How to get hair dye off skin if you've made a bit of an error in the dyeing department

Dyed hair? Lovely. Dyed ears? Not so much...

When mastering the art of how to dye your own hair at home, there’s one easy mistake that we’ve all made at least once – getting dye on your neck/ears/forehead/anywhere else aside from your hair. If (understandably) you can’t afford the time or money for a salon appointment and regularly box dye, you’ll want to know how to get hair dye off skin in case of emergency.

Before you enter panic mode and start scrubbing your skin red raw, we picked the brains of a couple of the pros to find out how to 1) prevent 2) remove skin stains.

Below are a few failsafe tips and tricks from the pros to help you on your way to removing hair dye from your skin, pain-free. You’re welcome.

How to get hair dye off skin – the expert tips

When you’re dyeing at home, you want to avoid getting yourself in a pickle and prevent hair dye from staining skin in the first place. ‘There are a couple of ways to avoid colour staining the skin,’ says Melanie Smith, Creative Master Colourist at Josh Wood Atelier. ‘If you are at home Vaseline works well, and you can also purchase barrier cream from pharmacies.

‘The best way to avoid staining is to avoid leaving the colour from sitting on the skin too long,’ she adds. ‘Wet some cotton wool and carefully wipe around the hairline, being careful not to wipe the colour off the hair.’

Zoë Irwin, UK Colour Trend Expert for Wella Professionals, also advises grabbing your Vaseline as a barrier cream. ‘I always want to avoid hair dye staining the skin, so I would use a professional product in-salon to avoid any issues,’ she advises. ‘My favourite is Wella Professionals Service Pre-Guard Skin Protection Cream – I apply it to the hairline before a colour service and then wipe away before shampooing.

‘However, if there is hair dye on the skin, there’s also a great colour stain remover – the Wella Professionals Service Support Colour Stain Remover. Spray onto a cotton wool pad and wipe over the affected areas to remove the dye.’

Need an immediate fix and don’t have this stain remover to hand, though? ‘If you want to use products that you already have, you can’t go wrong with using a granulated face scrub mixed with a little bit of olive oil,’ advises Zoë. ‘The olive oil will help to lift the colour off the skin when mixed with the scrub. Massage it gently into the skin and use a soft cloth to remove.

You can also use a clay mask like GLAMGLOW’s Supermud Clearing Treatment – clay draws everything out for you while you treat your whole face as well!’

Thankfully, you don’t need to put your skin through the ringer to remove any accidental dyeing.

Dye in unusual and unwanted places need no longer be an issue.

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