 🙂

Yeah, I think that would work.

There’s a couple of ways of doing this. If you just want to mix it up each wash, get a pin and dip it into the pink, don’t scoop, just dip! Smear that into the amount of conditioner you’re going to use and mix it in. You probably won’t need more than that. If it’s super pale pink, add a little more.

If you want to mix up enough to last, pour out the bottle of conditioner and out in a few drops, mix. Add more until it’s got a definite pick colour, but not super bright.

When you’re using it, leave it in for t mins or so. The amounts you mix and how much you use will be trial and error, so start off light and build up.

And I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before, I’ll blame tiredness! If you just want to keep the colour fresh and not fading, do the same as above but with the rush amber!

Thanks Janine, I'll definitely add the amber to each condition! It's the first time in years I'll have had a natural colour, not sure how long it'll last lol

lol yeah, I try every few years to go "natural". It never lasts! Good luck 😀

I’m not even sure why I’m trying natural, probably the shock of being swampy the past few months lol!

Do not force it too quickly with the bleach, as someone else says. Try the Platinum Color Filler for Vibrant Proteins. It's a colour corrector that acts to eliminate brassiness and restore it. Without stressing my already damaged hair, I tried everything to remove the orange. In reality, this stuff kept my hair from falling off in my hands and my outcomes were even more dramatic. It won’t lift, but it may help you resist the urge to bleach again too soon.

Hope it will help you...!!

I just bleach bathed my roots and put the rich amber on. I will get a picture in daylight but it covered perfectly!! I am so chuffed and as my hair always sucks up the red it still looks a bit "out there" rather than the boring brown I was expecting 🙂

That's awesome! I'm so glad you got a result you're happy with!

This makes them very happy ... 😉