This dilemma mainly considers girls that have blond hair, colored or natural blond hair. Unwanted tones in blond hair are not unexpected, unfortunately, since it tends to absorb the pigment very easily.
Depending on your hair product type, your perfect blond hair may turn orange, yellowish, grey, and even green. I guess you’ve been toying with your hair on your own, or else you wouldn’t be here reading these lines. So what now? My hair turned grey. How do I fix it? Can that be done on my own?
Why Do Blond Hair Turn Gray?
There are a few reasons why grey tones may appear in your blond hair:
- They might appear because of toning your hair after bleaching
- Maybe you used an ashy dye
- Maybe the toner is the main reason
- Or you used an ashy toning shampoo
Don’t worry; there’s a solution, and I will help you find it. First, let me ask you, did you color your hair on your own, or did you do it in the hair salon?
One of the most common reasons grey tones appeared after the bleaching in the salon is because they toned the hair. Fortunately, this disaster is easy to reduce since, after a few washes, these grey tones will disappear.
If you color your hair independently and choose the wrong color with an ashy pigment, your hair color will naturally be somewhat greyish. In this case, let your hair rest and recover, and then use a golden dye on your hair to neutralize the ashy pigment. If you doubt your skills after this mess, go to the hair salon and get it done right.
Another reason why the grey tones may appear is because of using an ashy toner. The solution for this messy situation is to wait until it washes off with time; if that does not work, you should bleach your hair.
Lastly, a common mistake is washing your hair with a toning shampoo. Read the label right, and if you notice that you’ve been using the toning shampoo, stop, and you will notice how the grey tones will start to disappear soon.
Related: How to Wear Grey Hair Without Looking Old?
How To Get Rid Of Grey Tones From Toning The Hair After Bleaching
- When you bleach your hair, whether on your own or in the hair salon, yellow and orange tones will eventually appear. The only way to neutralize them is to mix a purple toner with shampoo. The main reason why ashy grey tones may appear in your blond hair is that purple toner.
- Getting rid of the ashy tones resulting from the toning going wrong after bleaching is easy for you and your hair. All you need is time and patience. Wash your hair with your regular shampoo and conditioner, and with time, you will see that grey tones are disappearing without a trace.
- Usually, it will need at least 3 to 4 washes, but if you want to speed up the process, you can wash it every day instead of washing your hair every few days.
Related: Why Does Hair Turn White Instead of Gray?
How To Neutralize Highlights From Using The Ash-colored Dye On Your Hair?
- Using the wrong hair color is the most common mistake girls make when they try to color their hair independently. Almost all girls want to achieve that ashy blonde, so they think that if they buy the box kit and dye their hair, they will immediately achieve the desired result.
- Well, they are wrong. Most of the colors you have seen on the cover of magazines, on Instagram, and even on the cover of the box dye kit are retouched with a computer program to make them look more natural, and they are far from that shade in real life.
- After you apply the ashy blonde dye to your hair, you won’t achieve that nice blond color you have a craving for; instead, you will end up with an ashy or even green highlight mess on top of your head.
- Luckily with the right color, it is easy to get rid of unwanted undertones. You’ll need to buy gold or copper-colored hair dye to get rid of ashy pigments. Those tones instantly neutralize the grey, green, and blue tones in ashy dyes.
- So before dyeing your hair once again, you will need to take a break and wait at least two weeks since this is the time needed for your hair to get rid of all the leftovers from the previous hair dye. Of course, you can do this independently, but I recommend you visit your hairstylist.

How To Get Rid Of Grey Undertones After Using The Ashy Toner?
- What most girls forget is that toner is still a dye. The main difference between dye and toner is that you use toner on your hair to tone or neutralize certain tones and not to color your hair.
- If you used a grey toner and your hair color is light blond or smoky, it should take around 4 to 5 washes until the leftover grey pigment disappears. Luckily toner does not last very long on the hair, but there were a few situations where hair remained grey even after those washes. In those cases, you must consider bleaching the hair with a 10 volume developer.
- Here is what you need to do:
- Mix the 10-volume developer with a bit of the shampoo you usually use. Mix it in a plastic container.
- Wash your hair with this mixture
- Let it sit for five minutes, then rinse it thoroughly
- You will notice that your tone changes quickly, and you can repeat this process once a week until the grey undertone is completely gone from your hair
Have You Been Washing Your Hair With Toning Shampoo? Here’s How To Deal With These Consequences
- You might always wash your hair with the wrong toning shampoo. Toning shampoos can have purple, blue, or grey undertones, and when your hair is really blonde, it will absorb whatever pigment you put in it, and it will absorb it pretty well.
- Since toning shampoo contains pigments, if you notice any unwanted changes in your hair color, you should stop using the toning shampoo immediately. To get rid of the grey undertones caused by toning shampoo, you will need to replace this shampoo with a hydrating keratin shampoo. After 2 to 3 washes, the grey tones will completely disappear.
Related: Best Eyebrow Color for Gray Hair
What Are Alternative Solutions For Getting Rid Of The Grey Tones From The Blond Hair?
- There are only two alternative solutions for removing grey tones in your hair. Those are:
- Clarifying shampoo
- Hydrating masks used in conjunction with heat
- Clarifying shampoo is strong enough to remove artificial pigments from your hair, so avoid using it when you are in the shower. They tend to have a strong odor, so use them in a well-ventilated space and avoid feeling dizzy.
- The procedure is simple since you must wash your hair with shampoo a few times. Use this shampoo until the grey tones disappear entirely from your hair.
- On the other hand, a hydrating mask is a regular creamy hair product that women worldwide use at least once a month. But I bet you didn’t know you could use it to eliminate the grey pigment from your hair. The magic is in sulfate, which all hair products contain. Sulfate is well known for being able to remove the pigment from your hair.
- The application process is a bit different, yet it is still straightforward. Here is how you do it:
- Dampen your hair
- Apply the mask from your roots to your ends
- Put on an aluminum cap, or if you don’t have one, a nylon bag will work too
- Let it sit for 20 minutes
- Rinse thoroughly
- Repeat this treatment twice a week, and the grey tones will disappear within two weeks.
Moral Of The Story
As you can see, it is not easy to color your hair on your own as you may think; well, the procedure is easy, but the result is not so satisfying in more than 60% of cases. Playing with your hair, dye, and bleach can significantly damage your hair, and in the best case, it can leave you with unwanted pigment residue.
If all the damage is annoying ashy grey highlights, you may consider yourself lucky since these are very easy to solve.