A couple years ago I decided I was tired of having all brown hair and that it was time for a change. In typical lazy, low-maintenance girl style, after a lot of experimentation with Target’s various hair coloring products I succeeded in getting my hair to hideous orange-brassy color. After regretting it fiercely, I finally conquered my low-maintenance self and went and got professionally done blonde highlights.
And I absolutely loved them!!
That is, until a few weeks later when they started turning brassy and the blonde did not look so blonde anymore. I was faced with a difficult choice – I wanted to keep the blonde in my hair but I also did not want to pay double digits to get it toned every few weeks. After some research, I found that apparently the way toners work is by using the color wheel and chemistry. The base of the toner is a color that is opposite of the color you want to get rid of in your hair. For example, if you want to get rid of reddish tints, you would use a green-based toner to cancel out the red since these two colors are opposite each other on the color wheel.
By this point I regained some of my adventurous spirit and I was very excited to give this a try so I started looking for a toner I could buy in the color I thought would work for me. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any toners in any of the stores I checked out, online or otherwise… So I resorted to more research for alternatives!
One of these I found was to use food coloring. Feeling like I had nothing to lose (food coloring was edible so it couldn’t be THAT bad for your hair, and in the worst case scenario the salon was only about 20 minutes and $20 away if I REALLY messed up), I decided to give it a try. Because I wanted to get the orange tints in my hair to go away, I got a violet gel food coloring and squeezed 1-2 drops to a the amount of shampoo I used for one hair wash and then applied that mixture to my hair. After making sure to leave it on all of my hair for a couple minutes, I rinsed it off (there was a lot of purple water in the shower for a few minutes, which was actually a lot of fun).
After about a week of this, I noticed that the brassiness in my hair was gone! Feeling thrilled that things were working in my favor, I kept washing my hair with the food coloring for about another week before I noticed that my hair was starting to look pink. Since that wasn’t a color I was going for, after that I started using the food coloring rinse just once a week and found a pretty decent balance in the color I wanted from my hair.
I didn’t notice any damage to my hair because of the food coloring rinses and it seemed to have a semi-permanent effect on my hair so if I didn’t “tone” it for a week or so, my hair would start turning brassy again. Overall, I thought this was a very easy, cheap, lazy, low-maintenance, and fun way to tone my now brown and blonde hair.
Low-Maintenance Guide to Survival 