How do I remove hair dye stains?

Permanent hair dye works by developing colour inside the hair shaft where it cannot be washed out. On a bathroom worktop or a towel it does the same thing to whatever is porous, and it starts the moment it lands. Almost every hair dye stain that becomes permanent did so in the hour when nobody dealt with it.

Safety

What you'll need

• Surgical spirit
• Clean white cloths
• Non-gel toothpaste or bicarbonate paste, for skin (optional)
• Washing-up liquid

Step by step

1. Protect before you dye rather than clean afterwards.An old towel over the worktop, a barrier of petroleum jelly along the hairline and on the ears, gloves, and old clothes. It takes two minutes and removes the problem.
2. Wipe hard surfaces the moment it lands.A damp cloth within a minute takes almost all of it. The window closes fast — after an hour on a porous worktop it may be there for good.
3. Follow with washing-up liquid and warm water.It lifts the conditioning agents that carry the dye. Rinse and check what colour is left underneath.
4. Use surgical spirit on remaining marks.On a cloth, not poured on. Test first: it dulls some worktop finishes and softens some plastics.
5. Treat fabric from the back onto a clean pad.Lay the mark face down on white cloth, apply spirit to the reverse, and let the dye transfer downwards. Change the pad constantly.
6. Handle skin with more dye, not less.Rub a little of the leftover dye over the stained skin, then wash it all off with shampoo. The developer in the fresh dye lifts the set colour better than scrubbing does.
7. Try bicarbonate paste on stubborn skin marks.Bicarbonate of soda with a little washing-up liquid, rubbed gently. It is a mild abrasive, which is why it should not be used on the face repeatedly.
8. Consider a proprietary colour remover for a bath or shower tray.Acrylic baths stain badly and hold dye in the surface. Products made for the job work; abrasive scouring makes the surface more porous and stains worse next time.

Tips

• Dye on grout is usually permanent because grout is a sponge. Sealing grout before dyeing hair at home is a genuinely useful precaution in a bathroom that gets used for it regularly.
• White towels used for hair dyeing never recover. Keep two dark towels specifically for it.
• Hairspray on a fresh dye mark on fabric works for the same reason surgical spirit does — it is mostly alcohol.

Common mistakes

• Leaving splashes until the dye has developed — The chemistry that makes the colour permanent in hair is running on the worktop too. Thirty minutes converts a wipe-off mark into a set stain.
• Scouring an acrylic bath to shift it — Abrasion scratches the surface and makes it more porous, so the mark goes deeper and the bath stains more easily every time afterwards.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask