How To Dye Your Hair At Home In 9 Steps

I love heading to the salon for a good scalp massage and cut.

But with all the constant white hairs I have popping up, it means that I have to dye my hair every 5 weeks to avoid looking 20 years older.

To save a few pennies and for convenience, I like to dye my hair at home with box dye and I feel like I’ve gone through this DIY process long enough to know a thing or two about DIY hair dying (I’ve also added a few pro tips to dying hair that I’ve learned at the salon too).

In this article, I’m sharing a few tips that can help you safely dye your hair at home without splattering dye all over the walls, suffering an allergic reaction or grabbing the wrong dye (all three of which I’ve already done myself so you don’t have to).

And remember, once you colour your hair at home you won’t want to go back to the salon!

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How often should you dye your hair at home?

How often you dye your hair at home depends on how quickly your hair grows. If your hair grows slowly, you may need to dye it less often. As a rule of thumb, you should dye your hair every 4-6 weeks to keep your colour vibrant and to cover up root growth.  
Colouring your hair too often can damage your hair, leading to dry, broken strands and split ends. I try to wait at least 5 weeks between dying my roots to reduce damage myself.

How To Dye Your Hair At Home – 9 Tips To Get You Started

 1. What To Do Before You Dye Your Hair At Home

This tip isn’t really for at-home hair dyers only, but I like to wash my hair a day or two before dying it with a clarifying shampoo to ensure it is free from any hair products.

I’ve found that when I skip this step, I’ll get areas where the hair dye doesn’t cover as well. It’s also a good idea to dye your hair when it is a little dirty, as the natural oils in your hair will help protect your scalp from the irritating chemicals in the dye. Wait two-three days after you wash your hair to let your natural oils come out, which will help protect your scalp from the irritating chemicals in the dye.

If you have any skin irritations or cuts on your scalp, wait until they have cleared (or they will sting like hell!). Also, never dye your hair right after getting your hair permed or relaxed – since these processes can cause damage and dying your hair right afterwards would be overkill. Wait at least a week (more is better!) before dying.

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2. Choose the Correct Colour and Coverage – And No Mixing!

If you have grey/white hair, it’s important to select a dye that is made for grey hair coverage. I made the mistake of purchasing the L’Oreal Feria brand of hair dye once and neglected to check the coverage strength first. I was not very pleased to find out after dying my hair that it wasn’t meant for gray coverage. Don’t make the same mistake – read the label!

Also remember to limit your at-home dyeing to two shades darker or half a shade lighter than your natural color. Drugstore box dyes are not as customized as salon hair colouring, so stay within this safe range to avoid any colour disasters.

If you’re new to dying your own hair, you also may want to try a semi or demi-permanent hair dye vs. a permanent hair dye; the semi-permanent dye won’t last as long and will fade after regular washing, just in case you don’t like how it turns out.

Semi-Permanent Hair Dyes: These dyes last 15 washes at most, as the colour sits on the hair’s surface and doesn’t penetrate into the hair shaft.

Demi-Permanent Hair Dyes: these dyes will blend a new color with your natural color – like a colour booster – but it won’t do anything major, like cover grays. They do help to cover roots until your next permanent dye job.

Permanent Hair Dyes: Permanent dye is made with ammonia, which, when combined with hydrogen peroxide, penetrate deep into hair for more intense colour and gray coverage (in specified formulas that cover grays). Permanent dye colours have longer laster colour that fades gradually over time and needs to be re-coloured every 4-6 weeks.

I also suggest speaking to a professional before proceeding with any major hair colour changes; extreme colour transformations can take multiple steps and should be done at the salon. Also, if you have black hair and decide you want to go to a lighter brown shade, you will need to have your colour corrected professionally at a salon; simply adding a brown dye over a black colour won’t work!

You can also try a dying a small section of hair to see how the colour looks first. You also don’t want to be mixing colours for a “custom colour” – you can never predict how mixed colours will turn out and even a single colour can turn out differently than the colour on the box.

  3. Check For Allergies 

Many people (including myself) don’t perform an allergy test first before they dye their hair at home. This is a very important step to ensure that you will not have an allergic reaction to the product. Again, I found this out the hard way (damn you L’Oreal Feria!). I had recently purchased a new scarf and the material gave me a horrible rash all over my neck.

To make matters worse, I decided to dye my hair that weekend with a new dye, L’Oreal Feria (which I did not allergy test). After dying my hair, I woke up the next day with a swollen face similar to Sylvester Stallone’s at the end of “Rocky”.

Most allergy tests require you to apply the colourant cream on a small patch of skin and leave it on for 48 hours to determine whether it will trigger an allergic reaction. Read the instructions for allergy testing on any hair dye you choose and don’t skip this step! Also be sure to follow the hair dye application and leave-in time instructions on the box, as each dye has different requirements. 

 

4. Pick The Right Location And Clothing

Hair dye will permanently stain almost anything it touches; think items such as fabric, laminate counter tops, plastic, wood, drywall. Make sure you are in a location in your home where (a) you don’t care if hair dye gets everywhere or (b) you have properly covered any surface that you don’t want stained.

My basement is unfinished, so I like to dye my hair there. If you are dying your hair in a place where you don’t want to make a permanent mess, use (old) towels to cover surrounding surfaces from dye drips/splashes.

Don’t forget yourself! Find an old towel or hairdressing tarp to wrap around your shoulders and keep your clothes safe. I usually wear old, black clothes that I don’t mind destroying when I dye my hair, just in case. I also use an old zip-up hoodie that I can easily take off without having to pull it over my head and make a mess.

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5. Protect Your Skin

Hair dyes can discolour the skin around your hairline temporarily. To reduce the discolouration while you dye your hair at home, apply a thick layer of cream onto the skin along your hairline to create a barrier between your skin and the dye. Don’t forget your ears and the back of your neck! I like to use Vaseline for this purpose, as its oily base makes for a great skin protector. Most boxed hair dyes come with their own latex/plastic gloves – use them!

If you do get some dye on your skin, you can exfoliate the area to remove the dye a bit quicker. The dye will normally disappear with normal washing after a day. There are also hair dye removing wipes that you can find on Amazon or in beauty supply stores to wipe away dye stains. Makeup remover wipes can also be used to clean up splatters on the skin as they happen.

Wear glasses? Use an old pair that you don’t mind getting stained permanently when dying your hair or wear contact lenses. If you ever get any of the dye in your eyes – flush them with water immediately! Hair dye in your eyes can cause eye damage or blindness, which is why you never use hair dye to tint your brows – never!

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6. Get The Right Tools And Start At The Top

When it comes to hair dying tools, I like to use a hair dying brush when applying my hair dye to distribute it evenly. Uneven hair dye distribution will mean uneven/patchy hair colour. I usually start by parting my hair in the middle and applying the dye directly to my roots, using the dye brush to spread out the dye.

I continue to part thin sections of my hair and apply dye to the roots until all my roots are totally covered. Take your time covering the roots, especially if you have grey/white hair to avoid missing sections. Once the roots are done, I work on spreading the dye to the ends of my hair. After my entire head is covered, I like to use an old hair brush to comb everything through.

Also make sure you have all the tools you need laid out in front of you – you don’t want to be digging for stuff after when your hands are covered with dye! I would consider investing in this hair dye at home tool kit from Amazon pictured below if you plan to regularly dye your hair at home.

 

7. Keep Colour On The Roots Longest/Skip The Ends 

This tip was passed on to me by a hairstylist; she noticed that my ends were darker than my roots and suggested that I keep the dye on my roots for the majority of the time and then cover my ends for the last 5-10 minutes.

The ends of your hair are usually drier and more damaged, causing them to soak up more dye and become, in my case, darker. They will also incur more damage from leaving the dye on too long.

In contrast, your roots represent freshly grown hair and require more processing time to ensure they are dyed entirely, especially if they are gray/white. This was a great tip and I always follow it when I dye my hair at home. The Garnier Nutrisse hair dye that I use requires it to be left on for about 35 minutes.

I apply the dye to my roots and wait for 25 minutes before applying the rest of the dye to the middle and ends of my hair. This ensures that my roots are thoroughly dyed, while the middle and ends of my hair don’t get overly processed and damaged. Sometimes, I avoid dying the ends altogether, as they tend to maintain the colour much longer and don’t really need any touch ups.

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8. Rinse Very Carefully

Plan in advance where you are going to rinse off your hair dye at home. Some surfaces in a shower can stain. For example, my shower has a marble-mosaic tiled floor; Since marble is porous and stains easily, I rinse off my dye in another bathroom that has a porcelain tub (which won’t stain permanently).

Plastic shower curtains will also stain, so I try to wet mine in advance to make them easier to clean and change them every few years once they get super nasty. Beware of the splash factor – make sure you are totally enclosed in the shower by a curtain or glass when rinsing. I say this because I once forgot to properly close the shower curtain and some of the dye splashed onto my mother’s baseboards; she was not too happy.

 

9. Don’t Rub On Anything

If you dye your hair a dark colour at home, remember that your hair and skin still holds onto some excess dye even after rinsing. This means some dye can rub off onto surfaces like pillowcases, headboards, or fabric-covered chairs. Use towels that you don’t mind ruining when drying your hair after the first rinse; I use black towels to hide the dye stains.

I also like to use an old pillowcase to sleep on after dying my hair and will hang a towel over my upholstered headboard just in case I lean against it. This “rub off” issue usually disappears after the 2nd wash.

Hopefully this article helped you better understand how to dye your hair at home.

Anyone have any at home DIY hair dying tips I missed?