How To Get Hair Dye Off Your Skin [Helpful Tips That Work]

If you prefer to dye your hair at home (like myself), you’ve probably had an issue with hair dye stains.

I can try all the hacks to prevent hair dye stainage, like Vaseline along the hairline and above the ears, but I’ll always end up with obvious stains, especially as I prefer to use deep brown or mahogany colors, so the stains are pretty vivid.

If you’ve got hair stain issues, I’ve got some helpful, tried and tested tips on how to get hair dye off your skin, without spending ages scrubbing away. Keep on reading to find out…

Why Does Your Hair Dye Stain Your Skin?

Hair dye contains strong pigments and chemicals, like ammonia and peroxide, and it’s these chemicals that adhere to the skin to cause stainage. 

Our skin is naturally porous nature, which allows the dye particles to penetrate. 

Both semi-permanent hair dye and permanent dye can stain the skin, as they tend to use more intense colorants so they can cover gray hairs. 

When it comes to how much stainage you might get, factors like your skin type, how moisturized your skin is, have you recently exfoliated can influence on how well the hair dye will stick to your skin. 

If your skin is on the drier side, or you’ve freshly exfoliated, the hair dye stains can be tougher to remove.

Tips On Preventing Stains When Applying Hair Dye

If you want to prevent bright red, brown or orange stains on your forehead, ears or neck, you need to create a barrier to protect the skin.

Like I mentioned at the start of this post, applying a thin layer of Vaseline (or any other brand of petroleum jelly) along your hairline and ears will prevent the hair dye from penetrating your skin, and staining. 

Box dyes will always give you disposable gloves, and these help prevent the dye from staining your palms or fingers. 

I recommend cleaning your gloves a couple of times during your dye application, just to minimize any residual dye on the gloves which could transfer onto your skin during application. 

Always have a damp cloth or alcohol wipes on hand, to wipe up instant dye smudges, as it’ll be easier to remove when first done, before the colorant develops on the skin. 

Some brands offer gentler hair dye formulas, with lower staining properties, so these are a good option if you want to reduce staining potential.

How Long Do Hair Dye Stains Last On The Skin?

Hair dye stains can last from a few hours to a couple of days – it depends on the type of hair dye you used (semi-permanent dye vs permanent dye).

Semi-permanent dye will usually fade more quickly, while permanent dyes tend to cling longer due to their stronger pigmentation.

Where the hair dye stain is will affect how long the stain lasts. Dye stains on the face/ears tend to last longer on the face than the hands.

How To Get Hair Dye Off Your Skin

There are a few tricks you can try to remove hair dye stains from your skin, and my go-to tips is rubbing alcohol.

Soak a cotton pad or a q-tip with rubbing alcohol, and gently swipe it over the stain, avoiding your hair, as you don’t want to remove your newly applied hair dye.

You can use hand sanitizer if you don’t have rubbing alcohol on hands, but both hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol are super drying on the skin, so intensely hydrate the skin after using them, so you don’t end up with dry skin.

If you don’t have either rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer, you can try using a makeup remover or a micellar water, and apply them the same way, on a cotton round or q-tip.

If you’d prefer a natural option, you can try coconut oil or even olive oil, but they take longer to work, and you’ll have to apply them, and let the oil sit for a good 5-10 minutes before wiping off, but it will leave the skin soft afterwards, which is a bonus. 

Are your stains still sticking around, even after these tips? You can try a non-gel toothpaste, by massaging it into the skin, leaving it for 2-3 minutes, and then rinsing away. Again, toothpaste is drying, so be sure to hydrate the skin after.