Level 5 is the level with two names. The manufacturers’ charts print light brown next to it, and that is what this site uses. The stylists who teach the scale on camera mostly say medium brown, in the middle, and one of them says a 5 is light brown on paper and looks medium to dark on the head. Both are describing the same swatch. Box shelves run their names a level darker again, so a box marked medium brown is often a 6 and a box marked dark blonde a 7, and a natural 5 buying by name lands a level off. The number is the part the formula uses.
What a 5 looks like
In daylight a natural 5 is the brown of a walnut shell, warm at the sun-worked ends and darker at the nape; a colored 5 reads more even than a natural head, which runs a 4 at the nape and a 6 at the crown by August. It is a common natural level among brunettes in Europe and North America. It is the fifth of ten, and the scale is lopsided, 1 to 5 the browns and 6 to 10 the blondes, so a 5 is the last brown before level 6, dark blonde, whichever name it carries.
The codes, since the names are no help
The notation after the number is the reliable part of the box. 5N is the natural series, plain light brown. 5.1 is ash, cool and slightly mousy, and it reads darker than the 5N beside it because cool tones give back less light. 5.3 is gold, honey-caramel. 5.4 is copper, a step short of red, and the one shade at this level that uses the orange-red instead of fighting it. 5.5 is mahogany, brown with a red-violet cast. The first number is the level and the second, or the letter, is the tone, and tone codes shift from line to line, so 5A in one brand is 5.1 in another and its ash may be blue or green.
Orange-red under it, and the ash for it
The pigment under a level 5 is orange-red. Lift into a 5 from a 3 or 4 and orange-red shows under the cream at 20 minutes; lift through a 5 toward 6 and 7 and it clears to plain orange, then yellow-orange, then yellow. The stages match the brand charts, and on the head a stalled lift usually shows its orange a level higher than the chart says, so the level to tone is the one on a strand wiped clean and dried, which is what the toner selector is built to be read against. Blue with a touch of green cancels orange-red, and that is what a 5.1 carries. Straight blue on a lifted 5 goes muddy; the green keeps the brown clean.
A 5.1 only cancels orange-red at level 5. Put it on hair already lifted to a 7 and it darkens the hair to a 5 while its blue meets yellow-orange, and blue on yellow makes green: a khaki brown. The other direction fails too. Too much blue-green on a 5 with little warmth left has nothing to cancel and goes flat and muddy.
How far permanent color takes a 5
Permanent color on any developer stops at three to four levels of lift on virgin hair. From a 5 that is a warm 7 to 8 on 30 vol, or an 8 or 9 with a high-lift series and 40 vol, yellow showing through either way. Thirty vol reaches nearly the same place as 40 and leaves more cuticle behind, and 40 stays off the scalp. Mids and ends get the color first and the root last, because the scalp is hot and a root that goes on early runs ahead into a bright first inch. Past a 9 it is lightener, in rounds of fresh mix with a bond builder, and the toner afterward goes on at the level the last round left, on 10 vol or the 5 to 9 vol developer sold for it.
On hair colored before, 40 vol lifts the regrowth and leaves the lengths where they were. My own hair at nineteen was a natural 5 over two years of box 4, and one 40 vol high-lift later the roots were orange-gold and the lengths still a flat 4. Old dye comes out with a remover or with lightener, and the head gets read again before anything else goes on.
Arriving at a 5 follows the level chart. From a 3, two levels: 20 vol, 30 on coarse, resistant hair. From a 2, three levels: 30 vol, or a high-lift with 40 vol on virgin hair only. From a 1: high-lift on virgin hair, otherwise lightener. From a 6 or 7: deposit, 10 vol demi or 20 vol permanent for gray. From an 8 or lighter, three or more levels down: a warm filler first, then the 5 on 10 vol.
Gray at level 5
Gray at level 5 covers well, which is where the trouble starts. 5N on 20 vol for 35 minutes covers most heads to about 50 percent white, with the front going on first and getting the longest time, and regrowth shows at about four weeks. Past 50 percent, white hair takes a 5 differently from the pigmented hair around it, because white has no orange-red inside it, so a 5.1 on a 70 percent white head reads cooler and lighter than the swatch, and a 5.3 comes out warmer than intended. From 50 percent the bowl is 5N and the target tone half and half, and 5N alone above 70, with ten more minutes for stubborn white. Percentages are guessed by eye in most salons and the guess is often ten points out, the difference between a full natural formula and a half one, so write the number down and let the gray coverage calculator hold you to it.
| Where a 5 goes wrong | What is happening | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Bought “medium brown” and got a 6 | Shelf names run a level darker than the chart | Buy by the number, and buy the 5 |
| 40 vol on an old box 4 | Permanent color lifts natural pigment only | Remover or lightener first, then read the head again |
| 5.1 on hair lifted to a 7 | Blue meets yellow-orange and makes green | Read the wiped strand, tone at that level with blue-violet |
| 5N to 50 percent white, then cool patches | White has no orange-red for the ash to work on | Half 5N from 50 percent, all of it above 70 |
| Orange after the box | The hair stopped a level short of the box’s base | Blue toner at that level, or lift on |
When the box came out orange
Usually it was the right box on a misread head. A “light ash brown” built for a level 6 base goes onto a natural 5, lifts it toward 6 and meets orange with an ash measured for a paler warmth. Or the box was a 6, the hair a 4 read as a 5, and the color stopped a level short, on orange-red. Read the level at the root on dry hair, pick the shade for the lift 20 vol gives, then choose the ash for the level the hair reached. If the hair is already orange, a blue-based demi at that level on 10 vol, or the toner line’s own low developer, for 20 minutes takes the warmth down without adding depth. And if the orange turns out to be a strong 6 rather than a weak 7, the first gloss comes out short of blue and a second, more violet one goes on a week later.
