How to Tone & Prevent Brassy Hair

Recently dyed your hair, but noticed brassy, orange tones creeping in and ruining your radiant new shade after a few weeks? This can happen if achieving your desired color involved lightening your hair.¹

Luckily, brassy hair can be prevented — or fixed fairly easily — at home without an expensive trip to the salon. Read on to learn how to maintain the cool tones in your hair.

What Does Brassy Hair Look Like?

Firstly, how do you know if you have brassy hair? Brassy brown hair appears as orange or red tones, while brassy blondes are affected by yellow hues.

Of course, this is fine if a warm, red-based or golden-toned color was your desired result. But if you were going for a cooler-toned shade, any warm pigments will leave you without the finish you wanted. You might notice your hair color looks faded compared to when it was freshly dyed, and that any ashy tones have been replaced by yellow or orangey hues.

What Causes Brassiness?

Brassy dyed hair can occur when your natural hair color is lifted to make way for a lighter shade. All hair naturally has some warm tones in it, and these are often what’s left when you bleach or lift your hair, as doing so can’t entirely remove the warmer pigments.¹

Other causes of brassiness in dyed hair can include hard water (water that has high mineral content, like calcium, copper and bicarbonates, which infiltrates your hair when you wash it), sun exposure and product build-up.¹

How to Prevent Dyed Hair from Turning Brassy

If you want to protect your freshly dyed, ash-toned locks from the appearance of pesky warm hues, try some of our top tips for preventing brassy dyed hair:

• Choose an ash-toned color — like Clairol Bold & Bright shade 71, a cool-toned blonde that helps to combat brassy tones.
• Go for a dye shade that’s only one or two shades lighter than your natural hair. The closer your dye is to your natural color, the less chance that those underlying warm pigments in your hair will become visible through lightning.
• Wear a hat and use a UV-protectant spray for your hair to help protect your strands from the sun’s rays.¹
• Get a filtered shower head to help prevent water impurities being absorbed into your hair.¹
• Turn down the temperature of your shower — rinsing your hair in cool water is best for maintaining your color for longer. Cool rinsing closes your hair’s cuticles, locking in moisture and preventing the color from escaping your strands. Closed cuticles also make your hair look smoother, glossier and shinier.¹
• Wash your hair less often. Frequent washing causes your dye to fade, leading to those exposed warm tones shining through faster.²
• If you swim in public pools, act quickly afterwards to protect your hair from the effects of chlorine. This chemical strips your hair of natural oils, leaving it brittle and dry — a recipe for brassiness. Consider wearing a swimming cap if you use chlorinated pools regularly, or be sure to shampoo and condition your hair as soon as you exit the pool to help ward off potential damage.¹
• Use a deep conditioning treatment at least once a week — like a hair mask or the HydraShine Conditioner that comes in your pack of Clairol Bold & Bright hair dye. Healthy hair has a better chance of retaining its color.

Find more tips for keeping your hair soft and enviably glossy in our guide, 5 Hair Care Tips to Maintain Shiny Hair.

How to Get Rid of Brassy Hair

So, what’s the best method of counteracting or neutralizing warm tones if they’ve already appeared? Here’s what to do if you detect a hint of yellow or orange in your locks:

• Get a purple shampoo or toner for brassy hair. These use purple pigments to neutralize yellowy-orange tones; as these shades are opposites on the color wheel. Let the product sit on your hair for three to five minutes to let it do its magic before you rinse it out.¹
• Use color-treated shampoo and conditioner that match your desired shade. These products deposit small amounts of color each time you wash your hair, keeping your perfect tone topped up between dyes.²
• Recharge your color between dyes with the Clairol Color Boost Glaze (only available with packs of Bold & Bright dye).

In Summary…

Your first step to combatting brassiness and keeping your hair color looking fresh is to use a dye that doesn’t fade in an instant. Clairol Bold & Bright’s TrueColorSeal Technology delivers just that – it helps prevent your color from fading so your hair stays vibrant for longer. Plus, our Bold & Bright kits contain a Color Boost Glaze to recharge your color, helping maintain your shade's radiance between dyes.

Alongside choosing a long-lasting color, prevent brassy hair by washing with cool water, reducing the frequency of your washes and using products designed to keep dyed hair looking healthy.

Explore the Clairol Bold & Bright range to find your perfect intense color.

Sources:

¹. Hannah Jeon ‘6 Ways to Prevent and Fix Brassy Hair, According to Hair Color Experts’ (07/20) https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/beauty/hair/a33278226/how-to-prevent-brassy-hair/

². Kao ‘HOW TO FIX AND PREVENT BRASSY HAIR: 10 TOP TIPS’ https://mykaoshop.com/blogs/john-frieda/how-to-correct-and-avoid-brassy-hair