Home Remedies For The Removal of Hair Dye. Do they measure up?
February 3, 2010 by uvkitty
Filed under Beauty and Hair How-To's, Tutorials
Recently I was faced with a color dilemma. After previously over-bleaching my hair, and experiencing mega-breakage, I decided to cool-it with the hair dye and choose one color and stick with it for a little bit, to give my mane a break. I chose red.
Unfortunately I get bored easilly, so after having my hair red for three months, I was way ready for a new color. I decided to go with a mix of Special Effects Pimpin’ Purple, and Fishbowl – an awesome turquoise.
But, I knew my shoulder-length hair wouldn’t stand another bleaching without breaking into a choppy bob. I knew though, that under myFeria Box-Red hair color, was blonde waiting to be unleashed and dyed yet again. So I scoured the internet, and decided to try two home-remedies to see if I could get the dye out of my hair.
TEST 1: Shampoo
What the Internet Said to Do: Shampoo hair thoroughly and let sit. Repeat multiple times to fade hair.
What I Did: I hopped in the shower and loaded my head with shampoo. massaged it in really good for about 5 minutes, until the lather was becoming a light orangey color (from the red dye), I then threw all of my hair up in a shower cap, and let it sit for a couple hours, until I was sick of having a damp head. I rinsed it out and repeated for three days.
Results: My hair had faded a conciderable amount, but definitely not enough to dye over. It went from a bright red to a natural looking red. I felt though, if I had repeated the shampoo test anymore, I would have seen no more fading of the dye, it seemed the shampoo only faded hair to a certain point, as on the 3rd day, the water ran clear and the color didn’t change much at all. This method caused no damage to my hair that a good conditioning couldn’t fix.
Rating: I would give this method a 1/5. Your hair would probably grow out faster before you were able to remove all of your hair dye with just shampoo. However- I would recommend this method to someone who was trying to make their color more natural. Someone who dyed their hair black and it turned out too black, or someone who dyed their hair blonde and found it too brassy, etc.
Test 2: Detergent
What the Internet Said to Do: Wash hair thoroughly with an abrasive dish soap and let sit. Repeat multiple times to fade hair.
What I Did: I hopped in the shower and loaded my head with a dish soap, I think it was palmolive or dawn. I massaged it in for about 5 minutes, until my hands were excessively dried out, I then threw all of my hair up in a shower cap, and let it sit for a couple hours, until I was sick of having a damp head. I rinsed it out and repeated for three days.
Results: The dish soap left my hair considerably more dry than the shampoo, but it lifted the color a bit more the first couple of days. There was no change in color on the third day. My hair was left a dark copper color. I recommend using a deep conditioning or hot oil treatment after trying this method.
Rating: 2/5. Although this method seemed to lift more than regular shampoo alone, it didn’t lift enough to dye over, or to leave with a good resulting color. I wouldn’t recommend this for someone who wanted to tone down their color, because it may just tone it down a little too much.
Test 3: Vitamin C Infused Shampoo
What the Internet Said to Do: Mix 1 part Vitamin c into 2 parts shampoo, stir until frothy and lather into damp hair. Let sit, then rinse. Repeat as necessary.
What I Did: I crushed up 12 500 mg vitamin C tablets with a rolling pin. Then, I stirred them into about 4 tablespoons of shampoo until I goth a frothy mixture. I worked the mixture into damp hair, threw a shower cap on, and let sit. after about two hours, the band around the shower cap started to give me a bit of a rash, so I decided to wash it out. Note: try very hard not to get into your eyes, it hurts, A LOT. I did not repeat this process.
Results: This method lifted my color a considerable amount. So much so that I did not feel the need to have to repeat the process. I didn’t need a pure blonde, just a light enough shade to dye over. However, I felt that 2 or 3 more repeats of this process and most, if not all, of the dye would be removed. I am not sure if having my hair in a shower cap for the better part of the week, or this specific mixture of vitamin c and shampoo irritated my scalp, but i did get a slight rash that lasted a day from this test. If you notice or feel any stinging or burning, just wash out the mixture, don’t let it sit.
Rating: 4/5. If you can’t risk dying your hair again, I definitely recommend trying this method a couple of times. Nothing beats just buying a fresh box of hair dye and starting fresh, but if you can’t risk seriously damaging your hair, this home remedy has surprising results, that are definitely worth trying.
So, from going from red to purple and turquoise with absolutely no bleach involved, here is my final color:
Dye Image Copyright Mikhail Malyshev/PhotoXpress
Detergent image Copyright Saied Shahinkya/PhotoXpress
Vitamin Image Copyright Waltart/PhotoXpress
hey ima try this method cuz ive been wanting to go back to my blondy-ness for months since i dyed it black it been hard to get the color out but hopefull i can be the smart blonde again using that vitamin c method
I used the Vitamin C method and loved it! I had kinda of faded red hair and it took out most of the brassy red tones but left the low lights I had. Thanks so much for posting this!