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Can You Dye Purple Over Orange Hair?

You finally summoned all your confidence and decided to bleach your hair at home. You’re hoping to achieve that gorgeous golden blonde you see models and actresses are sporting on TV, in magazines, and on runways.

Now that the dyeing part is done, you’re excited to see the results. But to your horror, you ended up with a terrible shade of orange?

What do you do? You don’t want to look like a walking traffic cone or be the laughing stock of your friends and family!

There are three simple steps to follow when it comes to neutralizing the brassy tones in your hair—tone the orange out and conceal it with a dye.

But which dye color should you go for? When you do your research, there’s one color that will be mentioned a lot— purple!

Before you go crazy covering your hair with purple dye, you must first learn the answer to this question: can you put purple over orange hair? Read on to find out!

Can I Dye Purple Over Orange Hair?

Will purple dye work on orange hair?

Yes, purple is one of the best color options you have when it comes to neutralizing the orange tone in your hair. Applying purple dye to orange hair is one of the best ways to remove the unwanted brassy tones in your hair.

However, there are many things that you need to consider before you choose to fix your orange hair using purple dye.

Things to Consider

Your Current Orange Shade

Take a closer look at your hair. Is it more on the orange side or the yellow side? If the color of your hair is leaning towards the yellowish or yellow-orange shade, you can fix your orange hair using a purple hair dye.

If not, you should look for other more effective hair dye colors. Fortunately, we’ve listed a few more color options in the next section.

Lightness and Darkness of the Orange Tone

How light or dark the orange shade is will determine what kind of purple hair dye you should go for. For example, if your hair has a light orange hue, any purple hair dye would do.

On the other hand, a more intense and darker purple dye is needed to correct a darker shade of orange.

Your Hair Health

Another thing you have to decide on is the type of hair dye you should use. Again, this will depend on the current condition of your hair.

If you have dry and brittle hair, we recommend using a semi-permanent hair dye as it’s a lot gentler and less damaging to the hair. On the other hand, use a permanent hair dye if your hair is healthy. The latter is also a great option if you have lots of gray hair that you want to conceal.

What Other Colors Cover Orange Hair?

As mentioned, purple dye won’t work on all shades of orange hair. However, here are the other hair dye colors that you can choose from if your orange hair doesn’t have a yellowish tint to it:

Blue

dyeing orange hair blue

Another excellent hair dye color to cancel out the orange tones in your hair would be blue. It works well because blue and orange are located across one another in the color wheel. This means that these two colors can cancel out one another. 

This shade is recommended if your hair has a bright orange shade.

Blonde

dyeing orange hair blonde

If you don’t want to dye your hair darker (which will happen when you choose either blue or purple hair dyes), your next best bet would be to dye it lighter using a blonde hair dye.

The key is to find the right shade of blonde. In addition, you need to look for a blonde shade with ashy and cool undertones, as these effectively eliminate the orange tones in your hair.

However, dyeing your orange hair blonde is not as easy as making it darker. For this method, it’s recommended that you have a professional hairstylist assess your hair strands and apply the blonde hair dye to your hair.

Purple and orange hair cancels out one another. But as mentioned, purple hair dye won’t work on all shades of orange hair. That’s why you must assess your hair’s shade, lightness, and condition first to know if using a purple dye is the right option for you.

Or better yet, consult a hair expert so you can determine which is the most effective method to fix your orange hair. Then, leave your hair to the expert to get the blonde shade you want without damaging your hair.

FAQs

Does purple dye cancel out orange hair?

Yes, if your hair is the correct shade of orange. The purple dye is an excellent choice to tone the brassy notes. If your hair is a light and bright shade of orange, purple dye will cancel out the orange.
If your hair is a deeper orange, leaning towards the red side of things, purple dye will not work.

Can purple hair dye go over red hair?

Yes, you can apply purple hair dye over red hair if you want to change your shade of red hair to purple-tinted or burgundy-like shade.

If you want to dye your hair from red to purple, you will likely need to bleach or lighten your hair first.

Can I use purple shampoo on orange hair?

It depends on why your hair is orange. If your hair accidentally turned a yellowish-orange after a bleach job, purple shampoo is excellent for orange hair! It will work as a mild toner and slowly work at color correction.

If your hair is purposely orange and you like the color, you cannot use purple shampoo, or it will slowly strip the color from your hair.

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