How To Fix Hot Roots

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Have you ever colored or bleached your hair at home only to end up with disaster? There are many ways the process can go wrong, but one of the most common ones is having hot roots.

Hot roots aren’t a good look. The difference in the color of the roots and the tips is unsightly. Usually, this commonly happens to redheads, but it can occur in brunettes and blondes.

So what do you do? Today, we’ll help you figure out how to fix hot roots in case it happens to you. In this article, we’ll look at how to fix hot roots. There are several ways, but it will vary on what you can use and what your hair actually looks like.

Before we get to the solutions, let’s start with what hot roots are, and why they happen.

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What Are Hot Roots? And What Causes Them?

There are times when you color or bleach your hair and it ends up having a band of discoloration towards the roots. Instead of uniform color, the roots or regrowth look brassier or brighter than the rest of your hair.

That doesn’t look hot and wonderful at all.

In fact, it looks like a disaster that you have to correct. There are several reasons why you might develop hot roots. They are as follows:

Hair Color Selection Is Wrong

So you have some regrowth and it is now showing. Instead of going back to the salon to have your roots touched up by the professional hairstylist, you decide to do it yourself.

You choose a color that you think is quite similar to the rest of your hair. However, you realized that you are mistaken because the color is warmer or lighter than your colored ends.

Using Lighter Color On Previously-Colored Hair

If your hair is already colored and regrowth is already showing, you might want to recolor your hair. You may have decided on getting a lighter color than you currently have.

Although you apply the hair color on your entire hair, from root to tip, the final color that develops after you rinse may have hot roots.

That’s because your regrowth will react fast to the lighter hair color that you’ve chosen.

Remember that box dyes and hair colors will usually use developers to help remove some of the hair’s natural color so it can use the color that you prefer. With the heat from your head, the hair color reacts faster to the roots and lifts color faster to deposit your desired color.

On the other hand, the rest of your hair doesn’t really lighten that quickly. There is also color that is deposited in them. That results to lighter roots and darker colored tips.

Improper Bleach Application

Hot roots can also happen due to improper bleach application. Bleach is damaging to the hair no matter who applies it.

However, those at the salon are more experienced using it. They rarely make the rookie mistake of starting the application on your roots.

It is common for people who DIY bleaching at home to end up with hot roots because of improper application.

Bleach should not be applied starting from the roots to the tips if you are bleaching your whole hair.

If you do that you will end up having hot roots.

That’s because the heat of your head radiating from your scalp will speed up the effect of the bleach. Thus causing your roots to look more brassy than the rest of your hair.

You could try a bleach bath if you want to stick with at-home bleaching, it works better.

You might have already recognized what things you did wrong or improperly that could have lead you to develop. However, there is no use crying over spilled milk now.

If you already have hot roots, the only thing that you can do now is to fix them. Here are a few ways on how to do that:

Use Purple Shampoo

Purple shampoos are meant to help cancel out the yellow, warm tones in your hair. If your hot roots look too warm, the purple shampoo is a great option to help tone down the yellowish tones.

To use this product, you typically first have to wet your hair so that the shampoo can better penetrate the hair shaft. Next, you should apply the purple shampoo to your entire hair, from roots to tips.

Purple shampoos will recommend the amount of time you’d have to leave it on your hair before rinsing it thoroughly with water. After rinsing, you should use a conditioner to help hydrate the hair.

The use of purple shampoo is best for those who have blonde or red hair with hot roots. However if the hot roots on your hair appear to be more orange in tone than yellow, it would be better to use a blue shampoo.

Purple shampoo is best for those who have blonde or red hair with hot roots.

Use A Toner

Another way to fix hot roots is to use a hair toner . Just like the purple shampoos, toners also help cancel out the warm or yellow hues on your hair.

Compared to purple shampoos, toners give a more immediate result. Purple shampoos can only gradually cancel out the yellow tones as you continue to use them.

However, toners are more difficult to use than purple shampoo, so beware.

When making use of a toner, you have to know exactly what colors you want to cancel on your hair. After selecting the appropriate color, you can now apply it to your hair.

To do that, you have to mix two parts of the developer with one part of your toner. This mixture is then applied to your hot rots and left according to the recommended time by the manufacturer.

Afterwhich, a moisturizing conditioner is used to help rehydrate your hair.

Use A Box Dye

Using a box dye could very well have caused you to develop hot roots.

It may surprise you that it can also be used to correct the hot roots!

In order to fix your hot roots with a box dye, you have to know how to correctly apply it to your hair.

First of all, you shouldn’t attempt to reapply the box dye on the same day.

It is best to wait for a day or two before touching your hot roots. In that way, the color from the previous dye job will oxidize.

After that, pick a darker shade that will be used to color the roots.

Remember to get a hair dye that is in the same color family as the one you previously used. Just make sure that what you get this time is a darker shade.

Remember to get a hair dye that is in the same color family as the one you previously used.

Do take note that although this can fix hot roots, results may still vary due to the brand of box dye you are using.

If possible, stick to the same brand of box dye as you previously used in order to prevent any unpredictable results due to the mixing of the chemicals from the different box dye brands.

How To Avoid Hot Roots

Although there are different ways you can fix hot roots, it is always best to avoid them in the first place! Here are a few tips:

Avoid Overprocessing The Roots

One of the most common reasons why you could develop hot roots is because the hair is overprocessed in the root area. Even if you place the dye or bleach on all of your hair at the same time, your roots will still be overprocessed.

That’s because even if everything is placed at the same time, the heat from your head boosts the effect of the hair dye or bleach.

That’s why it becomes more effective at coloring or bleaching your hair.

Don’t Use A Lighter Hair Dye

If you’ve already got colored hair, make sure that the one you use for your regrowth isn’t a lighter shade. You won’t really achieve lighter hair for your colored ends because the color doesn’t lift color.

If you do, you’ll end up coloring the regrowth with a lighter shade and the ends being in a darker shade. If your goal is to lighten your hair, that can only be done with bleach.

Use A Lower Developer

The color lifted on your hair roots could also be affected by the developer you use. Since you already know that heat boost the reaction, it is a good idea to use a lower developer when using the hair color on your roots.

Naturally, our hair towards the roots may appear to be darker than the rest of the hair. That is why we try to mimic that by not producing hot roots or overly lightening the hair regrowth.

Cover Your Hair With A Hair Cap

After applying the hair color to your entire hair, you should use a hair cap over it. The hair cap helps trap the heat inside more evenly so that it doesn’t just affect the area near the scalp.

The hair cap also helps prevent any of your hair color from getting into various things at home.