Don’t let stains get in the way of great color.
Whether you’re coloring your hair at home or visiting a professional colorist at a salon, some hair dye can inevitably end up on your skin, whether it’s your forehead, ears, neck, or elsewhere. “The pigment in hair dye is designed to penetrate through the outer cuticle of the hair and remain there, infusing long-lasting color into the hair shaft. If exposed to the skin, it can also penetrate through its outer layer, causing a semi-permanent tint.”
Getting dye on your skin is, for the most part, annoying and unsightly, but in rare instances, “it can cause serious skin irritation or allergies. Your skincare regimen can also be a culprit: “While all skin types are equally at risk for dye staining, if you are using topical retinoids or products like alpha- or beta-hydroxy acids, the skin may be more prone to irritation from the dye because it will more easily penetrate the exfoliated skin.”
Luckily, there are easy ways to remove (and prevent!) dye stains on your skin. “The sooner you can remove the hair dye from the skin, the better. This prevents the dye from settling further into skin. Before your next hair color touch-up, study up on our experts’ tips to get rid of hair dye stains on specific areas:
How to get rid of dye stains on your face and along your hairline
“I recommend a simple non-soap cleanser and water,” such as the classic. Any kind of oil — such as coconut oil, baby oil, or argan oil — can also work as a cleanser to remove hair dye. Some beauty brands also offer products made specifically to remove hair dye stains from your skin, such as Framar’s Kolor Killer Wipes. They’re gentle on skin, but extremely effective for removing stains on your face, neck, and hands.
You can also look for products with chemically exfoliating ingredients, such as glycolic acid or salicylic acid. These ingredients will help shed your stained skin cells and bring new ones to the surface. Against trying to remove dye on your face with a manual face scrub: “They can cause irritation and tear the skin.
If all else fails, you can try using rubbing alcohol. Apply it to a cotton ball or use a pre-moistened alcohol swab and gently rub it against the affected area, taking caution not to overly scrub the skin.” If you don’t have any rubbing alcohol in your cabinet, you can use hydrogen peroxide. It’s known to remove all kinds of stains, but it’s also safe to use on your skin in low concentrations (3% or lower).
How to remove hair dye from your scalp
Removing hair dye from your scalp can be tricky because you want to avoid stripping the fresh color from your newly dyed hair. To that end, you can try a gentle scalp scrub or a shampoo with light exfoliating ingredients once your skin has settled post-dye to avoid irritation.
