Think You’ve Got a Toning Problem? It Actually Starts Before Your Toner

If you’ve ever rinsed off your bleach, looked at the hair and thought…

“Right. What the hell do I tone this with?”

You’re definitely not the only one.

Toning and toner formulation are some of the biggest areas I see hairdressers struggle with. But the more I’ve taught hair colour science, the more I’ve realised something:

A lot of the time, it isn’t actually a toning problem.

The problem started before you ever picked up your toner.

Why your toner might not be the problem

Last year, I taught an in-person toning class.

I went into that class thinking we were going to spend the day talking about toners, formulations, colour wheels and neutralisation.

But while I was teaching, I started noticing something.

The biggest struggle wasn’t necessarily how to formulate the toner.

It was knowing what they were formulating onto.

Hairdressers were looking at their freshly lightened hair and questioning:

• What level have I actually lifted to?
• What undercoat am I looking at?
• Was the hair actually ready to be rinsed?

And if we don’t know the answers to those questions, how can we expect ourselves to formulate the right toner?

Your toner is only one part of the result

Before I even think about formulating a toner, there are two steps that come first.

1. LIFT

Your bleach needs to create the right canvas for the result you’re trying to achieve.

If your target toner requires a certain level and undercoat, but your bleach hasn’t taken you there, changing your toner formulation isn’t necessarily going to solve the problem.

Sometimes the answer isn’t in the toner bowl.

It’s in your lift.

2. READ

Once you’ve rinsed your bleach, don’t jump straight into:

“What formula should I use?”

First, read the hair.

• What level am I looking at?
• What undercoat has been exposed?
• Is my lift even?
• And what is that canvas telling me I can realistically do next?

Your undercoat is giving you information.

Learning how to read that information is the missing step I see so many hairdressers skip.

3. TONE

Now we can talk about toner.

Once you understand the level and undercoat you’re working with, your toner formulation has a reason behind it.

You’re no longer standing in the colour room staring at your tubes hoping you’ve picked the right one.

You can start asking:

What am I neutralising? What am I enhancing? What result am I trying to create?

And then you formulate.

Lift. Read. Tone.

That toning class was one of the things that made me realise there was a much bigger piece of hair colour education missing.

We talk so much about what toner to use, but not enough about the decision-making that needs to happen between applying your bleach and mixing your toner.

And that’s exactly where my Lift, Read & Tone Method came from.

Because sometimes you don’t need another toner formula.

You need to learn how to lift the hair, read the canvas you’ve created and then formulate your toner based on what is actually sitting in front of you.

Lift first. Read second. Tone third.