/ 09 March 2018

How To Remove Hair Dye At Home

Hair colour disasters can happen to the best of us – but, thankfully, they no longer require an emergency trip to the salon or months of bad hair days. Whether you’ve accidentally gone five shades too dark, or want to get rid of a temporary colour that won’t seem to budge, here’s how to fix it in under two hours (yes, really).

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STEP ONE: Deep Cleanse

Before you do anything, wash your hair. Even if you’ve recently cleansed it, it needs to be freshly-washed for the next step to work, and completely free from any product – that means skipping the conditioner, hair oil and heat protectant too.

To ensure there’s no product residue left on the hair after washing, use a clarifying shampoo. We love Bumble & bumble’s Sunday Shampoo – it’s also great as a weekly detox, especially for those living in hard water areas.

After washing, blow-dry your hair until it’s bone-dry – it can’t be damp for the next step to work effectively.

STEP TWO: Remove The Colour

This is where the magic happens. Once your hair is completely try, it’s time to remove that unwanted colour – and that’s where Colour B4 comes in. This genius product works by shrinking the hair dye molecule, which allows you to rinse them out of the hair – restoring it to the colour it was before you dyed it.

Team SL can vouch for its seriously impressive powers – it once transformed our hair from dark chocolate brown (a box dye gone wrong), back to a light honey blonde in just 60 minutes. It removes any artificial hair colour from permanent black to temporary baby pink – the only thing it can’t do is un-do the lightening effects of bleach.

Our top tips for this step? Firstly, if your hair is long or very thick, you’ll need two boxes. And secondly, make sure you follow Colour B4’s instructions to the letter – if you don’t rinse your hair for the length of time specified, you won’t wash out all those colour molecules and the result won’t be as impressive.

STEP THREE: Condition, Condition, Condition

You may think Colour B4 sounds like it would damage hair – but it doesn’t at all (we told you, it’s a serious miracle worker). However, it’s always good to follow up with an intense conditioning session.

Davines’ NOUNOU Nourishing Repair Mask is packed with olive butter, jojoba oil and cherry oil to add smoothness and shine back to dry, damaged tresses. It’s ideal for people who frequently colour or chemically treat their hair, and has the power to bring straw-like strands back to life.

Once your hair is conditioned and dried (feel free to use as much hair oil and heat protectant as you like at this stage), it’s time to assess the colour – if you do need to dye it again to get the look you want, you can do so straight away, although we’d advise waiting around a week to give your locks a bit of a break.