I finally figured out why my highlights were turning brassy after a colleague pointed out my developer choice

So I've been doing highlights for about 4 years now, and I kept having this problem where they'd look great right after but then turn this weird orange-brass color within 2 weeks. I was using 40 volume developer because I wanted really light results fast. My coworker Sarah, who's been doing hair for 15 years at the salon in Austin, caught me mixing and asked what volume I was using. She told me to drop down to 20 volume for finer hair and only use 30 on really coarse strands. I brushed her off at first but tried it on a client with fine blonde hair. Night and day difference. The toner actually held and didn't fade out after 10 days. Has anyone else had luck switching to lower volume and just processing longer instead of going high volume?

2 comments

2 Comments

andrewt414d ago

Oh man, I feel your pain with that brassy disaster!

gavin_clark3d agoMost Upvoted

Honestly I think the real issue is what water you're using. My place has super hard water and no matter what toner I use it always pulls orange within a week. A buddy of mine in the same building switched to a shower head filter and his color stayed cool for almost three weeks before he needed retouching. Might be worth trying before you dump more money on purple shampoo that barely does the job lol.