how long to leave toner in hair? [Easy guide]
If you are wondering how long to leave toner in hair, you are in the right article. Toner is what gives color to bleached hair. If you don’t tone your hair properly after a bleach, your hair will look brassy and orange.
The most important thing for the toner to be effective is that you formulate it correctly so that it gives you the results you expect. The good thing is that applying the toner is a super quick and easy process.
If you have blonde hair, you should let the toner act between 5 and 15 minutes to achieve good neutralization without overpigmenting. In case you want to apply a toner to fill in a color, darken or intensify it, you should leave the toner current for at least 20 minutes.
How long you should really let it act depends on your hair type and the color you have prepared. Another important point to keep in mind is that you really apply a toner and not a permanent dye to tone your hair.
In this article I will share everything you need to know about toners, from how long you should let them act to how to apply them step by step.
How long should I leave toner in hair?
As I mentioned in the previous point, on average you should let the toner act between 5 – 20 minutes depending on the result you want to achieve. However, it is important that you formulate the toner correctly and let it act according to your type of need. Let’s now see everything you should know about toners:
What is a toner?
A toner is a semi-permanent dye that is designed to deposit color into your hair and neutralize unwanted reflections in your hair. There are many colors of toners, since according to your need you can apply one or the other.
The most important thing is that you distinguish that they are not permanent dyes. Toners do not have the power to lighten hair, only to deposit color. Therefore, you can only use them on previously lightened hair, or to darken hair.
As they are semi-permanent dyes, they will only last a couple of weeks and will gradually fade. All people with blonde hair should always use a toner after coloring to deposit the color they like best for the highlights (for example: ash or gold).
How should I apply the toner?
Toners should always be used on damp, freshly washed hair. This means that our hair does not have any type of residue so that the color penetrates the hair fiber properly.
Right when you’re done bleaching your hair (or just when you want to tone it down), wash your hair thoroughly a couple of times to remove all oil and product residue from your hair. Then it is important that you remove all excess water with a towel and apply the toner quickly.
When you’ve left it in your hair long enough, rinse the dye well and wash your hair with a special color-setting shampoo like this one. If you wash your hair with a regular shampoo, you run the risk of washing out the toner immediately.
SUGGESTIONS FOR YOU: How long to leave bleach in hair to avoid damage?
How long to leave toner in hair exactly?
In order for you to know exactly how long you should leave it on, you must be clear about what purpose you are using the toner for. It all depends on whether you are going to tone your hair to remove excess brassiness from your hair while maintaining beautiful highlights, or if you want to cover, change or darken the color of your hair with toner. Let’s see in both cases how long you should leave the toner in your hair:
If you want to reduce brasiness
If you want to tone your highlights so that they look nice and without brasiness, you should let the toner act for about 5 to 10 minutes. This is the average time in which the unwanted reflections of our hair are neutralized without losing the luminosity of the highlights.
In case you have very faded and very brassy hair, you can leave the toner to act for a maximum of 15 minutes. I do not recommend more time than this because then you can saturate the highlights a little and lose the luminosity effect.
I recommend that you check your hair at all times so you can see that you like the tone. In case you see something strange, rinse your hair immediately.
If you want to deeply color your hair
On the other hand, if what you are looking for with the toner is to fill in your color more deeply or darken it, you should leave the toner on for about 20 minutes so that it gives you the best results. This would be in cases where, for example, you want to fill in the chocolate color of your hair or intensify reddish colors in your hair.
I do not recommend that you leave it on for more than 20 minutes, as you can dry out your hair a bit or achieve an unstable color result. Remember that toner is not a permanent dye, and even if you darken your hair, it is very likely that in a couple of weeks it will lighten again.
In this case, demi-permanent dyes such as fantasy colors also come in, since these should also be left to act for about 20 minutes. The difference is that these work best if you apply them to dry hair.
SUGGESTIONS FOR YOU: My hair is too ashy after toner, what can I do?
bottom line
I hope this article has been helpful to you in knowing how long to leave toner in hair. If you’re not sure how long you should leave it on, you can always ask a professional!
The only thing I recommend is that you be careful when preparing the toner by formulating it correctly. If your hair is brassy orange, and you prepare an extra light blonde toner, you won’t achieve anything.
Prepare your toner with color that is proportional to how light your hair is. This is the only way in which you will see a good result.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. Until next time!
