How to Use Vitamin C to Remove Direct Dye Hair Color

If you’re looking to fade or remove hair dye safely, without bleaching your hair, you’ve come to the right place! Contrary to what you may have heard, bleach is not the only option when it comes to removing or fading hair color. You can actually mix a Vitamin C powder with shampoo to create a paste that can do the trick. So in this blog post, I cover everything you need to know about using Vitamin C powder to remove hair color safely and effectively for best results.

As professional stylists, we typically use the Dawn dish soap method as our secret quick hack to fade and remove dye from the hair. Vitamin C powder wasn’t a method I’d ever heard of, before reading about it in the comments on my YouTube channel. That said, I have seen Vitamin C listed as an ingredient in professional hair color removers. So this led me to research using Vitamin C powder, test it myself, and share with you exactly how to use this home remedy properly.

How to Remove Hair Dye WITHOUT Bleach

Upon my initial research, I found that some people don’t have much luck with using Vitamin C powder to remove their hair color. So I dug a little deeper to determine what would cause these inconsistent results.

And I discovered that there are different sets of conflicting instructions out there that would definitely hinder the results.

So below, I’ll clear up these conflicting instructions with what I know works as a professional hair stylist, as well as what my test resulted with.

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Should I apply Vitamin C to wet, damp, or dry hair?

Some sources suggested applying the mixture to damp hair, while others suggested applying it to dry hair. And as a stylist, I can already tell you that applying it to dry hair is going to produce the best results.

When coloring your hair, wet hair will produce more transluscent or sheer results, while dry hair will produce the most solid coverage. This is because the water is diluting the product, reducing its effeciency.

Now, if you apply the Vitamin C powder to wet or damp hair, you’ll likely be able to get by with using less product, and it will emulsify better. But at the end of the day, applying it to dry hair will ultumately give you maximum color removal potential. Wet hair can actually hinder your results.

What Vitamin C Product Removes Hair Dye?

Some of the instructions I found for this method actaully suggested crushing up Vitamin C pills and mixing them with shampoo. But this would likely leave you with an uneven consistency, with some larger chunks and some smaller, finer gains.

What I suggest instead is using an already ground up Vitamin C powder that’s an even consistency. This will give you even results, as well as save you time and effort from having to crush it up yourself. I’ll share the one I used below:

• Nutracost Vitamin C Powder (you may need more than one container if you have a lot of hair)

What shampoo to mix with Vitamin C

Now as far as what to mix with the Vitamin C to create a paste-like substance, I also came across different suggestions. Some said to use a clarifying shampoo, some said to use a dandruff shampoo, and others said to use dish soap.

So I tested this using 3 different types of shampoos and a dish soap, and I had even results across the board. So accoding to my test, this one isn’t as important.

Ultimately, the “harsher” of a shampoo, the better. So this could be a clarifying, dandruff, dish soap, or any cheaper shampoo that contains sulfates (the “sudsy” part of shampoo). I’ll list all four products that I used in my experiment below:

• Pravana Mineral Diminishing Shampoo
• Loreal Thickening Shampoo
• Mizani Dandruff Shampoo
• Ajax Dish Soap

Does using Vitamin C to remove hair color damage the hair?

This is a common question, and for good reason! Obviously we are doing this method to avoid using bleach because we don’t want to damage our hair. So, we need to make sure that this method won’t hurt our hair either.

And similarly to the Dawn method, this method can dry the hair out. Since we are pulling the color molecules from deep in the hair, we are likely to pull some moisture along with it. But just like with the Dawn method, this doesn’t mean it’s damaging the hair.

Once you rinse the Vitamin C, you’ll follow with a regular (or hydrating) shampoo and conditioner, then apply a deep moisturizing treatment. This will replenish any lost moisture from the hair without any damage caused. This is what I used:

• Pravana Moisture Marvel Shampoo
• Pravana Moisture Marvel Conditioner
• Pravana Intense Therapy Moisture Treatment

Using Vitamin C to remove hair dye step-by-step

Now that we’ve got some of the common discrepencies out of the way, let’s define the exact steps to take to remove hair color with Vitamin C powder.

1. Section your hair into 4 quadrants.
2. Mix the Vitamin C powder with shampoo to a paste-like consistency. This should be similar to cake-batter or toothpaste. If it’s too thick you’ll have a hard time getting it to stick to the hair, if it’s too runny the product may be too diluted.
3. Apply the mixture to your hair section by section, as if you’re applying hair color. You need to really rub the product into the hair, like for several minutes to be sure it’s fully absorbed.
4. Once fully applied, cover the hair with a plastic cap, wrap with a towel, and apply heat. I wrapped my mannequin with a heating pad, flipping her like a rotisserie chicken every 20 minutes. You can also use a hooded dryer or a blow dryer. The heat will help the product get deep into the cortex of the hair.
5. In total, you’ll process for 60 minutes. Every 20 minutes I flipped her and smooshed the product a bit with my fingers to be sure no areas were drying out and getting even heat.
6. When it’s time to rinse, use hot water. You should see the color run out significantly in the water. You’ll want to perform at least two shampoos to get all of the product out. Then follow with a conditioner and moisturizing treatment.

How to neutralize any remaining hair color

Like in my example, I still had a tiny bit of warmth left over from the copper direct dye I had used on the mannequin. You can easily counter this with the proper neutralizing tone. In this case, it would be a blue/green shade. But if you’re removing a different color, your neutralizing tone will be different.

Find the color opposite of the color you want to cancel on the color wheel and mix a light version of that. I suggest using semi-permanent colors for this. You’ll want to test your formula until you get the shade just right. Start off with a lighter color and add more neutralizing pigment if needed.

In my case (neutralizing light copper), I would start off mixing a teal direct dye with conditioner for a light teal shade, and test it on the hair. If you go too dark, you’ll end up taking over and coloring the hair blue/green. So start light, and add more pigment as needed.

If it doesn’t work (demi and permanent hair dye may be stubborn)

If you’re trying to remove demi or permanent hair color, you may have a harder time. Since those hair dyes are mixed with developer, they are imbedded into the cortex of the hair. Semi permanent and direct dyes are only coating the hair, and are much easier to remove.

If you’re in this boat and both the Vitamin C method and the Dawn Dish Soap method didn’t work enough for what your goals are, you’ll want to perform a soap cap.

Which method do I prefer?

At the end of the day, I still actually prefer the Dawn Dish Soap method for fading and removing hair color, for a few reasons:

1. You need so much Vitamin C powder. I used one $10 tub of powder on a small mannequin, so you would likely need multiple tubs for a normal head of hair. This could get expensive and you run the risk of running out of product halfway.
2. It was extremely messy. If you watched my video, you saw how much of a mess this made in my studio! Since it’s a paste-like powdery consistency, I was flinging it all over the place as I was rubbing it into the hair.
3. It takes a long time. Since you have to apply this as if it were a color application and then process for an hour, this took longer than a traditional color application would. Whereas with the Dawn method, you can shampoo the hair as many times as you need to in a much quicker amount of time; no process time needed.
4. It left a slight build-up feeling in the hair. Once I was done, the hair still felt like it had a bit of product on it. And this was after shampooing it twice. While it didn’t feel dry, the product did seem to grab onto the hair. Eventually this does come out and go back to normal, but it still felt weird for a little bit.

Conclusion

Vitamin C powder is a safe and effective method to remove hair color from home. It’s done by mixing Vitamin C powder with shampoo to create a paste-like consistency and applying it to dry hair.

The hair is processed for an hour under heat, then rinsed and followed with a shampoo, conditioner, and deep moisturizing treatment.

If you have minimal residual dye left over, you can then neutralize with the color opposite of the remaining color on the color wheel. This will cancel out the unwanted color.

If you have demi or permanent dye on your hair, you may need to follow with a soap cap (bleach bath). Since these types of dyes are mixed with developer, they are inbedded deeper into the hair and can shift the natural pigment. Usually, bleach is needed to fully remove these types of dyes from the hair.

If you have any questions on how to remove hair color with Vitamin C, leave it for me in the comments section. And be sure to subscribe if you want to make everyday a good hair day!