I’ve dyed my hair every color under the sun from neon blue to plain old blonde. I also have a younger sister, and ever since she saw my photos on Facebook she’s been after my mom to let her dye her hair weird colors too. Now my mom’s a pretty cool lady, and lets her do her bangs or strips now and then, until one day she went in the bathroom saying she’d do just her bangs and did her entire head hot pink. To my surprise my mom didn’t care, but most parents definitely would. The thing is colored dye in such colors can be bought in a semi-permanent form that lasts one to three months depending on your hair type, the color, and the quality of the dye and dye job. If you’re not quite as forgiving as my mom and your child dyes their hair a crazy color that leaves you trying to find a way to get this horrible color off your kids head without leaving him or her bald. I do have some experienced based options for you.
Wash and dye
One method to remove weird hair color from your child’s hair is to wash the hair repeatedly until it the color fades sufficiently to dye over with a darker, natural shade. Colored dyes are vegetable-based and fade every time you wash them; using dish soap can accelerate the process, but will also leave the hair pretty dry. Once the color has faded quite a bit, you can simply dye over it with a darker shade. I did this once after being called into a job interview I had applied for months earlier the day after I had dyed my hair purple. It took roughly two hours of washing and I dyed over it with a medium brown.
Bleach it
Now this one can backfire. I’d heard many times before that you cannot bleach out veggy-based dyes. I tried anyway in this experiment. In my case, it took a weird fading green to a light mint, but then different folks hair will react differently. If the color is light or your child’s hair takes well to bleach this very well might work. I will warn if it doesn’t strip the color entirely, it is very damaging to hair to dye over a bleach job being that bleach is hard on hair to begin with.
Opps it
Finally, in most department stores you can find a product that removes hair dye, one such brand is called, “Color Opps.” Now the instructions say that you can’t use this item on vegetable-based dyes, but I have many friends that have done so. The overall consensus was that it works, and very well, but it is very hard on the hair and may leave it frizzy and fried. Color opps will return the hair either to it’s natural color or to the lightest shade it has been dyed in the past. For example, if your child was a brunette but bleached before they used the colored dye, the hair would turn out bleach blonde not brunette.
Now you could take your kid to a professional, but honestly, they’re going to use one of the above methods and then treat the hair with a conditioner to make it appear healthier afterwards. You can do the same thing at a quarter of the cost by following one of the above methods and then using a store-bought hair repair kit or even only paying the saloon for a mineral oil treatment. You could also leave the hair healthy and bare with the color. Veggy dyes often fade quickly with about a month being the more common staying power, though some do hold in there longer. Good luck.
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