Ask the Experts: What is a toner and why do we use them? May 8, 2018 09:38
We asked salon owner and colourist Jennifer Morgan to explain what the service of a toner is all about?
Most people think that when the word toner is used, something has gone wrong... right?!
Your lying in the basin with your head back thinking “OMG is my hair orange? Why do I need a toner? "What is happening?"
Let me spend a minute explaining what a hair toner is?
At Morgan & Morgan you will often hear the term a 'glaze' and this is just another term for the same thing...but its the word we use
A glaze applied to freshly lightened or coloured hair. It is a layer of translucent colour that sits on the outside of your hair. Its like a lip gloss for your hair. It adds extreme shine, just a touch of colour and leaves the hair feeling smooth and hydrated. A true glaze should not change the colour of your natural hair and will only last up to 4 weeks depending on how often you shampoo your hair.
Why does my colour need one?
Glazes are used to add colour to blonde hair. How else would you get an ash blonde, champagne, golden, beige, sandy, the possibilities are endless. Glazes allow us to play with the hue of our blonde and because they are temporary we can change them all the time.
When we lighten hair up to blonde we are often left with a somewhat raw looking colour (anything from orange yellow through to pale yellow) so the glaze adds the desired shade of blonde your looking to achieve.
Glazes are also used to counteract tone already in the hair or reignite old blonde hair and make it look fresh again.
Glazes can also be used to create the type of pastel colours that are popping up all of Instagram, Facebook and on the pages of fashion magazines
How long does a glaze last?
In all honesty the answer to this is as vague as "how long is a piece of string?" The longevity of your glaze will be determined by the porosity (which is the condition of the cuticle or outside layer), how often you wash your hair and the quality of the shampoo you use. A true glaze will last around 8 shampoos - so if you wash every day you can expect just over a week. We have a take-home version of a glaze that will add longevity in the form of Fabuloso Pro - a customised coloured conditioner that we can formulate to match the shade of the glaze we have used
If you wash your hair every other day (or less) then you can expect longer from the service, but FabPro is the ideal compliment to ensure your hair stays picture perfect between salon visits
Vital to the success of the glaze service is that the tone and level are suitable to the degree of lightening achieved and it takes the eye (and experience) of a professional colourist to get this right
So you can see there are many uses for a hair glazes and none of them are scary.
So, next time your in the salon having your hair done, ask about a glaze toner or gloss
