A Whiter Shade of Pale: Redavid’s 3-Step Blonde Therapy System Neutralizes Warm and Yellow Tones

Redavid Blonde Therapy ($136) is a three-step system for highlighted, silver or gray hair.

If your hair is platinum blonde like mine, you’ll do anything to keep your color from looking brassy — and believe me, it will — so you absolutely need a shampoo and conditioner infused with purple pigment to neutralize brassiness. It’s not magic, just basic color theory. Purple sits opposite yellow on the color wheel, which means that the two colors cancel each other out when they meet.

But let’s face it, brassiness isn’t your only problem when you’re channeling Marilyn Monroe. You have to use bleach to lift hair to a pale yellow or white shade, and that opens the cuticle, which makes the hair shaft weaker, drier, more porous, and prone to breakage, split ends, and frizz.

So, how do you keep fragile platinum blonde hair from looking like an orange fright wig? I agreed to try Redavid Blonde Therapy, a three-step system for highlighted, silver or gray hair, to see if it lived up to its promise, which was to neutralize brassiness, provide chemical-free toning, rebuild hair strength and repair over-processed strands, mend split ends, smooth frizz, add body, and amplify shine. That’s a tall order, but guess what? Redavid delivered on every promise and then some.

For the record, L’Oreal describes my hair color as “Ultra Natural Blonde,” and assigns it a numerical value of 10NB, which is a neutral beige variant that delivers an icy, platinum look. I’ve worn my hair short for years, and I never worried about breakage when I had a pixie cut because my stylist chopped off the damage every six weeks.

Now that I’ve grown the layers out and sport a longer fringe, I’ve noticed that my hair is harder to style. There’s simply more hair to blow-dry than before, and it often feels rough and straw-like. By the time I’m ready for a haircut again, I want to scream because my side-swept bangs look dull and dry.

Redavid Blonde Therapy addressed all of my problems, neutralizing the brassy tones and leaving my hair feeling soft and silky. The three-part system includes a purple shampoo that tones brass, a daily conditioner that repairs and detangles, and a two-part leave-in treatment that tones, repairs. and seals.

More good news: Each product is paraben-free and 80 to 90% naturally derived. The family-owned company is based in Canada where it was founded by Leonardo Redavid, an internationally renowned master stylist, who developed the formulas using skincare-grade ingredients and plant science. What’s more, every formula undergoes rigorous testing in professional salons before release.

Give Me Three Steps

Blonde Color Therapy Shampoo. Think of it as the future of blonde care. The gentle daily toner and cleanser takes out brass and puts strength back in. No peroxide. No ammonia. No developer. No SLS or SLES.

Instead, it’s infused with shea butter and Cymbidium Orchid Complex, a proprietary botanical extract blend harvested from the stems and flowers of the Cymbidium orchid that helps to regulate moisture levels inside the hair shaft, preventing dry hair from frizzing and wet hair from swelling in high humidity.

Rich in antioxidants, it gobbles up four times more free radicals (caused by UV rays, heat styling, and chemical treatments) than vitamins C or E. It also fills gaps in the hair cuticle to smooth out texture, mend split ends, and lock in shine.

Blonde Color Therapy Conditioner. Heals as it rehydrates so you can say goodbye to tangles and split ends, while the tone you just built stays exactly where you put it. Shea butter and Cymbidium Orchid Complex rebuild the moisture barrier, pro-vitamin B5 softens, and Dynagen-R, a proprietary, protein-rich complex that builds internal strength by feeding nutrients directly into the hair shaft, does the structural work underneath.

Meanwhile, a light violet pigment keeps brass at bay so you’re not just relying on the shampoo to do the heavy lifting. Comb through the hair, leave on for two minutes, and hair that felt like straw starts behaving again. 

Blonde Dual Therapy. The two-part, leave-in toning and repair system contains violet pigment that neutralizes yellow and brassy tones. Infused with Dynagen-R to build strength and Cymbidium Orchid Complex, coconut oil, aloe vera, chamomile, and rosemary to seal the cuticle, rehydrate, and protect against free radicals.

After shampooing and conditioning your hair, dispense equal parts (one pump Tone & Repair and one pump Shine) into your palms. Rub your hands together until the mixture turns a light lavender color. Work through the hair from mid-shaft down to the ends. Blow-dry your hair. The heat will allow the product to oxidize, set, and deliver full toning and repair.

The Verdict

After using Blonde Color Therapy for two weeks, I noticed that my hair felt softer and more manageable, but then I met a friend for coffee. We sat at a table outside, and after a few minutes she remarked, “I like your hair better this way than with all that gold in it.”

That was the aha-moment for me. I’d been using the palest shade of blonde I could find, and “all that gold” she’d noticed before was actually the underlying orange undertones that became exposed when photo-oxidation began breaking down my fragile cool-toned pigment molecules. My hair wasn’t golden blonde, it was brassy, or rather it was until I discovered Blonde Color Therapy. I rest my case.

For more information and to purchase, click here.

[Photo courtesy of Redavid]

Marianne Dougherty is an award-winning writer, editor and publisher, who has twice been a finalist for a Golden Quill Award for journalistic excellence.

Predicting the day spa trend, she founded American Spa magazine in 1998. She has also been editor in chief of American Salon, Launchpad, and Shades of Beauty magazines.

In 2023 she published her first novel, What We Remember, which was a Mariel Hemingway Book Club selection.

Follow her on Instagram: @mariannedoughertyauthor. Or visit her website: mariannedougherty.com