Is there any natural way of combating golden tones?

[brok3nwings]

Hello everyone!
Well, the thing is i am having trouble with my hair colour. I always liked my natural haircolour (thinking that every summer i used to stay about three months at the sun and it would get nice blond hightlights). When i started to grow my hair it was virgin hair, after summer so it was like a stupid blonde and i thought lets do some discrete highlights just to give some colour to it. I explained what i wanted to the hairdresser and well, as usual he did not do what i asked. After leaving the hairdresser i had my hair even darker and with a lot of golden tones (he decided he HAD to put a toner and i didnt knew what that was so i let him). My hair is golden by itself but it was too much. Since then i tried to fix it at home and i did it, with peroxide and a ash blonde colour as highlights where the golden was too intense, but it was summer and i ended up with really light hair. I actually liked it but my friends wasnt used to it and well, i ended up at a diferent hairdresser just asking to make a toner (like a gloss, it goes away after a few washes...but in my hair it doesnt go totally) to match the roots. Well, golden tone again! In my opinion the natural blonde they have it is too golden, not natural for me, i asked for ashy tone and he said it could turn out green. Stupid me, i knew it was the right thing but i let it do it. Well, this was in October, now the hair is lighter but still have golden tones. I actually dont know what to think about the colour, sometimes i like it sometimes i dont. I just was wondering if there is any natural way of purpule or blue herbs that could help me cuting off the golden. Thank you all and sorry for beeing such a long description :p

[ktani]

brok3nwings

You could try a honey and conditioner treatment - it has been reported to tone down brassy or golden tones by lightening them, especially on colour-treated hair.

This post from the Honey thread has all of the information you should need
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showpost.php?p=16864&postcount=31

If you have any questions - I will be happy to help.

[brok3nwings]

ktani, thank you for your answer
i did the honey treatment twice, once i let it for about 4 hours and the second for about 2 and it gave some light to hair at that day but i dont think i could see any permanent diferences. There is a really hard thing for me with that treatment is that i cant stand sleeping with it and if i have to do it during the day it just keeps falling and geting my face and back all nusty. I tried to put much more honey that conditioner and it doesnt work it falls anyway, even with the plastic...

[ktani]

brok3nwings

An LHC member did the treatment several separate times (when she recoloured, she kept getting too much gold), for about 2 hours only and reported it to be successful in toning down gold in her colour-treated hair each time. You do not need to sleep in it. You could try the honey coconut cream recipe - that worked for her as well.

A lot of honey is great but in order for the treatment to work - the honey must be diluted to produce peroxide and to keep producing peroxide it must be kept moist - under a plastic covering - saran wrap may be a good choice for you.

A 50:50 proportion, honey to conditioner or coconut cream with a bit of added water on wet hair should be fine for what you want and let you handle your hair much easier. You could even do a 2 to 1 conditioner or coconut cream to honey, as long as the conditioner is thin enough - check out the Preferred list of conditioners - and add some extra water if you use the coconut cream.

When I do my catnip treatment, I have my hair going all forward, or "upside down" - it lets me grab the length for the first part of my treatment - and pin it up. I put plastic over that.

[ktani]

brok3nwings

Another option might be this recipe.

Originally posted by Strawberrycurls
Lemon Juice and Conditioner
"I have lived in an apartment with well water. The minerals were darkening my hair. I found that mixing lemon juice with a good conditioner was an excellent way to lighten my hair without getting the extra dryness from acidity in the lemon juice.
Use: 1 tablespoon lemon Juice, 2-3 tablespoons conditioner, Let it sit in hair for an hour you can apply heat if you like. I made extra and stored it for later use. "
From her 2nd post, same thread
"My Hair is blond and I mainly used it because my roots start out dark before the sun gets them to lighten up. Since it is winter I am not outside that much so they haven't been lightening up as usual. The Lemon Conditioner lightened them pretty close to my regular color. I left it in for an hour under a plastic sack and blow dried it every once in awhile for the heat. I didn't sit in the sun. and I am sorry but I don't have any pictures of it."
http://archive.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=40946 (http://archive.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=40946)

[Katze]

hi Broknwings,

I can give you a different opinion, as I have also been trying to tone down brassiness, mostly without success. Like you, honey did not make any difference to my hair, either the virgin bits or the bleached bits, and also didn't have an affect when I used it on BF's (virgin, but sun-lightened) hair, either on his head or in a sample harvested from his brush.

The thing that works best, though I don't like to use it, is a drabbing shampoo. I think in the USA ColorTec makes one; here I use Guhl brand. It does wash out, but doesn't damage your hair.

I also tried a blueberry hair mask with limited results - it seemed to drab for a day or so, then faded - and it's expensive to put blueberries on your head! ;)

Manic Panic's Lavender and Virgin Snow worked well for me in the days that I was experimenting with hair color, as it sounds like you might be. They are about a step up from the color deposit shampoos.

In my experience, and I've tried to get grey or silver hair or even just streaks in the past, even salon toner washes out sooner or later, leaving the brassiness behind. After I had my hair dyed dark in Summer 2006, that color was gone by Fall, leaving me with two toned orange.

To sum up, according to my many years of bleaching, dyeing, highlighting my hair, I have never found anything that stayed permanently ash or violet and didn't fade to orange eventually. Therefore, I have given up on dyeing my hair - a small amount of bleach will lighten, it's true, but only to orange, and I don't want the damage that comes from going lighter. I'd rather have long hair.

hope this makes sense,

Katze

[mellie]

You could try a hibiscus rinse. For some people this comes out purple/blue (for me it was red).

[iris]

I second what Katze said: try old-lady shampoo first, the blue/purple stuff designed to take yellow out of gray hair. Use that for a couple of washes, see if it works well enough for you. (ETA: there are also variants of this marketed to bleach blondes - the only difference is marketing and possibly fragrance, the color used in the products is the same).

If you need more pigment, use a lavender toner, like Manic Panic Virgin Snow.

Any type of further lightening is likely to only give you more gold IMO. You need something lavender to counter the yellow tones. You'll be surprised at how effective that is.

And I empathize - gold tones don't work with my skin either.

About hibiscus - I'm one of the people for whom hibiscus turns out blue on my hair, but, the blue washes out quickly and it leaves a golden/brassy shine behind, that then also washes out a bit later (probably the tannins - hibiscus has both anthocyanins (blue or red depending on pH) and tannins (yellow to brown)). To effectively tone down gold, lavender shampoo is the way to go IME, if the shampoo is not enough, try a toner.

Iris

[doodlesmart]

With the bluing shampoo, if just washing with it doesn't do much, try leaving it in for a few minutes. I use it to remove stains from my horse's white tail and have to leave it on for several minutes, but horse hair is coarser and tougher than human hair. Just thought I'd throw that out there though, that if just washing doesn't do much, you could try letting it sit for a bit and then rinse it out.

[Nightshade]

I thought the blue vs. red of hibiscus was tied to PH? Right?

In any event, it'll probably wash out pretty quick. What about rosemary and nettle simmered and rinsed through the hair?

[SugarBabydoll]

I have heard that rinsing with red wine can make the hair less golden. Thinking about how red wine makes your lips and teeth blueish it does makes sense but I haven't tried it myself.

[Nightshade]

I have heard that rinsing with red wine can make the hair less golden. Thinking about how red wine makes your lips and teeth blueish it does makes sense but I haven't tried it myself.

That may work, but I imagine that'd be horribly drying :(

[Elenna]

Although, I'm not a blond, the bluing shampoo could be the ticket to toning down brassy, reds on dyed brown hair. I had thought to use a bluing shampoo for my silvers. But from this thread using it to tone down the dyed hair seems like a good idea.

[brok3nwings]

ksdnfksdjf i am a really really stupid girl ! If not stupid at least very very confused one... I havent seen my real hair colour for about 4 years so far and i remember that my grondmother used to say that i was the golden blond and that my sister was the white blonde...Having this said i think i god influenced by a forum that i used to read from about a year ago that was all about blondes (fake blondes essencially) and although i havent done any thing that would damage TOO much my hair i think i started to stay obcessed by the colour that in this last year the hairdressers used to put in my hair as toners. I saw more red then my natural colour. But guess what..thinking about this and looking at pictures of myself what bothers me is not gold, is actually fake gold that could look as a brunette trying to get blonde. Well..i´ve asked my mother, my boyfriend and both of them seam to like the colour i have right now and also both of them say that we cannot say the diference betweet my roots (about 6 cm) and the rest of it.
Another confusing part is that when the hairdresser put me a medium blonde toner what i hated was not the colour itself but how i could see it so bright at my routs and at the brighter parts it would give me a really GOLD tone that was clearly not natural...but my ends were a nice colour. I will show you some pictures..
Having this said i thank you all for your advices...yes i know that purpule/blue shampoos help a bit, i´ve done it myself last year and treatments too with blue colour and it helped a bit but i think that when it is a big problem puting like a semi permanent colour or something stronger than a shampoo is necessary. I wont do that right now because i am really trying to see how my hair will turn out for summer!!

Well...i was born with my hair almost black as well as my sister, after a while both of us turn out blonde

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/brok3nwings/a-5.jpg

now my hair at winter indoors

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/brok3nwings/a.jpg

and winter virgin hair with no bleaching from summer (yes my hair is a bit stupid when that short!)

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/brok3nwings/a-1.jpg

Now summer outdoors

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/brok3nwings/a-2.jpg

And finally.... (sorry for this long post)

when i had the fresh toner (taken at an intensive light)

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/brok3nwings/a-6.jpg


Present (diference between roots and rest of it)

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/brok3nwings/DSC00680.jpg

And my fading colour...(also present)

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/brok3nwings/a-4.jpg

I would really like to now what my natural colour and non natural colour is...to work it out, cause i love blonde but it has to be a beautiful one otherwise it is awfull!! Do you think i should tone down the gold tones? Or fight for them and maybe do some strawberry blonde gloss? Or do nothing?
Im really sorry for the long and heavy post..but this is one of the things that really bothers me and that had made me do stupid things with my hair!

[tiny_teesha]

i used indigo on my natural colour and it made it more ashy. Might turn your hair green...STRAND TEST

but i seirously LOVE that look!! I wish my hair did that. Maybe if you want honey your roots so they lighten?? I did that to the sides of my hair so when i gather it in a pony tail there are 2 subtle lighter streaks above each of my ears.

[Anje]

Personally, I like the gold, but I tend to be biased toward hair with warm tones to it....

Anyone know what effect a dilute rinse of bluing (like Mrs. Stewart's) would do with gold-toned blond hair? Does it tone it down or just turn it greenish?

[frizzinator]

The best way to prevent the brassy color is to keep hair covered when in the sun, especially if it has ever been processed, even with a non-chemical product such as henna or honey.

[iris]

Anyone know what effect a dilute rinse of bluing (like Mrs. Stewart's) would do with gold-toned blond hair? Does it tone it down or just turn it greenish?
There were some ladies on LHC (pre-crash) who used that to take the yellow out of gray hair. It works just like blue shampoo. I don't remember very well but I think they used only one drop or some other very small quantity.

Iris

[brok3nwings]

frizzinator that is true! Although my natural hair colour without sun is just borring...but the lenght probably will react badly to the sun ...errr