Brassiness Can Ruin Your Hair Color—Here's How to Get Rid of It for Good (2025)

While there's nothing like walking out of a salon with fresh ombré highlights or a stunning new color, brassy hair could be on the horizon. A few weeks later, your bold color might look a little washed out, or orange-tinted and brassy. According to experts, brassy hair is fixable, even preventable. Here's everything you need to know about brassy hair, as well as effective strategies for avoiding it so you can enjoy that new color for more than a few weeks.

What Is Brassy Hair?

Hairstylist and colorist Jana Rago defines brassy hair as unwanted warm tones in the hair. Depending on your hair color, the brassy shade will show up differently.

As beauty entrepreneur and colorist Megan Graham explains, blonde hair will appear yellow or orange. A brunette or someone with black-colored hair will start to notice their strands looking orange or red, depending on how dark their hair is typically. For a redhead, hair may seem more washed out or faded.

Rago says that when new clients visit her salon, many are stressed about their color but can't pinpoint what's bothering them. More often than not, it's the brassy undertone that doesn't feel right to them, and they are hoping to find a fix.

Causes of Brassy Hair

Toning Mistakes

There are many things that can lead to brassy hair. When you get your hair lightened, the stylist uses bleach to lift your natural color and then "tone" the highlight with a darker shade. Some people have warmer undertones than others, and those warm undertones can look brassy if not toned with a neutral or cooler shade.

Sun Exposure

In other cases, environmental factors or the wrong products are at play. "These tones can turn due to sunlight, washing with the wrong shampoo that doesn't protect colored hair, or a mistake made by a colorist, like not using a toner," says Rago. "The sun will dry out the hair by opening the cuticle on the scalp, which will lift the color out, causing the hair to look brassy."

How to Fix Brassiness

If your hair has started to turn brassy in the weeks after your color appointment, don't worry. There are a few ways to fix the problem.

Book a Color-Corrective Appointment

To entirely remove any hint of brass, Graham recommends a color-corrective appointment with a professional stylist/colorist. Give the expert a heads-up by asking for this specific type of treatment. As Graham puts it, the only way to thoroughly remove a brassy tone from hair is to go through a multi-step process that treats every last strand.

A color-corrective appointment addresses what happened to your hair before you came in for help. A permanent color is often the culprit. "In the process of lightening the hair, the permanent color unearths the red and orange tones that are present in all hair types," says Graham.

For darker shades of brown, the permanent color then deposits a darker tone on top of the lightness it created, but in a few weeks, when the color fades, Graham says the client is left with an unpleasant shade of brown.

Find the Right Color Shampoo

Give your strands a little TLC between appointments by using a specific color-formulated shampoo based on the color you're attempting to achieve. Matteo Vazquez, a color education coordinator and colorist for Mario Tricoci, recommends a richly formulated purple shampoo for blondes, which distributes purple pigment throughout the hair to neutralize brassy tones.

"Violet is the opposite of yellow or gold," says Vazquez. "When the two meet, they neutralize and diminish the gold. The more you use the purple shampoo, the cooler the hair will get." Rago says brunettes should opt for a blue shampoo, and redheads should go for a golden shampoo. To prevent overwashing, only do this treatment once a week.

How to Prevent Brassy Hair

The best way to avoid having to fix brassy hair? Avoid it before it becomes a problem. Here are a few things you can do to prevent brassy hair.

Ask Your Stylist to Use a Toner

Ask your colorist to apply a toner after the dye is washed out. A toner will literally "tone down the hair" to hide the warm undertones. When you don't do this, your highlights may look too blonde if you're a brunette," she says. "Also, the toner helps blend the colors together and can be used to achieve your desired look."

One important note: Since toner isn't permanent, you'll need to re-apply every month to six weeks, depending on your hair texture and how often you wash your hair.

Visit Your Colorist Regularly

The best way to prevent brassy hair for brunettes, blondes, redheads—or really, hair of any shade—is to have regular appointments. Much like you check in with a doctor, colorists are trained to keep your locks healthy and glowing. (Keep that expertise in mind when you're deciding how much to tip your hairdresser.) According to Vazquez, brassiness often appears simply because the color is overdue for a touch-up.

Use Protective Oil Before Using Hot Tools

Many people use a hot tool—a blow dryer, flat iron, or curling iron—to achieve various hairstyles. Our hair would be more durable if we avoided heat altogether, but that's not a reality for most people. Unfortunately, heat can make brassiness come out faster, so Rago suggests adding another layer of protection. This can be an oil, a blow-dry cream, or a heat-protective serum that's applied daily.

Invest in a Water Filter for Your Showerhead

You're probably mindful of the quality of the water you drink, and Rago says the same concern should go into the water that cleans your hair. She suggests investing in a water filter for your showerhead. Not only will it filter out the hard water and minerals that can cause build-up and create a brassy shade, but it will also leave your hair softer and healthier.

Rinse With Cool or Cold Water

You've probably heard that rinsing your hair with cool water at the end of your shower will help the cuticles lie flat and reduce frizziness. But rinsing with cold water also has major color benefits, especially right after getting your hair colored. When you rinse with warm water and the cuticles lift, the water rinses out the color, leaving behind brassy strands. Rinse with cool or cold water, and you'll prevent brassiness and frizz.

Skip a Shampoo

Washing your hair every day isn't good for it in general, but skipping a day when your hair is colored is especially important. The more you wash your hair, the faster the color will fade, and the higher the chance for brassy tones to creep in. Wash your hair a maximum of every other day (every three to five days is optimal) to keep your color vibrant and avoid brassiness.

If you work up a sweat or have an oilier scalp, dry shampoo may do the trick to help you skip shampoo days. While dry shampoo doesn't technically clean hair, it does soak up the oil near the roots to extend your blowout. Test the dry shampoo on a small section of your scalp first to make sure it doesn't irritate your skin, and try not to overuse it, or it can cause buildup and itchiness.