Igor MarcikicHair toner was once a mystery to those outside of the beauty industry, but today its use seems to be much more widespread. You might be asking yourself questions along the lines of: Why do I even need a hair toner? How long does a hair toner last and how can I make it last longer? Should I make it last longer? How can I wash it out faster? And so on and so forth.
The questions keep piling up and finding answers to all of them can be difficult. To make your life easier, we have written this article that should make all things toner much easier for you to understand.
Why Use a Toner on Your hair?
More often than not, especially when color-treating your hair at home, one can end up with a less than desirable shade. Maybe that one time you tried to turn your hair blonde and ended up with a lovely shade of chicken yellow? It happens, even to the best of us. Maybe you just wanted to make a certain tone more pronounced than it ended up becoming.
There are a lot of ways in which you can end up with an unsatisfactory result. The solution, however, is fairly simple. There is a product that can help you achieve your desired hair color by either eliminating or enhancing certain tones. If you have ever struggled with achieving a certain shade, you might consider using a hair toner.
Besides color correcting, you can also use hair toners to experiment with various hair colors without making any permanent commitment. There is a whole spectrum of toning products, such as demi-permanent colors, color shampoos, various conditioners, and hair glosses, that can manipulate the tone in your hair in one way or the other. What's more, even if you are perfectly happy with your hair color, you can use a toner to add some shine to it.
How Long Does a Hair Toner Take to Wash Out?
A hair toner usually lasts between 2 and 6 weeks following its application, depending on your hair type and the general condition of your locks. For example, if you color-treated your hair before, it is possible that your toner would fade faster than expected. This means that your hair might need additional or more frequent toning. However, there are still some steps you can take to make your toner last longer – according to some, even up to 8 weeks.
How to Make the Toner Last Longer?
There are multiple factors — such as air pollution, hardness of water, Sun exposure, and exposure to pool chemicals like chlorine — that can interfere with your hair color, making it seem more yellowish or brassy than you would like it to be. Here are some things you can do to mitigate these effects and make your toner last longer.
First, you should not only refrain from washing your hair within the first 24 hours following the application of the toner, but also decrease the frequency of hair washing in general. The logic is simple – washing your hair rinses out your toner.
Another thing you can do is use professional hair products formulated specifically for dyed hair and for your specific shade. You could consider investing in color-protecting shampoos and conditioners. Or, if you are on a tighter budget, simply try watching out for sulfates in your products, as these will make your toner fade much faster.
Avoiding or limiting Sun exposure should also help with the longevity of your toner. If you use heat-based hair styling tools, such as hair dryers or straighteners, it is imperative to adequately protect your hair from the heat.
The benefits of this practice are twofold – avoiding excessive heat protects both your toner and your hair. Some of the ways to do this include the use of heat-protectant oils each time you heat-style your hair or using less damaging tools (more expensive but better in the long run).
Should you Make Your Toner Last Longer?
Now that you know what you can do, let's see whether you should actually do it. Basically, it all comes down to what your hair goals are. If achieving and maintaining a certain shade is what's important to you, then it's probably best to invest your time and money in the things mentioned above. These practices are definitely beneficial when it comes to color maintenance and could make your visits to the hair stylist a bit less frequent.
On the other hand, if you find yourself unsatisfied with how your toner turned out or if some of the things mentioned seem like too much of a hassle for you, making your toner last longer might not be your priority, and rinsing it out faster might be what you're after.
How to Wash the Toner Out of Your Hair Faster?
Besides doing some of the things we advised you not to do to make your toner last longer, there are a couple of more tricks you can use at home to make that toner disappear ASAP.
One of the methods involves using a clarifying shampoo, a special kind of shampoo that removes any kind of dirt, oil, and products from your hair. You can wash your hair several times with it to make the process of toner removal even faster.
If a clarifying shampoo is hard to come by, you can simply use any kind of anti-dandruff shampoo since these are also very thorough and, in an essence, are also clarifying shampoos. You could also add about a tablespoon of baking soda to any regular shampoo to make it more effective in removing buildup.
Another approach is called "chellating" and it involves washing your hair with a bit of dish soap, rinsing it out, spraying it with lemon juice (from one lemon), and letting it sit for about a minute or two before rinsing it out again.
What this does is help remove any kind of buildup, including toner, from your hair. Chellating is usually done right before dyeing your hair, but it's a nice measure to remove unwanted products as well.
