Can You Dye Your Hair When it’s Greasy?
Can you dye your hair when it’s greasy? Yes you can!
Are there a few things you should know beforehand? Also yes!
Can You Dye Your Hair When It’s Greasy?
Yes!
Grease is also known as sebum, or oil made from the sebaceous glands in your skin and scalp to hydrate your skin.
When grease covers your scalp ever so slightly when dying or coloring your hair, it creates a protective layer across the scalp to keep the chemicals from damaging, drying out, or burning the skin while the dye or color is processing.
Be sure to use a clarifying shampoo or an Apple Cider Vinegar and Baking Soda rinse one or two days before you get the color or dye done. This will remove buildup beforehand so that the color or dye will be able to penetrate the cuticle of the hair strand fairly easily. And the scalp will have a day or two to produce enough oil to coat the skin slightly to protect it from the chemicals you are about to apply.
To use the apple cider vinegar rinse with baking soda, follow the recipe below, but add one teaspoon of baking soda to the mixture.
Apple Cider Vinegar Quick Rinse Recipe
Apple cider vinegar cleanses the scalp as well as removes free radicals that slow growth, but also stimulates blood circulation, which is great for hair growth and healthy sebaceous glands to make more oil.
The baking soda has a gentle chemical reaction with the apple cider vinegar that breaks down the product that has built up. Not only that but the baking soda also gently removes the excess oil without throwing off the natural pH so much that the scalp will be confused and feel as though it has to compensate by making even more oil than before.
How greasy is too greasy?
If the hair is so oily and greasy that it is slippery and the color or dye has trouble penetrating the hair strands, and the developer volume isn’t strong enough to get through the oil to the hair, that is when your hair is too greasy.
Not only can it be the grease that is an issue when you are wondering if greasy hair is too greasy, but other things that are in the hair too.
Is dirty and greasy hair the same thing?
“Always get your hair dyed when it’s dirty.” As the belief goes…
Dirty hair and greasy hair are not the same thing. So when you hear ‘dirty hair takes color the best’ they aren’t necessarily referring to dirty hair but greasy hair.
Dirty hair is when the grease and oil on the scalp and hair picked up other dirt, dust, or particles in the hair. Or more.
Hair products, gel, pomade, mousse, hairspray, dry shampoo etc. and the dead skin cells, dirt, and dust that floats around in the air gets stuck to the grease and oil in the hair as well as the products that dry in the hair. This is what qualifies as dirty hair.
Dying and coloring hair with too much product, grease, and buildup will not give you the color affect or depth that you want. So, cleansing your hair about 24-48 hours ahead of time is a good idea.
Dying and coloring your hair greasy is better than trying to dye or color it dirty.
Should you wash your hair before getting colored in a salon? When?
Generally 24 hours before the color or dye is applied is long enough for the scalp to make a little more oil, making the scalp a little greasy but not too much, and not quite enough time for dirt, product, dead skin cells, or other icky things that buildup on the scalp and in the hair before dying or coloring your hair.
The oil from your scalp, aka grease, actually can protect your scalp against the chemicals in the colors and dyes being applied.
If you are using a developer higher than 20 volume are not bothered by the oil, therefore you can dye your hair when it’s greasy! If you are using developer lower than 20 volume, 10 or 15 volume, you won’t want to have more than 24 hours worth of grease on your scalp.
Can I Wash My Hair Once a Week?
What happens if you leave dye on for too long?
When you leave dye or color on your hair past the recommended time on the box or past time time your salon professional recommends, don’t panic. It’s okay to leave it on for a 5 or so minutes past the recommended time.
It depends on if you are using dye or color (see section below for the Difference Between Color and Dye), and what brand you are using.
Some brands have formulated a technology in their color that makes it stop processing after a certain amount of time. But others don’t.
If you leave the color or dye on your hair longer than the recommended time, very likely the results will be darker than you were intending.
If your hair is too dark in the end, use a clarifying shampoo, or (top secret- no stylist wants you to know this) dawn dish soap to lighten up the color just a tad. But never use either of these more than once or leave it on your hair as a cleanser for more than a few minutes.
So, what happens when you leave color or dye on for too long? It gets darker than the original intention.
Is dye bad for your scalp?
Like any chemical, it’s not something that you should bathe your scalp or skin in regularly like a hydrating mask.
If used occasionally, dye will not hurt you or your scalp.
Dye is designed to stain. So when using a dye to change your hair color it will dye your skin a little bit too.
So when dying your hair, always use a vaseline, or another petroleum jelly around your hairline to prevent stains on your ears and face.
What do I do if my hair gets too greasy too fast?
For those of you that struggle with excess oil, less than 24 hours and it looks like your scalp is wet with oil, you may have a different struggle that you’re dealing with.
Excess oil made by the scalp means that, believe it or not, your scalp is too dry. The scalp is communicating that the hydration that the oil is fighting so hard to keep in is being washed away. Therefore, the scalp needs to overcompensate and produce more oil so to try and rehydrate the scalp and restore the pH.
Be cautious with what products you use and how often you use them. Listen and watch out for the signs your body is trying to communicate to you.
Why Does My Hair Get Greasy Overnight?
The best way to retrain your hair to not make so much excess oil is to hydrate the hair significantly more, and wash your hair less.
Though that might sound counter-productive, it will gradually train the scalp that it does not need to make so much oil, that you aren’t washing away all the oil that its hard work produced to hydrate the scalp. And eventually the scalp will make less oil because your scalp is not being dried out by being washed too often.
Can I Wash My Hair Once a Week?
The Difference Between Color and Dye
Dye is made to stain.
Color is made to penetrate the cuticle, the outside of the hair shaft, and cling to the natural molecules on the inside of the hair strand.
Hair dye is found in a box at the grocery store, it stains the hair with metallic components. Which is why it is difficult for salon professionals to work with or perform a color correction on hair that has been dyed with box dye. A test strand should always be done before an entire color service when working on dye.
Both dye and color need a developer, a hydrogen peroxide based activator, that is mixed with the color or dye to help lift the cuticle to either deposit the color, or allow the dye to stain the inside of the hair.
Hairstylist Vocabulary- An English list of Hair Vocabulary
FAQ Can You Dye Your Hair When it’s Greasy-
Can gray hair be colored if it’s greasy?
This is less optimal. Gray hair has trouble getting color to stick because artificial color molecules cling to the original color molecules and gray no longer has natural color molecules left to be clung to.
Greasy gray hair would cause trouble because though stronger developers of higher volumes are used, the strength needs to be completely focused on depositing the color, not penetrating the hair through the grease.
A little bit of oil is okay for dying gray hair, but I wouldn’t recommend more than 24 hours worth of oil on the scalp.
What About Bleach?
Bleaching greasy hair is healthier and safer than applying bleach straight on to a clean scalp. Bleach is such a strong and harsh chemical, you want to have a little protective coating of oil on the scalp to protect it from being burnt by the strong bleach chemicals.
Can you dye freshly washed hair?
Absolutely! 100%
However be aware that if you freshly washed your hair, it needs to be completely dry before the color or dye is applied, and it will not have the protective coating of just a tiny bit of oil on the scalp.
But yes, you can dye freshly washed hair.