How to tone yellow hair to ash

Why is my hair yellow?

Hair is yellow because it has not been lifted enough. It's as simple as that.

As you lift hair with bleach, it goes from orange, to orange-yellow to yellow.

First Step: Bleaching the hair first: an essential step

If you want to get your hair to a true ash blonde, you will need to bleach your hair up to level 10 extra light blonde.

For your information, this is what level 10 looks like:

How to bleach hair to level 10

The most important thing use a good quality bleach.

We suggest you use Ugly Duckling's Brilliant Blondexx Bleach with Bond Protect.

It has 7 levels of lift and can be used on the root area as well as the lengths.

And it has Bond Protect (Plex) built inside. So it will protect and lift at the same time.

Mix your bleach with developer, using a ratio of 1 part bleach to 2 parts developer. Try and get a wet gravy-like mixture.

Apply your mix finely segment by segment, saturating the hair really well.

Always start at the darkest part first, to give that part the most time to process.

Check 10 minutes after application and reapply onto parts which are not lifting well enough.

They will need more mix.

Rinse and towel-dry when your hair looks like the above.

Second Step: Toning the Hair

Now you are ready to tone.

Which type of toner you use will depend on how much yellow is still left in the hair.

So at this point, you need to be examine your bleached hair very carefully.

The 2 questions you need to ask yourself when selecting your toner

Now ask yourself 2 questions:

Question No.1: What level is the hair at?

Question No. 2: What level do I want it to be at?

Hair is very very pale yellow and you want a light ash blonde toning? 

Have you bleached the hair really well, like above?

And do you want to tone it ash blonde very quickly and very easily?

Then use Ugly Duckling's Blondify liquid demi-permanent toners.

They work inside 10 minutes. They're ammonia-free and they contain Bond Protect Plex to strengthen the hair.

They're paraben-free and PPD-free.

And because they are liquid, they are exceptionally easy to use.

Just mix with developer in a 1:1 ratio and pour over the hair from an applicator bottle.

Then rub into the hair very well. Then rinse.

Hair still has some yellow and you want very cold, ultra ashy results?

In this case use Ugly Duckling's cream based regular lifting toners contain some lift.

They contain strong ash, blue and purple pigments which will produce a very cold ash blonde result.

Still need very very yellow even after bleaching? 

In this case use Ugly Duckling's intense toners. These have extra lift.

They are very good at kicking out yellow.

They will lift and tone at the same time.