How to Dye Your Hair Without Missing Spots (Beginner’s Tutorial)

If you’ve ever dyed your hair yourself and then discovered that you missed entire sections and patches on the back of your head, you’re not alone. It can be difficult to dye your hair yourself without the knowledge of how to make sure you’re covering every square inch. So in this post, I’m going to teach you the exact technique that we as professional stylists use when coloring hair.

If you’re unsure what developer to use, see my post here. And if you’re unsure how to formulate your hair color, see my post here.

How to dye your hair yourself

To make things easier, I highly recommend using a mirror setup so you can see the back of your head. And I don’t mean holding one up in the air either.

If you have access to a bathroom with a medicine cabinet mirror that will allow you to see the back of your head, this will be your best friend.

If you don’t have access to this, try to create a setup where you’ve placed another mirror behind you. This may be a pain, but trust me, when you’re first learning this is pretty essential.

As time goes on, you will get better at it, develop muscle memory, and eventually not need the mirror behind you anymore.

I am at the point where I could honestly do it without a mirror in front of me if I needed to.

Should you dye your hair when it’s clean or dirty?

For the most part, it is better to dye your hair when it’s clean. This is because when you have product buildup and oil on the hair, it’s harder for the color molecules to penetrate deeply into the hair shaft. So clean hair is usually best.

That being said, if your scalp is sensitive and your skin becomes irritated when you dye your hair, then you may want to allow your hair to produce some oil for a few days before coloring it.

The oil on your scalp will help to protect your skin and will minimize irritation caused by the ammonia in the hair color.

Should you start in the front or the back of your head?

There is a time and a place for starting your color application in the back and in the front.

If you are covering gray hair and have a lot of resistant grays up front and not as much in the back, then you’ll want to apply the color to the front first so this hair processes the longest.

But if you’re like me, you’ll actually want to start in the back. In my case, I am lightening my hair with a hi-lift hair color. And the hairs on the back of my head are darker than the hair in the front. This is because I have a few grays, as well as lighter blonde hairs around my front hairline.

So I apply my color to the back of my head first so that this hair has more time to process. The front hairs are lighter and finer, so they don’t need as long.

What products should you use to dye your hair?

***Since I’m sharing the products that I love to use with you guys, this page includes affiliate links to these products. If you take action and purchase a product by clicking one of my links, I’ll make some commission money from it at no extra cost to you. This enables me to continue giving you awesome hair tips, so thanks! ***

• Hair Color Scale
• Bowl and Brush Set
• Hair Color
• Developer

How to dye your hair step by step

I highly recommend watching my YouTube video below for a full tutorial on how to dye your hair yourself. This will give you a visual of exactly what you need to do.

1. Section the hair into 4 equal quadrants
2. Outline each quadrant before you begin taking individual sections
3. Working from top to bottom, take 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch thick sections (NO THICKER)
4. Paint both sides of each section
5. Check through the hair in the mirror thoroughly to be sure you haven’t missed any patches

Conclusion

Coloring your own hair doesn’t have to be intimidating, especially if you follow the right technique! With the steps outlined in this tutorial, you’ll be able to achieve even results without missing any spots.

Using a proper mirror setup will make things go much smoother and save you time and frustration.

Unless you’re sensitive to hair color, you should always color clean hair. Product buildup and oil can hinder the ability of the hair color molecules. But if you’re sensitive to the dye, your natural oils will provide a shield to help protect your skin from irritation.

If you have resistant gray hair, you’ll likely want to start in the front, or wherever the most resistant pieces are. And if you’re going lighter, you’ll likely want to start in the back of your head where the hair is darker. This will allow the color to process longer in the areas that need it most.

If you learned anything from this tutorial, leave me a comment below. And make sure you subscribe if you want to make every day a good hair day!