Remove Dye from Hair

Oops! Your dye job did not quite turn out the way you wanted it to. Luckily, there are a few ways of removing dye from your hair. Read this wikiHow to learn how.

10 Second Summary

1. Select a bleach-free, natural washing powder, or laundry detergent.
2. Wet your hair completely.
3. Work the detergent into your hair, one tablespoon at a time.
4. Rinse the detergent from your hair.
5. Examine your hair, and repeat the process, if needed.

Steps

Clothing Detergent

  1. Use a washing powder or clothing detergent. Hair that is dyed black may return to dirty blonde within 5 washes.
    • Don't use detergent with bleach or any bleaching agents. Simple, natural laundry detergent will work well.
  2. Wet your hair and work in a tablespoon of detergent at a time. Try not to get any detergent in your eyes, ears, or mouth when you wash your hair with detergent.
    • Beware; your roots will lighten quicker than your ends, so consider going for a trim if you want your hair to have more of a uniform color.

Vinegar Rinse

Most dyes are meant to handle alkaline substances (soaps and shampoos), so as to last longer. The acidity of vinegar will counteract this, removing the dye.

  1. Mix some vinegar in with a little oil (1 cap full). Use this to rinse out the hair dye.
  2. Wash the hair with soap/alkaline until no more color comes out. Then rinse with the vinegar (or let it sit, whatever you prefer). This will bring a whole lot more color out.
  3. Once the water runs clear, soap it again. Once it's clear, repeat however many times you like.

Dandruff Shampoo and Baking Soda

  1. Purchase some dandruff shampoo such as Head & Shoulders or Original Formula Prell. Dandruff shampoo is a little more heavy-duty than normal shampoo; people with dandruff have excess sebum that causes the skin to flake off, necessitating a stronger formula.
  2. Buy some baking soda. Baking powder will not work. Baking soda is a natural (although not strong) bleaching agent.
  3. Mix them together and wash your hair several times, if necessary. If you can't buy baking soda, you can just try plain dandruff shampoo. Often, the act of washing your hair will help remove the dye from your hair, especially if the dye is semi-permanent.

Lemon Rinse

  1. Purchase raw lemons. Their maturity doesn't matter unless you want more juice. From concentrate will work but not as well as the real thing.
  2. Wash your hair as usual. Let the lather sit for five minutes. Add lemon juice, work all in together, but don't rinse. Let the lemon work for another 3-5 minutes.
  3. Apply a toned conditioner in the color you wish. Let this stay on and additional five minutes. It can be helpful to use the bath for this process, so it isn't so bad to deal with.
  4. Repeat when needed. Since this method is natural and organic, you can repeat as needed.[citation needed] It will slowly and more naturally change a permanent or semi within a week to two slowly, so that it seems like your hair is growing back naturally instead of drastically changing.

Hot Oil Treatment

  1. Use a hot oil treatment or make your own. Oil will help condition your hair as it strips away the dye that you no longer want.
  2. Give your hair a thorough washing before you apply the oil.
  3. Heat a bit of coconut oil with the help of boiling water or a microwave. Put the oil in a heat-safe bowl and place it in the microwave or above a steaming pot of water (just like using a double-boiler to melt chocolate). Do this until the oil is hot to the touch but not burning. Let the oil cool a bit for a minute or two.
  4. Wet your hair again, if necessary, and apply the warm oil to both the roots and tips. Once the oil is fully incorporated into the hair, wrap it with a clean towel and allow to set for 1 hour.
  5. Wash the oil out of your hair with another round of shampoo and conditioner.

Hair Color Remover

  1. Use hair color remover for dye that will not fade or go away. There are color removers like Color Zap that will make your hair the color that it is naturally, as well as Color Removers that will gently make your hair colorless, or bleach blonde.
    • Be sure you know which one you are buying. Talk to an employee before you buy a particular brand. Don't always trust what you read online; do your research and make sure that you're buying what you think you're buying before using.
  2. Buy some hair color remover from a salon or drugstore. Loreal "Hair Color Remover" and "Color Zap" seem to be the most popular. Again, remember the difference between the two.
  3. Carefully read the instructions and do exactly what it says. Redyeing your hair a lighter shade (ex. dyeing it dark brown if it has been dyed black previously) will not help! Dye on dye is not going to make your hair lighter! More dye will just darken the color!

Dish Soap

  1. Mix four or five drops of dish soap (Palmolive, Dawn dish soap, for example) with a quarter-sized amount of regular shampoo.
  2. Wet your hair and apply the dish soap/shampoo mixture to your hair. Rub up a soapy lather, allowing the dish soap to penetrate deeply into the hair. Lather your hair for at least a couple of minutes.
  3. Rinse hair. Follow with a conditioning treatment unless you intend to repeat steps. (Dish soap causes you hair to become very dry.)
    • Note: Removing dye with dish soap is very harsh on hair and extremely drying. Repeat with care, and as little as possible. Always follow the last rinse with a deep conditioning treatment such as hot oil.
  4. Check your hair. You should start to see fading differences in color in two to three days, but likely not fully removed.

Crushed Vitamin C

  1. Make a paste out of Vitamin C tablets. If you dyed your hair a darker color with a semi-permanent dye (claims to wash out in 28 shampoos), make a thick paste of crushed Vitamin C tablets and water.
  2. Apply the paste to your damp hair and rest an hour before washing out. This will remove most of the color if applied within a few days of the dying.
    • You will not need to re-color your hair, the paste is non-damaging.

Lighten, Then Color Again

  1. Try lightening your hair and then coloring it back to its original color as a last resort. This method "removes" the color/pigment in your hair; only use this method after you've exhausted all other options.
    • If your current hair color is lighter than your natural hair color, you can still color your hair again without damaging it. Though it is not always the easiest task, great results can be achieved by taking the following steps. You can remove unwanted hair dye/pigment by lightening your hair with a lightener and developer that meets your needs for color "lift".
    • When using this method note that if your current hair color is not on the natural spectrum pre-packaged lightener from the drugstore containing a 30 or 40 volume high lift developer will not be enough to achieve a clean even natural base color, a color toner will be needed. Yes, that means "adding" pigment. However, if the color is a natural color, and the cuticle of your hair is undamaged, then you may be able to get away with a drug store boxed color kit.
  2. Check if your hair is healthy enough for this method. You can test your hair for damage by checking for cuticle damage, an elasticity test, and feeling wether it is flimsy.
    • You can check your cuticle by stroking a single strand in reverse of its direction of growth, if it it feels rough, your cuticle is likely intact.
    • You can check for elasticity by pulling one strand from your head and holding each end and gently pulling. If the strand stretches beyond "taught" even a little, it is not safe to "lighten" your hair; at this point all you can do for your hair is add pigment. Not a drugstore box with developer, but straight pigment from a tube at a beauty supply.
    • Do a test for flimsiness by holding the ends of a strand of hair, one end in each hand, try to bend it to make a small "o". If your hair will not make a small "o" and it seems hard to bend, Congratulations, your hair is healthy. If your hair is so brittle that that stand does anything you will it, consider a keratin treatment or adding pigment to your hair that doesn't involve developer.
  3. Lighten your hair, or see a professional colorist so that they can lighten your hair for you. This will create a delicate lighter pigmented base onto which you can then place color.
    • Every persons color needs are different. If your hair color is between 6 and 10 on the color scale and healthy (light brown to blonde), a pre-boxed high lift lightener may not work for you and is not recommended. Progress with caution and use developer between 10 and 30 volume. For hair between 5&1 on the color scale (brown to black), high lift lightener is required to lighten to blonde. If your desired new color is lighter than your current color, carefully progress with caution, taking into consideration the health, current color, and desired color of your hair. Depending on what you want, toners or pigments from tubes may be necessary to achieve the desired color.
  4. Color your hair back to its original color, or close to it. Once your hair is lightened, it'll be much easier to color it a darker color. Note that your hair might not look exactly like it did before the lighten/re-color combo.
    • When going darker, toners and heavy pigments will give you the color you desire without further damaging your hair, When adding/depositing color to light hair between 7&10, do not use a color with developer, use straight pigment. Demi-permanent color will prevent damage to your hair.
    • Healthy hair 6-10 can be safely processed with the appropriate developer. Do not rush this method; if your hair is in poor shape, please visit a colorist or consider waiting or not coloring your hair until it is healthy.

Tips

  • You should deep condition your hair soon after all the damage from re-coloring or lightening has been done.
  • Baking soda is great at getting semi-permanent colors out of hair.
  • Don't expect the hair dye to instantly come off. It will take a while for it to even fade.
  • Tide is the best detergent, but any detergent should accomplish this.
  • If you used a dye such as Kool-Aid, the cherry red won't come out easy you may need to go to a salon or buy color remover. However, some say that it comes out completely with hot water and baking soda. So, run a hot bath and soak the hair. Make a thick paste of baking soda and hot water, and distribute throughout the hair. Leave for 1-5 minutes. Follow with conditioner. Repeat if necessary.
  • If your hair is really dry and frazzled, it will "suck-up" dye more easily and since hair is dryer at the tips than it is at the roots, make sure you apply at the roots before you do the ends or you will have a horrid two-one nasty mess.

Warnings

  • Always deep condition after trying any of these methods.
  • Make sure that the laundry detergent does not contain bleach.
  • Don't leave the soap in for too long.
  • Laundry detergent, particularly the kind containing bleach, can and will irritate your skin and eyes.
  • These methods will most likely not remove the hair dye, but fade it out.
  • This will only work if you wash with laundry detergent within 24 hours of the color application.
  • Rinse laundry detergent out very thoroughly.

Things You'll Need

  • Vitamin C tablets (cheapest you can find)
  • Laundry detergent (any kind as long as it doesn't have bleach)
  • Recently dyed hair
  • Dawn dish soap
  • Prell or any other anti-dandruff shampoo
  • Baking soda
  • Color remover kit

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