REVIEW: REDKEN BLONDE IDOL CUSTOM-TONE CONDITIONER (BEFORE + AFTER)

All my fake blondes out there know just how hard it is to keep that pain in the ass brass away. You try to do everything you can, but even then it just isn't enough and you find yourself standing in the bathroom rolling your eyes as you impatiently rub toner into your hair. If you're not busting the doors down at the salon with $60 in your hand, that is. I have a cabinet full of purple and blue tone products that are supposed to fight brass and tone your hair, which most of them are a flop. That doesn't stop me, though. I don't give up hope!

The Back Story

I'm a huge fan of Redken, mostly their color. The Shades EQ Glosses are one of my holy grail products. As I was browsing the site recently, I saw that they released a new product line called Blonde Idol. Hmm... I scrolled down the page skipping through the common shampoos and conditioners just for blondes, but once I saw the strange contraption that was half purple half white, I scrolled back up quickly. A few minutes later, I was off to Ulta. I had just had my hair lightened significantly to get me to a white-silver color. Now that I'm so light, I really need to get serious about my toning products. Before, I was a rather warm blonde so no amount of toning products would get me to an ash color, it would just turn me green. Thank God those days are over...

The Review

Now, this is how Redken describes the Blonde Idol Custom Tone Conditioner:

• Dual-chamber releases a custom calibrated blend of color-depositing and conditioning formulas that can be adjusted as needed over time

• Violet, for cool or platinum blondes, helps neutralize brassiness

• Deeply conditions, strengthens and helps preserve tonality between salon visits

I picked up the violet shade for cool blondes as I want to keep the white in my hair, well, white. If you don't know, purple counteracts the yellow tones in the hair leaving it a nice neutral blonde color. Purple if you leave it in too long, but that is a different story. The conditioner has neat packaging, which is a huge plus. It is a dial like thing (?) that you turn higher or lower depending on how much pigment you want or need for your hair. It is numbered by weeks, Week 1 releasing the smallest amount of purple in the conditioner for a mild toner, and Week 6 which releases pure purple pigment for some major toning action. Go big or you're a bitch is my motto, so I cranked it up to Week 6. Pure purple, baby!

The thing was easy to use, however one of the downsides is you don't get a lot of product out of the bottle per pump. I have shoulder length hair, and I had to use about 12 pumps of product. I might have not needed that much, but remember: go big or you're a bitch. I'm just kidding, but don't be afraid! I used my regular Schwarzkopf purple shampoo and followed with the Redken conditioner. I left it in for around 4 minutes. It has a distinct smell, it's not bad, but eh. Redken usually has fabulous smelling products but this one didn't do it for me. It's not that big of a deal, I didn't find that it lingered in my hair afterward. I washed it out, hopped out of the shower, and hoped to find my hair so white it was translucent. It didn't really go like that, but I did notice a lot less yellow when it was wet, which is a great thing as your hair is always darker wet. I saw a few purple tinted pieces, but it didn't bother me. I followed up with my normal hair routine (we'll get into it in a future post) and dried my hair.

The Verdict

As I was drying my hair, I did notice it looked a bit darker, but I didn't scare myself. When I finished drying up my hair, I was extremely impressed! The conditioner left my hair a beautiful ash tone and blended my hair seamlessly. I went blonde with many highlight sessions, so needless to say my hair was a few slightly different tones. The conditioner deposited a very clean tone, no purple or blue bits in sight even though I left it in a bit longer. That reason pleased my very much, I am not a fan of the random lavender stained hair.

Overall, I am VERY IMPRESSED with the Redken Blonde Idol Custom-Tone Conditioner. It definitely toned out 98% of the remaining pesky yellow tones in my hair leaving me a true ash near-white blonde! Love!

Before

After

 

*This post is not sponsored by Redken, these are my own opinions and this product was purchased with my own money.