An Honest oVertone Extreme Silver and Vibrant Silver Review (+ Bonus Makki Grey Mask Review)

It’s definitely not a new trend, but I love silver and grey hair. They are very versatile, like blonde, so there’s an option for everyone! You can go light pastel silver or a dark gunmetal grey and have a completely different vibe. All of those shades are pretty neutral, and can work with any style and color palette, from soft boho florals to sharp modern leather and metallics. After way too many hours spent fawning over inspiration pics, I finally decided to go for it, and went with the name I’d kept seeing everywhere: oVertone!

From work to the bar, silver hair fits every occasion!

What is oVertone?

oVertone is a system of pigmented conditioners designed to color your hair or keep previously dyed hair bright between salon visits. They are vegan and cruelty-free, and don’t contain peroxide, ammonia, or heavy alcohols.

They have two products: Daily Conditioners and Go Deep Treatments. The Daily Conditioners are designed to be used when you would normally condition your hair, depositing a little color so you can keep hair bright, even if you like a nice hot shower. The Go Deep Treatments are designed to be a deep conditioning treatment once per week, and can also be used to dye light hair or tint dark hair.

My Plan

I wanted to do something similar to MayaLaMode’s silver ombre. I decided to get oVertone’s Vibrant Silver Kit and Extreme Silver Kit, with the intention of using the Vibrant Silver on most of my hair first, and then the Extreme Silver on my roots. I also picked up the Pastel Purple Daily Conditioner and the Pastel Orange Daily Conditioner to use as color-correcting toners.

Not pictured: Vibrant and Extreme Go Deep Treatments. See my struggle below.

Ordering and Shipping from oVertone

oVertone’s website is gorgeous, fun, and easy to navigate, so I spent a bunch of time on there just exploring, reading their blog posts, looking at pictures, etc. Once I was ready to order, it was simple since the site is sorted by color, and full kits are available that contain a Go Deep Treatment, a full size  Daily Conditioner, and a travel size Daily Conditioner.

I selected normal shipping, and it took a day or two longer than their shipping window of 15 days after processing. It felt like forever, since I’ve been spoiled by Amazon Prime. However, I don’t believe it was oVertone’s fault, since it was the tail end of the holiday shipping rush and it seemed like the entire US was having postal problems.

I contacted oVertone to ask about my order since it had been stuck in one location for about a week, and their customer service email was very prompt and courteous.

But when it finally arrived, I was so excited that I used it that very night!

Starting Point: Light Blonde

I’ve been getting my hair bleached at a salon for a few years now, so my hair was already very light blonde. I asked my stylist to go silver last time I visited, but she only purple-toned my hair, so it was not nearly as vibrant as I wanted. I wasn’t willing to continue spending $300+ for basically a root touch-up and purple toning.

After my last salon visit. It looked good, but definitely more ash blonde than silver or grey! After this pic, I lightened it one more time before using the oVertone, but have no pics…I was too anxious to get the silver on!

I had heard positive things about oVertone, so I decided to try doing it myself at home!

By the time it arrived, my medium-dark brown roots had grown in, and I knew I needed as light of a base as possible, too. So I decided to start by bleaching . I lightened my hair with Ion’s Powder Lightener and a 20 developer, resulting in my roots at level 9 or 10 and the rest at level 10 or 11. That was fine by me, as I intended to put the darker Extreme Silver on my roots anyways.

Next, I needed to neutralize the golden tones out of my blonde—mostly the untoned, freshly bleached roots—so that it wouldn’t mix with the blue in the silver dye and turn my hair green. I followed oVertone’s tutorial about toning brassiness using their Pastel Purple Daily Conditioner.

In that tutorial, they indicate that you only need to leave it on for a few seconds to tone to a silvery color. So I did that, and it did…absolutely nothing. I tried again, letting it sit in my hair for an hour. This time, I felt that it toned fairly neutral, but still not distinctly cool-toned. I thought that this may actually work out for the best, since I knew that the Silver Go Deep Treatments have a cool blue undertone anyways and I didn’t want to go lilac or blue.

oVertone Vibrant Silver Go Deep Treatment Review

Next, I wanted to dye my hair using the Vibrant Silver Go Deep Treatment, as MayaLaMode and oVertone’s blogs both suggested. My hair is only slightly past my shoulders, so I expected it to take about half of the jar. Since the Pastel Purple Daily Conditioner took a lot longer than expected to work, I decided to apply it to dry hair for maximum effectiveness as suggested on the jar.

Even with the help of a friend for more precision, it took nearly a full jar to cover all of my hair.This was a bit disappointing, because at $28 for 8 oz it’s much more expensive than other options like Arctic Fox Sterling ($14/8oz), Ion Color Brilliance Titanium ($6/2oz without developer), or Makki Professional Grey (~$14/6.8oz).

I let it sit for about an hour. This is 6 times as long as the instructions, but I had already noted from the toner that it would not work quickly, and the friend helping me said that they could still see blonde at the 20 minute, forty minute, and even hour mark. At that point I felt I couldn’t wait for the remaining blonde to color, and when I washed it out, I was slightly horrified at the result.

I don’t necessarily care about perfection, especially with home dying—hair will grow out, dye will fade, and there is a reason there are trained professionals after all—but the oVertone Vibrant Silver Go Deep Treatment had turned my light, neutral blonde into a patchy mess of colors, and dried it out worse than any bleaching has.

The last inch or so took the dye pretty well and was mainly pastel silver. The rest of my hair ranged from the original blonde, to a murky green, to steel blue. I would have understood if each “layer” (longer growth, middle, and especially my slightly darker roots) was different, but the random streaks and splotches of color had no rhyme or reason at all. Keep in mind that my friend had helped me apply it evenly, so there was no reason that it should have come out this patchy except for the dye absorbing unevenly.

oVertone Extreme Silver Go Deep Treatment Review

As I mentioned earlier, I had originally planned to do shadow roots using the Extreme Silver Go Deep Treatment. Instead, since my hair had turned such a crazy mix of colors, I decided to try covering the entire head using the Extreme Silver. I would not ordinarily put dye over such uneven colors, but I figured there was little risk since I was going to need to either strip the color or dye my hair darker the next day anyways.

As with the Vibrant Silver Go Deep, my friend helped me apply the oVertone Extreme Silver to dry hair, and again, it took nearly the entire jar. This time, I waited even longer, a little over an hour and a half. When I finally washed it out, I was still….pretty unimpressed. My hair still had the same basic colors, just much darker. So the ends were a dark grey, and there were still random streaks and patches of the green, and blue, and even some of the original blonde!

However, it was a little less noticeable in the darker shade, so I decided to leave it in for a while and see what it did rather than stripping the color out the next day. Plus, I had one last hope for slowly evening out the color.

It was 3:30 A.M. by the time this ordeal finished, so here’s a pic from the day after. Also, I was so exhausted and stressed that I tossed the Go Deep Treatment jars before thinking to photograph them! 

oVertone Extreme Silver Daily Conditioner and Vibrant Silver Daily Conditioner Reviews

oVertone’s Daily Conditioners are meant to maintain color between dye jobs, but are less intense than the Go Deep line. So I hoped that by using the Daily Conditioner, the blue from the Silver Go Deeps would eventually fade and the neutral blonde streaks might slowly pick up a bit of color, leading to an overall more balanced look.

I take a hot shower every day, so my hair generally fades very quickly if I’m not doing any special upkeep. (I’m sure the hair gods are appalled, but it’s my best time for relaxing and creative thinking!) I waited a day, then tried out the Extreme Silver Daily Conditioner on wet hair, leaving it in about ten minutes and rinsing.

It boosted the grey a very tiny bit, did nothing to the green or blonde, and unfortunately made the blue way more vibrant! Also, I found that this “conditioner” majorly dried out my hair, so I had to do extra conditioning and use a light gel to fight frizziness.

Not the clearest picture from my phone’s front facing camera, but note the steely blue streaks, especially on my bangs.

I waited a few days and tried again using the less pigmented Vibrant Silver Daily Conditioner, with the same result. My hair looked closer to the denim hair trend than silver at this point. Very pretty, and a nice match for my eyes, but absolutely not what I was going for.

At this point, I gave up. I know that you can tone blue with orange, and had even ordered the Pastel Orange Daily Conditioner for just such a possibility.

But since the same toning technique had not worked very well with the purple and my hair was so patchy, I wasn’t willing to risk it potentially going even more splotchy or murky since my hair looked decent, albeit the wrong color. I decided to let it fade out so I could try one of the many other silver dye options on the market.

Overall Impressions, and Would I Recommend oVertone?

Overall, the oVertone Purple Daily Conditioner, Extreme Silver Kit, and Vibrant Silver Kit were pretty disastrous for me personally. That’s not to say it’s a bad company or bad product, it just didn’t work for my hair. The following criticisms are just from my perspective, but the product may work differently for you!

My impressions:

• I wouldn’t have cared if it was all green, all blue, etc, or different colors in the different stages of grow-out. Then I could chalk it up to user error, find another toner, lighten my hair even more, etc. I was only upset with how extremely unevenly it colored, despite being done properly with small sections and a brush.

It didn’t show up well on my phone’s camera in most pics, but you can see the unevenness better here as it lightened.

• For my hair, the “conditioners” were more drying than the bleach itself. Maybe my hair didn’t like an ingredient.
• There was an incredibly strong blue undertone, which I can only assume is meant to counteract freshly bleached, orange-y hair. oVertone does say on their All About Silver post that it can easily go blue or green, and all silver dyes typically have a light blue or purple tone. However, this one was much more intense than the next silver dye I tried, and didn’t fade out after a wash out two. The blue actually lasted longer in my hair than both the silver and the purple toning, and only the blue was amplified by the Vibrant and Extreme Daily Conditioners.
• Based on my (limited) experience, I suspect that having pure white hair, normally perfect for going silver, might make the blue even more vivid. (Except maybe the Pastel Silver version, since there’s less pigment)
• That being said, I do have a feeling that the oVertone kits would work really well for colors that aren’t as notoriously finicky as silver and grey, such as red, blue, or purple. For these, you’re trying to deposit color rather than carefully neutralizing, so there’s more leeway. Anecdotally, I have a friend that has been doing her hair pink using oVertone for a long time and loves it.

However, if you’re still even a little interested in trying out oVertone Extreme Silver or Vibrant Silver after reading this review, I say GO FOR IT! There’s little risk to trying it out, as long as you are ok knowing it may or may not turn out like mine. Their customer service is great, so you shouldn’t have any trouble if you want to ask them questions. When I stopped using all oVertone products, it did fade out to a very pretty blonde, blue, and pastel grey mix in about two weeks.

This was about halfway faded, my favorite color in the process.

This was nearly all faded back to light blonde, with just a few streaks of pastel grey and light blue hanging on. The blonde had started going yellow from my long showers, but the blue wouldn’t budge without some help.

I did have to use a color remover to get out two stubborn patches of blue-ish on my bangs and my left side, but they came out without permanent staining or requiring bleach.

I personally will not be using oVertone for silver again, as I have found a different toner and grey hair mask combo that worked fantastically and is much cheaper. My review will be coming very soon, so keep an eye out!

Extremely Belated 2019 Update:

I abandoned the blog for a LONG TIME because I was opening a small business! I’m still deciding whether I want to pick it up again, but I probably won’t be doing the second review regardless, as the pictures of the process and result are long gone.

The product I hinted at in the conclusion of this post was Makki Semi Permanent Hair Mask in Grey.

If I recall correctly, I used the Makki right after the oVertone wore out, and without any additional lightening. That is a major reason why I attribute the results above to the formula, rather than my starting hair color or the application method. The Makki worked for my particular hair, the oVertone didn’t work evenly for me.

I purchased the Makki Mask from Ebay and used this tutorial by CandyflossOverkill, which essentially involved:

1. Mix Makki Mask and white conditioner until it is a shade darker than the shade you want your hair to be.
2. Apply evenly to damp hair. For the same length as pictures above, it took me roughly 1/3 of the bottle when applied very generously. I did not use a brush for this one because I had no help. I just used my hands to rub it around on my hair all at once, trying to make sure I got everything.
3. Let sit for 20-ish minutes, then wash out.
4. Done! The color looked great right away, and colored evenly, but did have a very faint blue tint. After one wash, the blue faded and it was the neutral medium-grey color that I wanted.
5. It was still slightly drying, but much less so since it was mixed with my normal conditioner.
6. You can also use the same Makki bottle for color maintenance too. Since I take super hot showers every day, I would mix a little of the Makki into my conditioner every 3 days or so and let it sit in damp hair for 5 or so minutes for a silvery refresh!

Again, just like the oVertone, keep in mind that everyone’s hair is different! oVertone has a huge, passionate following and works wonderfully for many people, but didn’t for me.  The Makki worked great for me, but may not for everyone. The important thing is to not give up on your dream of gorgeous grey hair!

This post was not sponsored. This article received clarifying edits and an update at the bottom of the page on 12/17/2019.

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Also published on Medium.