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How to Fix Hair That Turned Pink After Toning or Bleaching

Don’t get upset if your hair is turned pink after toning or bleaching as it isn’t all that unusual. Usually, what you’ll want to do is more of what you were already doing. We’ll explain what that means here.

Whatever you do, don’t worry. You can quickly fix pink hair in just a few easy steps.

Fixing Hair That Turned Pink After Bleaching

#1. Using Clarifying Shampoo

use clarifying shampoo to fix pink hair after toning or bleaching

The method you’ll want to use will change with how pink your hair is. If it’s a very light pink, you can try using a clarifying shampoo.

Clarifying shampoo removes residue and product buildup. If your hair isn’t highly pink, a clarifying shampoo can remove enough of it to be unnoticeable.

Clarifying shampoos can change your current hair color and works best on removing deposited color. If only part of your hair is pink, and the rest is dyed another color, you may want to be careful with how you apply this shampoo as it can change the color of your hair dye.

Keep in mind that you should not use a clarifying shampoo like a regular shampoo. The cleansing nature may make it sound like something you want to use all the time but is to remove product buildup.

Once it strips your hair of built-up gunk, it will start removing everything under that layer. Therefore, the clarifying shampoo can strip your hair of all nutrients and excessively dry it out.

You should only use it to cleanse your hair when you’ve been using many products or had recent treatments done. Or, as in this case, to help lift the pink-colored pigments out of your hair.

#2. Use More Bleach

Bleach Again to Fix Pink Hair After Toning or Bleaching

More bleach might be your best option if your hair is still very pink after the clarifying shampoo. You may not be too excited to do this after what just happened, but it’s the best fix.

The bleach didn’t turn your hair pink. Your hair is made up of many different colors, even if you only see a solid brown or black when you look in the mirror. Brown hair has a lot of red and pink pigment in it already. The bleach likely exposed some natural pigment when you didn’t leave it in long enough.

Adding more bleach for the correct amount of time (at the pink stage, this will be about 30 minutes) will get your hair to the yellow base you initially tried to get. Once you do this, you will be left with yellow hair (that may still have some pink undertones), so you will need to go to the next step, which is toner.

Before you look at the toning section, take note: you should try to avoid adding more bleach immediately after your first bleaching attempt. Bleach dries out hair immensely. You should give it time to recover before bleaching again. About a week is best if you want to avoid damaging your hair.

#3. Tone the Pink Out

use green toner to fix pink hair after toning or bleaching

If you still have pink tones (though they should significantly decrease at this point), you can tone the pink out of your hair by using a neutralizing dye or toning shampoo. To cancel out pink, you need its opposite on the color wheel; green.

If you have a lot of pink to neutralize, you should use green-based dye and toning shampoo. You should take this step after using the clarifying shampoo and the bleach.

Apply your green hair mask, and then continue to wash with a green toning shampoo until you reach your desired color. You should have an ashy blonde as you use the green toner, and the pink fades from your bleached hair.

Pay attention when you are applying the toner. At this point, you’re using it on bleached, light pink hair. There is green in it, and your hair is fair. If you leave it on too long, you will turn your hair green. Only use the green shampoo like you would any shampoo to avoid green hair.

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Final Thought

Fixing hair turned pink after toning or bleaching is annoying but easy to do. You can use all of the methods explained here, but you should go in order.

Start with the clarifying shampoo and see how much color remains. You can save yourself some time and effort if you don’t need to apply more bleach or toner after that point. If the color corrects after bleaching, then you don’t need toner.

So take your time, be patient, and follow directions. You don’t want to overcorrect to green hair. That’s a whole different removal process.