Ok, back to basics.
Take your time to read this through and please come back and ask further questions if any bits are unclear.
Her mids and ends are a level 10. You’ve lifted an inch of the roots to a 10, great job so far.
Colour pigment in tint
A level 10 tint ( and Highlift tints) contain only a small amount of colour pigment.
Level - Pigment Weight
The following is a simple explanation about depth of colour at each level in a tube of tint.
It doesn’t match any colour house (so don’t formulate your colours based on this table!), but is used to illustrate the principle of dilution of colour.
Level - Amount of colour pigment in the tube
10 - 3 units of pigment
9 - 8 units of pigment
8 - 15 units of pigment
7 - 25 units of pigment
6 - 40 units of pigment
5 - 60 units of pigment
4 - 80 units of pigment
3 - 110 units of pigment
2 - 125 units of pigment
1 - 150 units of pigment
So a level 8/1 tube of colour has 5 times the amount of colour pigment compared to a level 10/1. Again this is only a simplified explanation and the reality for your colour house is probably quite different.
1. What is the job of a toner used after bleaching?
Toner is used to neutralise the underlying pigment colour that has been exposed when bleaching the hair. That’s why you have to understand the lightening curve to know what level you have lifted it to. (My avatar pic.) Anyone that talks about their hair turning ginger, doesn’t understand the lightening process, so please feel free to completely ignore their well meaning advice.
During the lightening process, the hair will lift through the various levels and you stop the lifting process when you’ve achieved the desired level. It might take a long time to go from a 4 to a 10 but that’s normal and to be expected.
As the hair lightens from a 4, it will be quite red and as it lifts to a level 6 it will be very orange looking.
At level 7, it will be a lighter orange, by level 8, it’s a deep egg yolk yellow, and by 9, it’s a light yellow.
when you’ve reached level 10, it’s the palest hint of yellow, like the inside of a banana skin.
Choosing a Toner
As a rule, you choose your toner based on the level of the hair you are toning.
If you’d lifted the hair to a yellow level 8, you might choose a toner such as 8/81. If you lift the hair to an 8 and use a toner that’s 10/6, then although it might be a violet based toner, the amount of colour pigment in the 10 is not going to be enough to fully neutralise the underlying yellow colour pigment of a level 8.
After choosing your level, you look at the underlying colour and see How strong it is and also consider what you want your finished colour to be. Do you want a colour that’s more ash, cool neutral, beige toned or slightly golden? So you’d look at the primary and secondary tones in the tint to mix for your desired result.
What role does Developer play?
When you add a developer to a tint, it’s role is to open the cuticle layer to allow the tiny colour molecules to pass through, where they oxidise and then expand in size. However, developer also effectively lightens the hair a little depending on its strength so when toning already lightened hair, you only need a low strength of developer. That’s why when toning with a demi or a permanent tint, you’d normally use something around 10vol or 3%.
How to fix?
I‘d use a weak strength bleach mixture and carefully apply only to the orange sections and let them lift back up to a 10. Tone with a violet based level 10 tint. Maybe something like 10/6 in CT and pastel developer.
Playing around and having fun with colour
When you really understand the basics of hair colouring, that’s when you can start to mix things up a little and add some 8 to a 10 to or a smidge of blue booster to an 8 whilst understanding underlying tones and depth of pigment and how these things will affect your end result.
That’s when the fun really starts and you suddenly discover that you’re a great colourist!