How the Best Toning Shampoos and Conditioners Work
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Time to read 6 min
If you color or highlight your hair, chances are you have heard of hair toner. Your colorist might mention “toning” after lightening your hair to counteract unwanted brassy yellow or orange tones that appear as the hair’s natural color is altered, and to make hair color richer, deeper and more natural looking after coloring. But what about toning shampoos and toning conditioners? How do they work? Do toning shampoos and toning masks affect hair health and condition, or just color? And the most pressing question of all, should you use toning shampoos and conditioners?
At Virgo de Novo, we can say with confidence that we are experts not just in professional hair care, but in hair color and hair toning as well. Our founder Diana Bernard spent more than twenty years as a master colorist before virtually reinventing the realm of post-color toning products with the Virgo de Novo Toning Collection. Read on to find out how toning hair care products function, their effect on hair and hair color, and why ours are simply the best toning shampoos and toning conditioners you will ever use.
What You'll Learn about Toning Shampoos and Conditioners
How Do Toning Shampoos and Conditioners Work?
While it may seem counterintuitive, a proper shampoo doesn’t just remove dirt and impurities from the hair. Just like a facial cleanser, a good shampoo cleans hair without stripping natural oils and moisture. In fact, a great shampoo can actually add weightless hydration, environmental protectants – and in the case of toning shampoos, pigment – behind on the hair, leaving it looking better and in better condition than it was prior to shampooing. Toning conditioners take this one step further, containing ingredients that actually bond to, strengthen and seal the hair cuticle, as well as provide toning effects, leaving hair shinier and smoother and hair color more true in the process.
The most effective toning shampoos and conditioners contain blue or purple pigments that neutralize unwanted warm or brassy tones in color-treated hair depending on the shade and desired tone. Specifically, purple pigments cancel out yellow tones, making them ideal for light to medium blonde or gray hair, while blue pigments neutralize orange tones, working best on dark blonde to light brown colored or highlighted hair.
Why Use Toning Shampoos and Toning Conditioners?
Coloring hair, and especially lightening hair, is a quite literally a process. Hair color doesn’t just quickly change from dark brown to light blonde without hitting many levels along the way. As hair is lightened or highlighted, its natural red, orange and yellow undertones surface. Whether golden or auburn tones are your goal or platinum or ash tones are your preference, hair color can easily become harsh and brassy instead.
If so, your colorist will likely use a hair toner after coloring to counteract these tones, but the effects typically don’t last more than a few weeks. After the time and expense you’ve just invested to get your desired color, the right toning shampoos and toning conditioners can be an ideal way to protect that investment, prolonging color and maintaining desired tone between colorings. While the most common cause of brassy hair tends to be color treatments, unwanted tones can come as the result of color fading and sun exposure as well.
Color Treatments
As mentioned above, brassiness often appears as a result of hair color treatments, especially when lightening from darker shades. Post-color toning products, like purple toning shampoo or blue toner for orange hair, can help neutralize these undertones between colorings, depositing color pigments that counteract brassy yellow or orange tones. Regular use helps maintain a balanced, cool tone, preventing brassiness from reappearing.
Color Fading
When hair color fades due to environmental factors and everyday wear, the tone can often become brassy or just plain blah, making the use of a good purple shampoo or blue toning shampoo important for keeping colors vibrant. Without proper care, hair color can quickly lose dimension and become dull. Using the best toning shampoo and toning conditioner helps keep hair color fresh and prevent unwanted warm tones. Of course, sticking with only color-safe shampoos and conditioners for colored hair will further protect your hair from fading.
Sun Exposure
Exposure to sunlight can also alter the tone of color-treated hair. Purple shampoo for blonde hair or blue shampoo for brunettes help combat sun-induced brassiness. Sun damage can also dry out hair, making it much more susceptible to damage as well as color fading. For those who spend a lot of time outdoors, toning conditioners and masks can become essential to keeping hair and hair color in good condition. Products with UV protectants and wearing a hat or scarf can offer an extra layer of protection from the sun's harsh rays before the damage occurs.
Are Toning Shampoos and Toning Conditioners Good for Hair?
Toners and pigments are in fact hair coloring products, so like any hair color, they can be inherently dehydrating and thus damaging to hair. That’s why it is critical to use only the best toning shampoos and best toning conditioners in the shade and formula right for you and your hair, not to mention use them correctly.
Healthy Hair Toning Shampoos and Conditioners
The best toning shampoos and conditioners contain not only toning pigments, but nourishing ingredients to strengthen and hydrate hair while toning it as well. Unfortunately, many purple toning shampoo, blue toning shampoo, and even toning conditioner formulas contain harsh ingredients that can compromise the integrity of your hair, which ironically then compromises color and color retention as well. Virgo de Novo not only makes the best purple shampoo, best blue shampoo, and best shampoo for colored hair in general, low in pH and free of sulfates and sodium chloride, but our toning shampoos and toning conditioners are also infused with hair fortifying and hydrating ingredients to promote hair health as they prolong and enhance color.
Another feature that sets Virgo de Novo’s Toning Shampoos and Toning Masques apart? Rather than just the one or two shades offered by most lines, we offer our blue and purple toning products in multiple intensity levels: three each for blue and purple toning shampoos and two each for blue and purple toning conditioners. This means you can select the purple tone that is right for your level of blonde or the blue tone best for your shade of brown. Whatever you choose, you’ll get the lasting hair-healthy toning results ideal for your color and your color alone.
How to Use Toning Shampoos and Conditioners
Once you’ve selected the best toning shampoo and best toning conditioner for you, work the products evenly through damp hair, focusing on any areas prone to brassiness, and let them sit for a few minutes or as directed on the packaging before rinsing thoroughly. Pro tip: wearing gloves prevents any temporary staining of hands and nails. Consistent use of professional-quality toning hair care products helps maintain a cooler, more even tone and prevent unwanted brassiness from returning, keeping your hair looking rich, healthy and vibrant between salon visits.
Because of their coloring properties, most experts recommend using even the best purple toning shampoo or blue toning shampoo no more than once or twice a week. Using toning shampoos more frequently can actually go too far in altering hair color, or in the case of harsh formulas, cause damage to the hair. Fortunately, Virgo de Novo’s hair-healthy toning shampoos and masks provide visible toning effects after just one use. This means you can choose to use our toning shampoos and toning masks based on your individual preference and coloring schedule without worrying about the damage caused by harsh formulas or products that require multiple uses to see results.
Virgo de Novo: Simply the Best Toning Shampoos and Conditioners
"Toning is not a one-color-fits-all concept."
Now that you know how toning shampoos and conditioners work and their effects on your hair and hair color, we aren’t shy about repeating that Virgo de Novo makes the best toning shampoos and toning masks you can find. Not only do they provide the depth, dimension and coolness you look for from blue and purple toning shampoos and conditioners, but they also protect and improve the health and condition of your hair and color in the process. And what’s more, we offer an unparalleled selection of intensity levels to ensure that you get the results you want to protect and prolong your color with each and every use.
