Still seeing people overlay toner on dry hair at the bowl and it drives me crazy

I was at a workshop last month in Portland and watched a stylist grab a demi-permanent toner and just plop it right onto dry highlighted hair. No water, no prep, nothing. I mean maybe it's just me but I always thought you needed to towel dry or at least dampen the hair first so the toner spreads evenly. The result was so patchy and the ends grabbed way too dark. I brought it up politely and she said she learned that way in school. So now I'm wondering how many others out there are doing this? Has anyone else had to fix a toner application that went wrong because of this?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_wesley1mo ago

Ask her what color line she's using that doesn't turn into a straight up disaster on dry hair with no prep. I'm really curious if there's something out there that actually works that way, or if it's just a recipe for fixing other people's mistakes.

ryanh771mo ago

My buddy Jenna tried this once with a redken shades eq formula on her own balayage. She figured dry hair would help it stick better or something and ended up with these weird dark splotches by her ears and the rest was super uneven. I had to help her strip it out with a clarifying treatment and redo the whole thing damp. It took two extra hours and she still tipped me, which was nice but man what a mess.