How To Get Hair Dye Off Practically Anything

A splat of hair dye here.

A splatter there.

And don’t look now but you just dyed the top of your left ear.

For as much and as often as we color our hair you’d think we’d know how to be more careful. Or at least wouldn’t make such a mess of things.

To make matters worse hair dye stains pretty much anything it makes contact with.

And while the title may be a bit of a stretch we will look at how to get hair coloring products off a number of things that seem to catch the brunt of our overzealous efforts. As well as look at how to prevent a dye dousing to begin with.

Quick Section Navigation

• How To Remove Hair Dye From Skin?
• Prevent Hair Dye From Staining Your Scalp Or Other Exposed Skin
• Remove Hair Dye From Nails
• Remove Hair Dye Stains From the Bathroom Sink
• Get Hair Dye Off Shower Walls
• Get Hair Dye Off Carpet
• How Long Does Hair Dye Stay On Skin

Okay so we got your SOS. Now let’s offer up some solutions starting with …

How To Remove Hair Dye From Skin?

The short answer is to use Dawn dishwashing soap or nothing special hair shampoo. Apply undiluted to your stained skin while your color is processing and then when rinsing the color out in the shower, any staining will be removed. Success will come easier if you don’t wait until after it dries and sets in.

That’s pretty much the Cliff Notes version. For more ideas on dealing with different stuff and surfaces keep reading.

Okay so your skin looks kinda like you wrestled a Smurf and lost.

Which means you need to know how to remove hair from ________ (fill in the blank with your skin, forehead, hairline, or ears).

It happens. Regardless of how careful you try to be.

There is no shortage of home remedies for this – which we’ll look at in a sec.

Before we do thought this video stood out however. It does a great job of showing how to use your basic shampoo, she uses Suave, or not surprisingly Dawn dishwashing soap as a fool proof stain remover.

So if you want to see a demo on how well this works here you go.

Takeaways …

She applies the dish soap or shampoo while her color is processing. In other words she doesn’t wait around until next week to get to it.

Second you do NOT want to cut, dilute or water down the soap with any water whatsoever. Apply is straight out of the bottle.

You can rub it until it lathers or not.

But you can see it worked on her hairline, arms, face, and neck.

So if you were wondering how do you get hair dye off your hairline now you know!

She offered one last intriguing insight. This time for keeping your nails dye free. Use the gloves that come with the kit in the shower when washing out the dye.

Other ideas for eliminating those telltale traces of a DIY dye job from you skin would include …

Olive oil is extra gentle. Dab some on the stained area. For extra stubborn stains give it as much as an hour to break down the dye.

Or use a hair spray like Got2b Glued. Just spray some onto a cotton ball then blot the stained skin. This works! (If you don’t which one this is here’s an Amazon link to the stuff.)

BTW: This also works should you accidentally get coloring solution on your clothes. Spritz liberally and blot.

If you’ve waited too long and the entire stain isn’t lifted spritz again and leave it overnight. Give it another shot in the morning then throw in the washing machine. Stain should be gone.

Getting back to your skin …

Break out some acne pads like those from Clearasil or Noxzema. Many feel they’ll remove hair dye from anything. Just swipe the yet to be set stain while waiting out the 20 minutes processing time.

As already mentioned, the key is to not dawdle. The sooner to attack the problem the easier it will be to get off.

If you did wait too long as a last resort try nail polish remover. This is not exactly skin friendly so leave it on only as long as it takes to cut the stain. Then apply moisturizing lotion to offset the drying nature of the acetone.

Here’s How To Prevent Hair Dye From Staining Your Scalp Or Other Exposed Skin

Oh and for future reference a gentle reminder…

Because as they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And maybe if you’re looking for how to get this stuff off your skin you missed the email explaining how to avoid this problem in the first place.

Assuming this bit of advice is too late for this time, next time put a thin film of petroleum jelly, aka Vaseline, on any exposed skin you don’t want stained.

By running a layer around all potentially affected areas, think hairline and ears, you’re laying down a protective barrier to prevent stains.

A good alternative is lip balm.

This one eliminates all excuses since a tube of Chapstick is almost always easier to apply than Vaseline.

One more alternative would be conditioner. Same idea different product.

When done, simply remove the petroleum jelly or whatever with a clean wet washcloth. To me this is way easier and faster than the fixes.

How To Remove Hair Dye From Nails

Okay so what if you accidentally ended up with hair dye all over your nails? Now what?

When it comes to how to get hair dye off your finger nails here’s four different tricks to try.

Naturally your mileage may vary when it comes to how effective any of these are.

For some denture cleaner works like a charm.

So your best bet would be to dissolve a couple denture tablets in lukewarm water and soak your nails for up to 15 minutes. This works because the tabs contain citric acid and baking soda which not only whiten teeth but can whiten your nails too.

If that fails here’s how to remove hair dye from your nails with fruit. Yeah try soaking them in the juice of a lemon for 10 minutes to banish those pesky fingernail stains! Lemon juice being acidic is a natural bleaching agent.

Or try a mix of one part 3% hydrogen peroxide to 2.5 parts baking soda to create a thick paste. Apply and wait 3-5 minutes. Rinse. Reapply as needed.

Finally two words. Whitening toothpaste.

The results of any of these can be improved by the use of a soft toothbrush to gently scrub the surface of your nails during treatment.

For Next Time: Again prevention is the best cure. In this case be sure to also use gloves when washing your freshly colored strands to keep your nails far away from the dye.

Okay to that takes care of you …. moving on to hard surfaces.

But first a word of caution.

Different surfaces will react differently to different solutions to get rid of color overspray.

Plus there’s no surefire ideas and for sure, no one size fits all fix for dye drips, dribbles and spills.

So you will want to experiment and be prepared for a bad outcome – ie a permanent stain. With any of these suggestions ALWAYS try it out in an inconspicuous spot to see what how the surface be it enamel, paint, plastic, or fiber reacts. Start small and go from there. No sense in making the problem worse.

It’s also always smart to start with the most gentle approach before breaking out the sandblaster.

So with hard surfaces let’s start with

How To Remove Hair Dye Stains From the Bathroom Sink

Okay so you’re wanting to know how to get hair dye stains off your sink, huh?

How hard this is going to be depends in large part on how shiny and slippery the enamel surface of your sink is.

The shinier and slipperier the better and the better the chances your sink will be restored to its former self.

Because if years of too much Comet or some other abrasive cleaners vigorously rubbed against the enamel have worn it off, the porcelain itself may have been stained. Which means you may have your work cut out for you.

Just saying.

Now this first solution comes from the site thrifyfun.com. Basically you’re fighting fire with fire. With this one you want to

• Mix your powdered bleach and the developer to create a paste.
• Slather that on the stained parts of the sink.
• Let it sit for up to 30 minutes.
• Rinse and hopefully this has done the job.

Next up in the how to remove hair dye stains from your sink ideas parade comes to us courtesy of Rainbow International Restoration. And again involves your friend the denture tablet.

• This time you want to crush it, moisten it into a paste and apply it generously with a paper towel to the affected area.
• Let it sit for like 10-15 minutes.
• Rinse it off and with any luck the paste takes the hair coloring residue with it down the drain.

Finally a little show and tell video for how to go about treating a cultured marble sink.

Do pay attention to her disclaimers. No sense in going crazy trying to remove some stains.

Here’s How To Get Hair Dye Off Shower Walls

Like other solutions time is of the essence. The longer you wait to deal with the problem the less likely you are to make it completely go away.

Now for starters Magic Eraser is a good tool to gently rub out the stain. These won’t scratch nearly as much as ordinary scouring pads can.

WHY THIS WORKS: CNet.com explained it this way. A melamine sponge is denser than your typical kitchen sponge. Those tinier pores are what make them lightly abrasive much like extra fine sandpaper.

So while it’s abrasive nature makes it a natural here you also want to avoid going overboard or you’ll create a bigger problem beyond how to remove hair dye from your shower walls.

Oh and it doesn’t have to be the real Magic Eraser which is just melamine foam with some kind of cleaning agent incorporated into it. That same link to CNet.com gives you a recipe for the less than magic cleaning solution to use that involves just two ingredients.

Combine that with generic rectangular melamine pads from Amazon and you’ve got your very own DIY Magic Erasers for a fraction of the cost.

Your next alternative might be this Tilex product also found on Amazon. Some report is works to remove hair dye from counters, sinks, or your floor. It may even work to get stains like these off shower tiles.

Of course many also report that spraying straight bleach on their white shower walls usually means problem solved.

For Next Time: Yet another preventative tip. You may not have noticed but hair dye gloms on to any soap scum or accumulated dirt in your shower that you just haven’t gotten to yet really well. So just cleaning your shower first will make post coloring clean up, if not stain free, at least much easier.

Let’s finish up with

How to get hair dye off carpet

Sooner or later spills always find their way to the floor, don’t they? And if it’s covered with carpet you’ve got a whole ‘nother challenge because now you’ve got to know how to get the dye out from that.

So removing dye stains from carpet it is.

The first thing to keep in mind is the dyes used for hair can permanently alter the color of the carpet. Which is what makes them so tough. So good luck.

Still you can try this potion to rescue your rugs found in GoodHousekeeping magazine. Essentially you’re mixing a tablespoon of Dawn with one of white vinegar into two cups of warm water.

Using a white paper towel blot that mix into the stain.

Then use another dry paper towel to blot the rug until the stain disappears.

If that doesn’t do it, you can always give 3% hydrogen peroxide a try. WARNING: Only use this as a last resort as it too can remove the color from the carpet fibers.

And the key here is to blot not scrub. If you scrub you can frizz up the carpet fibers leaving you a permanent reminder of your hair coloring misadventure even if you do get the stain out.

Related Questions

Q: How long does hair dye stay on skin

Luckily if didn’t catch some stained skin before the color set in no worries. You’re not scarred for life. Per an article in Good Housekeeping magazine a doctor pointed out worst case it might take as long as two weeks for the colored skin cells to slough off as part of your skins natural cell turnover. So don’t panic. The impromptu incident will likely be gone before you know it.

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