How to Get Color Run Powder Out of Your Hair

Beware blondes!

Color run powder/Holi powder will make you crazy when trying to wash it out of your hair! The pinks/yellows/reds aren't so bad--it's those blues and greens you've got to watch out for!

I did a lot of research before we had our colored powder photo session with Kelly a few weeks ago. Thank goodness for my sister-in-law, Jeana, who had mentioned the Color Run a few months back and how the powder stains blonde hair. I most likely wouldn't have even thought about it staining...but it does! Most of the research I did said to wear a hat to protect your hair if you are going to be around Holi Powder. Well, since I didn't want to wear a hat for our photos, I kept researching.  Here's what I came up with and did to protect my hair from being a lovely shade of faded blue and green.

The first thing I probably SHOULDN'T have done is gotten my hair highlighted that day. Oops. But I had the whole natural ombre/dark roots thing going on and I wasn't a fan. And as I've mentioned here before, I'm stubborn. I wanted my hair to look good in the pics and I would deal with the consequences later.

Also, the powder we used was the actual powder used in Holi Festival in India. It came from India! I think maybe that the Color Run powder is probably more...domestic than the stuff we used. Ha.

Pre-Color Powder:

There are two reasons I wore my hair up for our pictures

1) Hair up = less surface area to be stained

2) The research I had done said to put some sort of castor oil or coconut oil in your hair in order to prevent staining. This was supposed to coat your hair so it would wash out easily. I put coconut oil in my hair. I put my hair up because it looked really greasy with the oil in there if it wasn't up. Don't skip this step! Use coconut oil!

This was right after we got home from taking the pictures. About to start the process of washing out the blue and green. Yikes.

Post-Color Powder:

1) This is the worst part, but you have to rinse your hair with cold water. I just leaned over the tub and went for it. Burrrr.

2) First I rinsed out as much of the color as possible just by using water. Don't use any product on it yet. This got out a lot of the color. I had a huge blob of blue and green on the left side of my head that was refusing to rinse out. And so begins my frustration and panic.

3) I halved a lemon and squeezed all over the blue spots that were not rinsing out. The lemon didn't help AT ALL.

4) After the lemon, I used the shampoo for the first time. That wasn't helping either. 

5) Then I had Will sprinkle baking soda all over the stained spots and then pour vinegar on it. He was having way too much fun with this part. He kept saying he felt like he was making a volcano science project. And it FELT like a fizzing volcano on my head too! This process didn't work. Boo.

6) At this point I got in the shower and just started washing my hair with whatever shampoos I had. I was really getting nervous. Mane 'n Tail shampoo seemed to help the best out of all the shampoos I tried. Still didn't get it all out though.

7) Ok, this is when I broke out the big guns. When I said the cold water was the worst part, I lied. This is the worst. Ketchup. Yes, like Heinz Ketchup. I had read that this or tomato paste would help. I globbed it all over my blue stained hair and it got out a ton of the color. Besides almost gagging several times, I was pretty thankful for that ketchup.

I still had blue in my hair, but I decided to give it a rest for the night.

By Sunday morning and another round of Ketchup treatment, my hair still looked like this. Oh, boy. Luckily I could part my hair on the other side and cover it up for church.

Sunday night, I used Ajax and baking soda. That's what got the rest of the color out. And luckily, it smelled much better than ketchup. My last resort was going to be mayonnaise. GAG. So glad I didn't have to do that. 

All in all, I am still so glad we took those photos. The fun we had canceled out the stress of washing out the color stain. However, after washing my hair so many times, it really dulled down my freshly done color. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. 

Good luck! Hope these tips help you!