Hair color can be incredibly hard to remove, especially blue, green, or red hair color. Green hair color is especially hard to remove, especially when blue hair color fades to green. But how do you remove blue, green, or red hair color?
The best natural ways to cancel hair color are with baking soda, lemon juice, vitamin C powders, baking soda, vinegar, bath salts, or sunshine! Some treatments work best for certain colors and lengths of time the color has been used. Readers can even re-dye over the old color for a new hairdo!
Keep reading to become a pro in what method to use to remove stubborn hair color, how to do it, and watch as others perform the treatments on themselves with video tutorials!
Table of Contents
Baking Soda
There is no shortage of ways to cleanse lingering color from the hair. Using baking soda is a surprisingly popular and common method of doing so! Users have reported that baking soda often works best for taking out semi-permanent color and usually slightly fades permanent color jobs. In fact, a teaspoon of baking soda can be mixed with a small amount of water to create a paste that, when left to soak into hair for 15 to 20 minutes and then rinsed out, can be used to lighten hair!
Some users also say the results of baking soda can be better if the paste is made with some lemon juice and then left to sit in the hair for five minutes, followed by thorough rinsing. Even mixing some baking soda into shampoo can help speed up the process of removing color from hair. Since baking soda is a natural bleaching agent, all of the above approaches will speed up the color-stripping process!
Lemon Juice
After coloring the head a thrilling rainbow hue, including red, green, or red, the color will inevitably fade over time into more muddled colors and shades. To get back to a bright color again or to simply return to your original hair color, lemon juice can be surprisingly useful!
It’s a common rumor that using lemon juice while sun tanning can help lighten up hair, and it can, but it can also be used to lighten hair color. Let it be known, though, that just like baking soda, this method of lemon juice may need a few passovers and times of doing it to work best.
To learn how to lighten your hair with lemons, watch the following video.
Luckily, this method is both cost-effective and easy to do. Put plenty of lemon juice on damp, wet hair. Next, cover the entire head with a shower cap and let the juice soak in for 20 to 30 minutes total. After this time, rinse it away with relaxing, lukewarm water, then put a lot of conditioner in your hair to restore its moisture. This process works since lemons have citric acid, which is an agent that can strip color from hair.
Taking a Submerged Bath with Bath Salts
If one is tired of their old hair color and wants to move on to the next tint, using bath salts while taking a relaxing bath can kill two birds with one stone! Buy some bath salt bags or tablets from any general grocery or drug store. Most of these can fade blue and green semi-permanent hair color! Fill up the bathtub with some hot or warm water at home, then add the bath salts.
Now for the best part! Sink in the bath and soak the hair for as long as possible under the water. By the end of this process, hair color should be much more faded than how it started. Then, make sure to shampoo and condition hair as per usual to revitalize the locks! If it’s easier, fill a sink with water and bath salts and let your hair soak in it. It may take a few repetitions over a day or two for you to get the best results.
Vitamin C Powders and Tablets
Maintaining and up-keeping your hair can become an expensive endeavor over time. However, the removal process doesn’t have to be as exhaustive or costly and can even be accomplished with an unusual fix–vitamin C powder or tablets! This approach can fade hair color since these types of tablets and powders have ascorbic acid in them most of the time. It should be known this method will likely fade an unnatural hair color but may not be able to return hair to its natural color fully.
To use this method, simply purchase some vitamin C powder or tablets from a local health shop or grocery store that carries the product, crush the pills into a powder, and add the powder to your shampoo. By washing the hair with this mix, allowing it to sit in the hair for ten or fifteen minutes, and rinsing, the hair dye will become more faded!
There is also a slightly different method of mixing a 1/2 cup of vitamin C tablets with a clarifying shampoo, leaving it in for 30 to 60 minutes, rinsing it, and finishing with a hydrating conditioner. Clarifying shampoos are designed to deep-clean hair and cut through the buildup, oils, and residues left over from styling and salon products, so these can be used to get rid of hair color as well and can be paired with vitamin C.
Dish Soap Mixture and Soap Detergents
If a person wants to return to their natural hair color or simply wants the old blue, green, or red hair to fade faster, and an expensive salon visit isn’t an option, dish soap could shockingly come to the rescue! It should be noted before starting that this approach will likely dry out the hair, so condition your hair well after applying the soap!
Wet the hair using hot water, lather in a mixture of a quarter-sized amount of shampoo with four or five drops of dish soap, leave it in for about 10 minutes, then rinse it out completely.
Make sure to be careful when using these detergents and dish soaps, as they are intense household products that can irritate you if they get into your eyes, mouth, ears, or nose! If the appropriate precautions are taken, this method should work out fine.
Natural dish soaps and laundry detergents are great at removing both oil and hair color because they have high amounts of chemicals that attack nearly 75% of hair colors from hair. Since this method may also need multiple treatments, it is a good thing it’s pretty cheap, and the results can be heightened if the dish soap or detergent is used on the hair in larger amounts. Conditioning is crucial to decrease frizz and return moisture to the hair.
White Vinegar or Regular Vinegar and Water
Yet another common household kitchen ingredient that can be used to get rid of hair color is vinegar, of all things! Vinegar, similar to lemon juice and some vitamin C powders mentioned above, is an acidic material and thus is great for cleansing out undesired materials. Vinegar can both be used as an effective scalp cleanser and a hair color remover. That being said, it may be a better choice to seek a different scalp cleanser if the hair color is meant to stay firmly in the hair!
Mix white vinegar with warm water, apply this to hair, allow it to sit, and soak in for about ten to fifteen minutes, then rinse it out completely. You could also apply an amount of white vinegar to the hair length and scalp, leave it for just a few minutes, and then rinse and wash it out with lukewarm water. This latter method can be used for slightly more mild results. Make sure to properly shampoo and condition your hair after either of these treatments.
To learn more about using this method to remove hair color, watch the following video.
Sun Exposure
Old hair color can be a hassle if it hangs onto the scalp yet gets into the shower to color the grout and tile in murky discoloration. To get rid of it, use the power of the sun! Using the sun is a great method to decrease the strength of hair color–it is free and healthy, and it is one of the most natural approaches to removing blue, green, or red hair color. Simply go outside during the day when it is sunny. The sun will naturally lighten your hair after a few days, though the effect will be subtle.
Just be sure to layer on sunscreen when using this method so you don’t get sunburned.
Cancel the Old Dye Job with a New One
A solution that some people in need may not consider is simply covering up a bad color job or refreshing it with the same or a new color by just putting more color over it their old hair color. This fix is possible as long as the person doing it knows what they’re doing!
However, there are tips and tricks to follow to work the best color over the existing color. For instance, green hair dye can be canceled out with pink hair color, and yellow hair color can be canceled out with purple hair color.
Red-colored hair will fade if green or ashy hair colors are used to cover it, and green hair color can be canceled with red hair color. Finally, blue hair color can be removed by using orange hair color, and brown hair color colored won’t be as noticeable after applying dark blue hair color!
Before using other colors of hair color to cancel out your red, green, or blue hair color, find a color chart or consult a hair stylist who often uses hair color and uses color theory almost daily.
Bleach Your Hair
To remove red, green, or blue hair color, simply bleach your hair. However, remember that if your hair is bleached and you bleach it again, your hair might break off because of how damaged it is. It is best to do a test strand first and do a bleach bath instead of using straight bleach.
A bleach bath is a combination of shampoo and bleach. Simply leave the mixture on your hair for 10-15 minutes, then rinse and wash it out thoroughly. This method lightened the green in my hair from when I colored it blue.