by Maffew James

Created on: January 22, 2009   Last Updated: November 06, 2011

Beautiful blonde hair turns heads, and inspires confidence in yourself. It is an alluring colour, and that is why most people are driven to it, but dyeing your hair blonde is not an easy task, and should not be taken lightly. To do so could be the difference between stepping out of the shower with enchanting flowing locks or a singed ginger mess.

Why does hair turn orange?

Hair colour is comprised of a combination of different colours that give it its natural shade. In the case of dark hair, it has a predominance of yellow and red pigments to form a strong base. When the blue tones that neutralise it all into a brown or black colour are stripped out, this leads to the hair becoming different shades of red through to palest yellow. The goal that is central to achieving blonde hair is to reach the yellow stage, as blonde hair has a yellow base. Hair turns orange when you try to go blonde because you haven't reached this stage yet.

This can occur due to either your hair being resistant to lightening, or the product used not being strong enough. Dark hair can not and should not be dyed blonde using drug store box dyes. The only products able to achieve a blonde colour in dark hair are salon high lift dyes or bleach. Using box dyes will only lift 2 - 3 levels at most, and likely not even that, at which point a dark brown will only be as light as a light brown, which has a base of orange, and hence you can't tone it to blonde.

How is orange hair corrected?

Orange hair can be corrected in a few ways. The easiest and most obvious way is to dye over it with a darker colour, but you've already put your hair through the stress of getting it orange and merely dyeing it dark again is a waste of time. Your other options are to either dye it with a tone-on-tone colour to neutralise the orange and achieve a light brown, or continue on your pursuit and strip out the rest of the colour until you reach the yellow stage.

Toning the orange out

In the same way that violet neutralises yellow colour, orange hair can be toned out to reach a neutral light brown shade. This is best achieved by applying a demi-permanent ash colour two levels lighter than your current level. If you're not sure what level your hair is, you can either ask a hairdresser or judge it against a colour chart online as best you can. Hair that has reached the orange stage is usually around a level 5 or 6, and an 8.1 ash dye should suffice. The purpose of using a demi-permanent colour is so that if you feel like

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