So I have a pal who's apparently having a little trouble with some hair dye, and is looking for some advice. So, I figure the fine folks here would be the best place to go!

Issue is as follows:

"I've been dying my hair for over 6 years now, usually purple. It's not always purple but I've been using the same at-home dye since I began, and have never had this problem.

About 3 weeks ago I put the dye in. Let it sit for a while, and rinsed it out. It would just not rinse clean, so I slept on it and tried again in the morning. I literally did like 10 soap and washes and it wouldnt rinse clean. It's been 3 weeks, and the color has faded, but it still won't rinse clean! To make things worse, whenever I have my hair wet (shower, rain, anything) it smells... awful. Like mold and wet dog and overall gross. It smells until my hair is dry again, no matter how many times I apply shampoo. I'm pretty sure the smell is from having 3 week old dye residue on my head.

Any suggestions for getting it to rinse clean once and for all? It's been driving me insane!"

Someone I know thinks that the company that makes that hair dye has changed the ingredents to make it cheaper, for them anyways. She said to not use that brand anymore. That it might be reacting to the metals left in by the previous hair colorings. And that would make it smell. They also said that cheaper hair colorings are more greasy and oily.

This is somewhat unconventional and your friend would be using this suggestion at their own risk... but... using Dawn dishsoap was brought up in the converastion because it's been used to remove vaseline from little kid's hair, but only use a little and then there was a suggestion of conditioning their hair with Cholestrol Creme afterwards and once a week for a couple more weeks.

Oh they did ask me what the condition of the scalp was in and if they have had any hair fall out???

Dish soap is rather harsh though I think, I've used it before myself back in the day of my faux mohawk. Well we'll see what everybody else comes up with too.

The title of this thread threw me for a minute since I've always seen the term spelled "dyeing" rather than "dying." That's OK; I've got no good euthanasia advice anyway.

Regarding her problem: WHOA! That's bizarre. I wish I knew what was going on. When she says it won't rinse clean, does she mean that she's losing a lot of color in each rinse? I hate to say it, but at this point the thing to do is probably see a stylist who specializes in color correction. This sounds too severe to fix herself; she could do more damage to the hair.

The cynic in me agrees with Cynfullov's theory: the formula probably has been cheapened. I've dealt with that with other products -- a sudden change from one bottle to the next, probably a cost-cutting measure. (Incendiary non-P.C. cynic time: the formula is probably now made with fillers, overseas, by a nine-year-old. God I hate outsourcing. OK, sorry.)

Once she gets the problem taken care of, she might consider using a vegetable-based dye instead, maybe something from a natural foods store (where the staff should be knowledgeable enough to help her decide if it's right for her). Or maybe find a veg formula online, but not buy unless there's an ingredient list, and google the ingredients she doesn't recognize.

Hope things turn out all right. When she's ready for suggestions re: deep conditioner, I'll be happy to help.

I just went and put in an "e" in the dying. I hate to mess with people's spelling and such when a letter goes typo because I have a ton of my own, but maybe this will help.

Aw and I can't take credit for the information I gave. I called a cosmotoligist. But I agree with you this maybe one of the times to have a professional actually look at it. I wonder if the shampoo would be reacting with it now differently and causing the smell. Maybe too it is all rinsed out and the hair as endless once called it in a bleaching thread "has gone to mush" from the damage or build up of heavy metals on the hair's shaft?

RedAngel wrote:

(Incendiary non-P.C. cynic time: the formula is probably now made with fillers, overseas, by a nine-year-old. God I hate outsourcing. OK, sorry.)

I can so see that.

* Gosh now I don't know I'm on this hair site and all everyone is doing is telling horror story after horror of having gone to a salon to have their damaged hair fixed and they come out worse for it. So, man gees, I might just go with it smell or not, limp or not and let it grow out! Wet dogs don't smell so bad if you love'em.

She gives thanks for the replies, and has the following to say:

"It isn't so much stripping the color, as the color is still there, but it's still giving me a head of purple bubbles when I shampoo.

I don't have a ton of money, but I might just have to go to a professional ;.; This also might be my last time dying my hair, unless future jobs permit it.

Also, the dye I use is Raw, a demi-perm hair color. I think it's a hot topic brand of dye."

Yep, I googled it to see if i could come up with anyone else having had the same problem with that brand and it came up Hot Topic. Also I was reading it being compared to a "tube of poster paints." So it must be rather condensed err... thick. I should have copied down theses discussion, because one replier had mentioned that some dyes can still bleed out residue for up to three weeks so they advised using old pillow cases to sleep on and old towels to dry your hair with. Man... that's a long time for it to be just one of thoses things. Especially after your freind having washed her hair all thoses many times.

I was trying to find someway to contact the company that makes RAW and see if they would be able to help with this. I know several name brand hair coloring companies have help hotlines. Later today I may try to contact one of those just to see what they have to suggest if anything. I'm looking for the # to call. I'm just really sorry not to be able to solve her problem. There's just no way though that stuff can stay in there forever.

American Industrial Industries

I found the site of the manufacture of RAW hair color.

Here maybe this will help :

Customer Service Department

My dye history is much like your friends. She's been through enough dye and fadeout cycles that she knows what's "normal".


To get your hair really purple (or green or red or whatever) you've got to bleach it first. The bleach not only lightens hair so the color shows up, it makes hair more porous so the color sticks better. Unlike regular dye, the RAW (as well as Manic Panic, Punky, etc.) sits on top of the shaft instead of penetrating it. Also part of why it fades like it does.

So here's my *threory*:
It's not the dye- no formula change is big enough to do what her hair is doing. It may be something that got into the dye, but more likely I think it's something that happened BEFORE applying the raw. Maybe after the bleaching.

I think (Reassuringly enough) that she has some kind of creepy microorganism in her head. Yay! But this isn't fun like getting one of those munchy worms in your brain. No, I think she has a fungus or something similar in her hair. I think her super-porous hair shafts made her succeptable to whatever it was, that may have been caught from... I dunno... something. A public shower? Backpacking? Some gnarly old conditioner? Idk. It had a chance to fester because people who dye their hair a lot don't wash it every day because it fades the color.

She only became AWARE of whatever it was when she re-purpled her hair because the dye sealed the fungus or whatever into the hair shaft and interacted with it, letting the fungus really take off. Now it owns her head.

Okay, y'all can start laughing... NOW.

Last night I was touching up my redness when I remembered this thread with horror. Could something like this happen to ME?!

Anyway, did your friend get this figured out? Is her head still smelly?

^^More importantly, do you call her smellyhead?