Can You Dye Purple Over Orange Hair?

You finally summoned all your confidence and decided to bleach your hair at home. You’re hoping to achieve that gorgeous golden blonde you see models and actresses are sporting on TV, magazines, and runways.

Now that the dyeing part is done, you’re excited to see the results. But to your horror, you ended up with a terrible shade of orange?

What do you do? You don’t want to look like a walking traffic cone or be the laughingstock of your friends and family!

There are three simple steps to follow when it comes to neutralizing the brassy tones in your hair—tone the orange out and conceal it with a dye.

But which dye color should you go for? When you do your research, there’s one color that will be mentioned a lot— purple!

Before you go crazy covering your hair with purple dye, you must first learn the answer to this question: can you put purple over orange hair? Read on to find out!

Can I Dye Purple Over Orange Hair?

Will purple dye work on orange hair?

Yes, purple is one of the best color options you have when it comes to neutralizing the orange tone in your hair. Applying purple dye to orange hair is one of the best ways to remove the unwanted brassy tones in your hair.

However, there are many things that you need to consider before you choose to fix your orange hair using purple dye.

Here are some of them:

Which Orange Shade Your Hair Has

Take a closer look at your hair. Is it more on the orange side or the yellow side? If the color of your hair is leaning towards the yellowish or yellow-orange shade, you can fix your orange hair using a purple hair dye.

If not, then you need to look for other more effective hair dye colors. Fortunately, we’ve listed a few more color options in the next section.

Lightness and Darkness of the Orange Tone

How light or dark the orange shade is will determine what kind of purple hair dye you should go for. For example, if your hair has a light orange hue, any purple hair dye would do. On the other hand, a more intense and darker purple dye is needed to correct a darker shade of orange.

Your Hair Health

Another thing you have to decide on is the type of hair dye you should use. Again, this will depend on the current condition of your hair.

If you have dry and brittle hair, we recommend using a semi-permanent hair dye as it’s a lot gentler and less damaging to the hair. On the other hand, use a permanent hair dye if your hair is healthy. The latter is also a great option if you have lots of gray hair that you want to conceal.

Interesting Topics for You:

How to Fix Hair That Turned Purple After Dying It Brown

What Other Colors Cover Orange Hair?

As mentioned, purple dye won’t work on all shades of orange hair. However, here are the other hair dye colors that you can choose from if your orange hair doesn’t have a yellowish tint to it:

Blue

Another excellent hair dye color to cancel out the orange tones in your hair would be blue. It works well because blue and orange are located across one another in the color wheel. This means that these two colors can cancel out one another. 

This shade is recommended if your hair has a bright orange shade.

Blonde

If you don’t want to dye your hair darker (which will happen when you choose either blue or purple hair dyes), your next best bet would be to dye it lighter using a blonde hair dye.

The key is to find the right shade of blonde. In addition, you need to look for a blonde shade with ashy and cool undertones, as these are effective in eliminating the orange tones in your hair.

However, dyeing your orange hair blonde is not as easy as making it darker. For this method, it’s recommended that you have a professional hairstylist assess your hair strands and apply the blonde hair dye to your hair.

Orange Hair Be Gone!

Purple and orange hair cancels out one another. But as mentioned, purple hair dye won’t work on all shades of orange hair. That’s why you must assess your hair’s shade, lightness, and condition first to know if using a purple dye is the right option for you.

Or better yet, consult a hair expert so you can determine which is the most effective method to fixing your orange hair. Then, leave your hair to the expert to get the blonde shade that you want without damaging your hair.