Hair DIY: Three Ways to Get Rose Gold/Pale Pink Hair

Tori is a 28-year-old, three-time animal mom and DIYer living in Northern Atlanta with her boyfriend.

I have dyed my hair many times, but one color that I can't ever seem to get enough of is pink. I love pink hair. More specifically, I like light pink—rose gold, bubblegum pink, smoky pink—whatever you want to call it! I've tried a few different ways to get that color over the years and now I'm going to share my methods with you so you can see what works best for you!

Ways to Get Rose Gold/Pale Pink Hair

1. Use a rose or light pink-colored dye.
2. Mix hot pink dye with conditioner.
3. Use a rosy colored toner.

Before You Begin

Unfortunately, any kind of light or pastel colors will not show up on darker hair. Your hair must be at minimum a level 8 blonde for the color to show up in your hair. If you're not sure what level color you are, I've included a levels chart here for your reference!

To achieve the correct level of blonde, you have a few options. Either you can lighten your entire head on your own, or you can do highlights. I am terrible at doing my own highlights, so I get them done professionally when I decide I want highlights.

If you decide to lighten your hair on your own, I recommend using Ion Color Brilliance volume 20 developer for sensitive scalp and Ion Color Brilliance Creme Lightener. Out of all of the lightening products I have tried, these ones gave me the best results: I came out with lighter hair in 15 minutes and no fried hair at all!

Any time you lighten your hair, it will come out a yellow. You will need a purple shampoo to remove the yellow and get your hair to a more cool toned blonde. Unless, of course, you're going for a strawberry pink or rose gold - then the brassy yellow color will add to your rose gold tone and look really pretty once the pink is on top of it.

The other thing to remember about dying your hair light pink is that it is a color that will fade extremely quickly so it is a high maintenance color. Every time I've done it it lasts about four washes before it's gone completely. I only wash my hair twice a week so I could make it last two weeks without touchups. I'll provide methods of maintenance for each of the ways I tell you about below so you know how to make the color last longer than two weeks.

1. Use a Rose or Light Pink-Colored Dye.

The first way you can achieve rosy pink hair is probably the easiest - use a rose or light pink colored dye. For this type of pink, your hair will need to be a very light blonde - level 9 or higher is my recommendation. For me, light pink dyes don't take very well unless my hair is basically platinum, and for people who do have naturally darker hair like I do, I would expect the same problem.

There are a couple of different brands that make light pink or rosy dye. I've tried Manic Panic Cotton Candy Pink and Ion Color Brilliance Gemstone Brights in Rose Quartz.

The Manic Panic was interesting because I love this brand and normally it works out great for me. But this particular color didn't work - it barely took in my hair. I felt like it would be good if you wanted extremely subtle pink highlights.

My pick for my hair though is going to have to be the Ion Color Brilliance in Rose Quartz. The color turned out amazing. The only thing I will say is that I had to use a lot of it to cover my whole head. I bought three tubes and used all three. But the color came out amazing and just the shade I was looking for.

To maintain this color, my best recommendation is to just re-dye your hair when you feel like the color has faded too much. Since these pinks are not as pigmented as, say, a hot pink, this will be the best method of maintenance.

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2. Mix Hot Pink Dye With Conditioner.

This is one of my favorite methods because maintenance is easy and my hair gets a conditioning mask out of it every time I do it! For this method you'll want to purchase a much stronger pink dye than the ones I previously mentioned, and your hair doesn't need to be as light as it would be for the previous method. You could probably get away with a level eight, maybe a level seven if your hair is thin. We're talking hot pink. If you want a more coral color, you could select a dye that is more of a reddish pink.

My favorite kinds of dye for this type of hair coloring are from One N Only. The One N Only Perfect Intensity Argan Oil dye in Hot Pink is the dye that I've had the best results with. All you need to do is mix half a tube with half a cup of conditioner. The conditioner must be colorless. My current favorite is OGX Coconut Water conditioner.

After mixing the dye in, apply to your hair like a mask and leave in for at least an hour. As a warning, when you are applying it to your hair it will look hot pink on your hair, but I promise when you wash it out your hair will not be hot pink.

To maintain this look, all you have to do is apply the mixture like a hair mask every two weeks, and that's it! You'll have super soft moisturized hair and a great light pink color to work with.

3. Use a Rosy Colored Toner.

I did this once and had it done professionally, but you could easily replicate this at home. I also realized I didn't take any good pictures of mine, so the picture I'm using is Guy Tang's results from his formula, which I found online and is the formula I gave to my hairstylist so he could replicate it. Here's the ingredients. My stylist mixed at 1:1 ratio for everything except the magenta was just a few drops.

Best Rosy Colored Toners

• Guy Tang Favorites Demi-Permanent 10BrM Extra Light Blonde–Bronze Metallic
• Guy Tang Favorites Demi-Permanent 8BrM Blonde–Bronze Metallic
• Kenra Color Demi-Permanent 5VR Light Brown–Violet Red–gives the haircolor a rosy feel.
• Olaplex with a drop of Kenra Color Creative Magenta

It turned out beautifully. My hair stylist mixed all the colors together and applied the toner after putting highlights in my hair. We left the toner in for about an hour before washing it out and my hair turned out gorgeous.

When I did this color, it was back in 2016 when rose gold was just starting to get popular as a hair color, so a mixture of toners was necessary. Now, it's so popular that there are actually pre-formulated toners that you can use. I found this one by Pravana that looks like it would yield good results as well.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

Questions & Answers

Question: I recently dyed my hair pastel pink (I bleached then toned to platinum and then added pink and I'm very happy with the results) but it didn't take to all of my hair. So my friend said that I should dye it again and then use toner and the toner will make my hair all one color. Does that sound right to you?

Answer: To a certain extent yes, it would help even the color out a bit. however without seeing your hair it's hard to tell. Usually with me, if dye isn't taking to my hair it means I didn't lighten it enough (because my natural hair will NOT hold dye at all).

Question: How light was your hair when you used toner to colour it rose gold?

Answer: My hair was a medium blonde with blonde highlights!