Can You Tone Your Hair Twice? Is that Bad?
Can I tone my hair twice in a day?
Or do I have to wait a week? Or even a month?
Can I tone my hair twice?
Yes and no.
Can you? Yes!
Should you? No.
You can but it’s not healthy to tone more than once in one day.
Why tone your hair?
Toner is used to counteract excess copper, gold, green, or even green out of hair.
So, if your hair is fading to a more brassy or yellow tone and is bothering you, it might be time to use some toner.
How Much Does a Hair Color Correction Cost?
What is Toner?
Every hair color has an undertone. It goes back to the basics of the color wheel.
Red, Blue, and Yellow are the primary colors and all other colors are made with these colors.
When hair is lifted (lightened) you can fairly easily see the undertone of the hair. Which primary color is hiding underneath your beautiful black, brown, or blonde hair.
Black hair has an undertone of blue, until you try to lift it. The bleach will leave the undertone more of an orange (red and yellow).
Brown will lift and have undertones of orange, yellow, or occasionally green.
Blonde hair will almost always lift and have undertones of yellow.
Toner is used to change the undertone that you see in your hair that you dislike.
Can You Tone Your Hair Twice? – The Color Wheel
Toning works by neutralizing the color that you see in the hair.
If there is too much brass or copper (orange) in the hair and you’d like to tone it out, you would use the opposite of orange on the color wheel, which is blue.
Blue counteracts Orange.
Opposite of yellow on the color wheel is purple.
Purple counteracts yellow.
So does this mean that purple shampoo might help if there’s copper in the hair? Well, what is purple made from? Blue and red, right? And the opposite of orange is blue, therefore yes, a purple shampoo will help tone out copper or brassiness in the hair.
How to Use Purple Shampoo to Tone Hair
Opposite of red is green. So if there is too much red in the hair you can counter that with green, and vice-versa. Too much green can be countered with red.
When in doubt, consult the wheel! It never lies.
The Color Wheel Memory Trick
🎄 Red and Green- Christmas colors.
🏈 Blue and Orange- Broncos colors (come on football fans!).
💐 Yellow and Purple- Easter colors.
How to Use Toner
First of all, consult your hairstylist and haircare professional. They know your hair and how it reacts to chemicals and whether it will be able to withstand the chemical damage of a toner.
Testing the Integrity of Your Hair Yourself
Testing the integrity of your hair just means seeing how damaged the hair already is and if it can take the chemical damage of toner. But we’ll get into the chemical damage here in a minute.
Take a good look at your hair.
🛑 Is it frizzy? Where is it frizzy? Is it frizzing because it’s dry or because the cuticle is cracked and broken?
If the cuticle is broken, this means that the outer shell of the hair strands themselves cannot hold moisture, will lose the toner quickly meaning that it will fade very quickly. Whether the damage is from previous chemicals, bleach or color, or even just split ends that have traveled up the hair strand and continue to break.
Do Split Ends Stop Hair Growth?
✔️ Is the hair smooth and does not have split ends at the end of the hair or at the midshaft? Then a toner will not damage the hair so that it can’t be repaired.
🛑 When you pull on a hair strand, does it stretch? When the hair stretches this indicates that the elasticity of the hair has been compromised and any kind of chemical treatment will irreparably damage the hair further and will cause the hair to melt and tear off.
This goes for when the hair is wet too! Hair becomes especially elastic when it is wet.
✔️ Does the hair not stretch but stay strong when you pull on it? And it doesn’t stretch when it’s wet either? Then it passes the elasticity test!
🛑 The last toner was done less than a week ago. Allowing your hair to be chemically changed more than once, (so when you tone your hair twice) the cuticle is chemically lifted, which is different than repetitive heat-lifting the cuticle causing more damage than is repairable.
✔️ It’s been at least two weeks since applying your last toner.
What Happens if You Tone Your Hair Twice?
Toner is generally a demi or semi-permanent color used with a 10 volume developer, and typically ammonia-free, but not always.
The main ingredient in the developer is hydrogen peroxide, which chemically opens the cuticle of the hair strand and drives the color (toner) into the hair strand so that the artificial pigment in the color will cling to the natural pigment in the strand. Thus, toning the hair.
Permanent toners are generally applied with a 20 volume developer.
Repetitively chemically opening the cuticle will damage the cuticle more than heat-lifting the cuticle because it lets out moisture and dehydrates your hair. The dryer your hair the more brittle it is and is prone to breaking.
The stronger the developer the longer the cuticle will be lifted and the more intense the chemical.
How Can I Get My Hair Ready for a Second Toning?
Allowing the hair to rest and recover for at least two weeks before toning your hair a second time is the minimum amount of time to wait.
Toner will fade over time, and will typically last 4-8 weeks or so. Whether your hair is perfect the first time it’s toned or if you feel that you need a second toner application there are things you can do to prepare your hair for the next treatment.
Using a flaxseed gel mask Best Hair Mask for All Hair Types and consistently using a leave-in conditioner on your hair will help your hair recover and be ready for the next toner or color treatment.
Can You Tone Your Hair Twice if it’s Still Yellow?
Again, if it’s been less than two weeks, you should not tone your hair twice even if it’s still yellow.
There is another method of toning your hair if your hair is still yellow or a little brassy.
How to Use Purple Shampoo to Tone Hair
And you can find toning shampoos for your needs even if it’s not purple!
You should know, that over-toning your hair with toning shampoo is also possible.
Be sure that you only use the toning shampoo when you need it, not as a primary shampoo. If you over-tone, the hair will start to look whatever color you are toning with (especially purple).
To Sum Up
Allow at least two weeks and consistent hydrating masks to help your hair recover before toning a second time.
Consult the color wheel again if you need help deciding which toner you need. Remember the color wheel trick to remember what neutralizing toner you need. Christmas, Broncos, and Easter.
Test your hair’s integrity before toning your hair.
My Hair Won’t Hold Color- Why and What To Do About It
Can you Lighten Hair with Just Developer?
How Long Can you Leave Toner on Hair?
Ash vs Neutral Hair Color – How to choose & use them properly