How to Darken Highlights That Are Too Light (Without Damage)

Are your highlights too light? Don’t worry as there are various ways to fix your highlights from home.

How to Darken Highlights That Are Too Light

Applying a developer and a toner on your highlights will aid in removing the brightness while to some extent darkening them.

how to darken highlights that are too light

If you don’t desire to use a toner, try to spray a colored dry shampoo on the hair. Maybe your highlights are excessively light against your hair shading, or they’re brazen.

Use dish soap or clarifying shampoo to wash your hair. The products work well and should dull the brassiness. Follow this guideline on how to darken highlights that are too light.

Technique 1: Picking Your Correct Color

1. Refer to a color chart to know the degree of your highlights. Ideally, you should take a gander at a shading graph for the organization whose hair color items you want to use. That way, you’ll be confident of picking the right shading. Hold the highlighted hair close to the picture, and confirm the color which closely looks like your hair. 

  • Most shading outlines range from 1 to 10 or 1 to 12, with one ending of the scale being the darkest. The opposite end has a lightest blonde or light blonde.
  • Search the brand type that you’ll be utilizing and afterward “hair color chart” into a web search engine to locate the right chart.
  • It’s vital to refer to a color chart of a specific brand since hair product companies have slightly varying color scale.
  • For excessively light highlights, they’re probably in the 10 categories. 

2. Pick the level that you prefer your highlights to the range. Take a gander at the shading graph and choose the level you’d like the highlights to take after. This ought to be around 2 or 3 shades darker, probably. Indicate the scale so that you can remember it when selecting your toner. 

  • For instance, if the highlights are presently at level 10, you may need them to be at level 7 or 8. 
how to darken highlights that are too light

3. Pay a supply store for beauty products and select the right color toner. It’s ideal to do this face to face on the off chance that you need assistance from a worker. Pick a toner at the category that you’d prefer your hair to be, ensuring you buy a similar brand whose shading outline you alluded to. 

  • The reason demi-permanent toners are familiar is that they just deposit color over the hair rather than seeping it into the hair follicle. 
  • The toner assists in neutralizing your hair’s intense color making it less light.

4. Buy a 10 volume developer to blend in with the toner. After mixing, it deposits your preferred color on the hair. You can buy the developer and the toner at the beauty store. 

  • Try to stay with a similar brand for your developer too. 

Technique 2: Toning Your Hair 

1. Mix the toner and developer utilizing the right ratio. The specific hair toner comes with some guidelines instructing on the amount of developer to utilize. Thus, follow the guidelines for the particular ratio. Utilize a hair color application brush to combine the toner and developer in a medium and small bowl. 

  • Usually, 1 part toner is mixed with 2 parts developer 
  • The developer and toner ought to make a moderately thick consistency that is gel-like. 

2. Brush the blend onto areas of your hair utilizing the brush. You may apply the toner to just the highlighted areas, or you can decide to put it on your whole head. Utilize the application brush and spread it over hair strands, beginning at the roots and moving downwards. 

  • Select how you’d prefer to segment off your hair if wanted, utilizing a clasp to isolate hair that you’ve just colored. 
  • Don’t stress if you apply toner on darker segments of your hair since it won’t generally affect it. 

3. Utilize a comb to work on your whole hair. This is an extraordinary method to spread the toner all through your hair evenly. Comb every part of the hair, beginning at the roots and downwards to ensure the toner spreads to every strand.

  • After finishing, rinse the comb to ensure there’s no developer or toner left on it.

4. According to the toner, leave it from between 20 to 30 minutes. The guidelines that accompany your toner will make some suggested time that you should hold up before rinsing the hair. Watch out on your hair as it grows, and after it reaches the right level, hold up 2 to 5 additional minutes prior to calling it done. 

  • Holding up for additional time might account for any toner that is washed off after putting your hair below the water.
  • Set the time so that you can remember the extent at which the toner has remained on your hair
  • Don’t leave the toner on the hair for over 30 minutes.
how to darken highlights that are too light

5. Rinse your hair with cold water. Get into the shower and completely rinse your hair as you massage your scalp to remove any tone or developer. When it’s completely washed out, you’re prepared to make the most of your new hair.

  • Be mindful that shampooing your hair directly after you wash out the toner and developer may lighten the brands. 

Technique 3: Correcting Brassy or Light Highlights 

1. With a colored dry shampoo, spray your hair for a handy solution. If the highlights are excessively light against your normal hair shading, search for a hued dry shampoo that helps in depositing color. Splash the dry cleanser in your entire hair, and by using fingers, rub it on the hair roots. Brush your hair after the spray to ensure it’s evenly covered. 

  • Colored dry shampoo comes in shades for brunettes and blondes
  • Search for tinted dry shampoos at big box or local beauty stores, just as on the web.
  • Shake the cleanser completely before showering it on your hair.  

2. Wash your light-shaded hair with a clarifying cleanser once per week. Clarifying shampoos are ideal for disposing of oil and soil in your hair. But they’re likewise valuable in assisting with blurring highlights that aren’t the correct shading. Just utilize the clarifying cleanser once per week at most. It can get somewhat harsh on your hair when utilized too often.

3. Utilize dish soap to blur your brazen highlights. This works particularly well if your highlights are light brassy. The elements in dish cleanser will assist in removing excessive color quicker than an ordinary shampoo wash. Back rub the dish cleanser into your hair completely before flushing it with lukewarm water.

4. Apply purple cleanser to your hair to address the brazen tone. Purple shampoos are extraordinary for managing brassy highlights, despite whether they’re yellow, orange, or red. By utilizing the purple cleanser, your hair absorbs part of the purple shading, which neutralizes the brazen tones. Utilize purple shampoo once per week, and don’t leave it for more than 5 minutes before washing it out.

  • Purple cleanser can dry hair if it’s used repeatedly.

5. Play it safe to stay away from too-light highlights later on. This incorporates precaution activity, such as asking for balayage rather than highlights, implying your hair is hand-colored. If you choose to highlight, attempt doing it in smaller strips. Always use a shorter time to bleach your hair than you might suspect is vital—while you can make it lighter, you cannot unbleach it. 

  • In case the highlights are excessively light because of your salon experience, notify your beautician to ensure the experience doesn’t occur again. 
  • For instance, if your hair was highlighted in 0.5 cm (0.20 in) strips, take a stab at doing 0.25 cm (0.098 in) strips. 

6. Pay a visit to the salon in case you’re not satisfied with the outcome. If you’ve attempted a lot of different strategies and you didn’t achieve your objective, it’s high time you visit your hairdresser. That’s particularly if your highlights still look too light. The beautician will probably offer you a specialist idea and perhaps fix your hair.

  • Book the appointment with somebody who has got enough experience with fixing highlights or correcting color. 
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Conclusion: How to Darken Highlights That Are Too Light

If your highlights are extraordinarily light or brassy-looking every other time, you can tone the brightness by utilizing hair toner. Alternatively, there are some other non-chemical options to tone down hair highlights if you would like to avoid using toner.

This is a semi-permanent hair colorant that assists in mending unwanted hair shades. Toners don’t have ammonia or peroxide; hence, they deposit color, but don’t remove the natural color.

For instance, if you want to neutralize bright blonde highlights, you can select an ash toner that’s either green or blue-based.

It should have the shade that almost resembles that of your hair color. The above tips should help you on how to darken highlights that are too light.

Read our 10 step guide to protecting your hair from heat damage here!