Green After Dyeing

Green Is the Process.
Not a Problem.

You rinsed out a brown or a black and your hair came out green, blue-grey or turquoise. This is the most common thing people write to us about, and it is the one that is not a fault.

Indigo does not arrive as blue. It arrives as green and turns over the next day or two, on your head. What you are looking at is that reaction, part-way through.

What to do

Nothing. Leave it alone.

No dryer, no shampoo, no henna over the top, no vinegar, no coffee. The green clears on its own, usually within a day and almost always within two.

Every intervention people try at this stage makes the final colour worse, not better. The one thing that helps: wrap it in a towel so it stays damp longer.

Grey hair one hour after applying Copper Brown, showing a pale green cast on the white strands while the darker hair around them looks normal
Copper Brown on grey hair, one hour after rinsing. The white strands show the green clearly; the darker hair doesn't. Left alone, it cleared to the expected colour over the next day.

What the next three days look like

Green, Then Blue, Then Your Shade

Indigo is the only herb in the pouch still working after you rinse. How long your hair stays damp in the first hours decides where it ends up.

Three swatches coloured with indigo alone, 90 minutes after rinsing, all green

90 minutes after rinsing — indigo alone, on white swatches. All green.

The same three swatches 24 hours later: blue-black, violet-navy and reddish plum

24 hours later — the green has gone. The one dried fastest (bottom) went plum.

  1. At the rinse

    Green or turquoise

    Blue indigo that has already formed, sitting over pale material that hasn't finished yet. The more grey or light your hair, the more you see it — there is no pigment underneath to hide it.

  2. Day one to two

    The green clears, blue arrives

    The cast fades and the tone moves towards the shade you chose. This is the part people interrupt by reaching for a dryer.

  3. By day three

    Settled

    The blue sits over henna's warmth and reads as brown or black. This is the colour to judge — not the one you saw in the shower. How indigo colours, stage by stage →

If your air is dry — we are in Southern California — hair dries faster, and fast drying is what pushes indigo towards red-violet rather than blue. Wrap it in a towel, or give it a steamy bathroom, for the first hours.

While it is green

Four Things Not to Do

Almost every colour problem we hear about starts here: someone sees green on day one, decides something has gone wrong, and acts. The green would have cleared on its own.

×Don't use a hair dryer

Drying it fast doesn't stop indigo — it sends it towards red-violet instead of blue, which over henna reads as red or wine. Re-wetting afterwards does not turn it back. See our test · What that leaves you with

×Don't put henna over it

Henna is orange. On hair that is still turning blue, it doesn't remove the green — it adds warmth to a shade that hasn't finished.

×Don't shampoo it out

Indigo sits in the outer layers of the hair, so washing now removes the blue and leaves the warmth behind.

×Don't add coffee, tea or vinegar

None of these speed the reaction up, and acid works against indigo rather than for it.

Why some people never see this

It Depends on What's Underneath

You will see it on…

Grey and white strands, which have no pigment of their own, and on hair roughly two tones lighter than the shade you applied.

You probably won't on…

Hair darker than the shade, where your own colour masks it entirely. The green stage is still happening — you just can't see it.

Which is why two people using the same pouch can have completely different first days — and why this page exists mostly for people covering grey. Which of our shades contain indigo →

Still Green After a Week?

Then It Isn't the Stage.
It's the Shade.

Everything above is about the day or two after you rinse. If it has been most of a week and your hair is still cool, green or blue-grey, something different is going on — and the answers are opposite.

One resolves itself if you leave it. The other never will, because it is the shade doing what it was built to do.

The stage

Green that is on its way somewhere

How long

Clears within a day, almost always within two. Already fading by the time most people worry.

Which shades

Any shade with indigo in it — 18 of our 24, most obviously the browns and blacks.

What's underneath

Henna, waiting to be covered. The blue is still arriving to sit on top of it.

Do nothing. See above ↑

The shade

Cool that was always going to stay cool

How long

Still there after three or four days, and after a week. It settled rather than moved.

Which shades

The five that contain indigo but no henna at all. Listed below.

What's underneath

Nothing warm. There is no orange in the pouch for the blue to land on.

Waiting won't change it. Options below ↓

The quickest way to tell them apart is the ingredient list, not the mirror. Look for henna on your pouch. If it is there, you are in the left-hand column and time is on your side.

The five with no henna

Built to Be Cool

Leaving henna out is the only way to make a plant colour that reads genuinely cool — and the same absence is why a cool cast has nothing to resolve into.

Darkest Ash Blonde

Indigo 2nd

Dark Ash Blonde

Indigo 5th

Ash Blonde

Indigo 2nd

Wheat Blonde

Indigo 2nd

Violet

Indigo 1st

Why these behave differently

In a brown, indigo's blue lands on henna's orange and the two read as brown. Remove the henna and the blue has nothing to mix with — so it stays blue, and on white or grey strands it shows as a visible cool cast.

We saw exactly this when we tested indigo on its own: on white swatches with nothing warm underneath, it went blue-black. See the test →

That is not a fault

It is the only way a plant colour can be cool at all, and it is why these five exist. Violet in particular is built to be seen; a cool result there is the shade working.

Two things follow: the green stage is more visible on these shades, and they fade sooner, because indigo is held in the outer layers of the hair rather than bonded into it. Herb by herb →

If you want it warmer than it landed

Two Honest Routes

Neither is anything to do in the first two days. Give the colour a week to settle, so you are working with the finished result.

Option 1 — adjust what you have

A short henna application over the top

Henna is orange, and orange over blue reads browner. Fifteen to thirty minutes takes the edge off a cool cast without turning the whole thing red.

This is the one case where henna over an indigo result makes sense. Organic henna leaf powder →

Option 2 — change shade next time

The ash tone that does contain henna

Light Ash Blonde carries henna third on its list — a trace of warmth under the blue, which the other ash tones leave out.

If you liked the depth but not the coolness, that is the one to try. Ash & Bold shades →

Before you put henna on anything

  • Test a hidden strand first. Fifteen minutes is not much, but henna is not subtle and you cannot take it back off.
  • Henna bonds to keratin. Unlike indigo, it doesn't wash out over a few weeks — it wears down as the hair does.
  • Start shorter than you think. It is easy to go back for ten more minutes, and hard to remove warmth once it is there.
  • Not while it is still green. Under a few days, you are treating a stage, not a result. Wait it out instead ↑

Every Colour Problem

Herbal Colour Goes Wrong
in a Handful of Ways.

Find the one that matches what you are actually looking at. One of them is not a problem at all — and that is the one people most often make worse.

This pageGreen or blue-greyUsually normal. Wait before you do anything.
Red or wineThree causes, told apart. Only one is a mistake. PurpleIndigo that went the red-violet way. Orange instead of brownHenna uncovered — or the shade you picked. YellowMostly a blonde and light-shade question. Flat or dullFive causes, most of them fixable.

Barely any colour at all? Eight reasons a plant dye fails to take · The tests behind this page: two shades at 1 and 72 hours and indigo alone at 90 minutes and 24 hours

Before your next application

Protect the First Hours

Almost everything above comes back to the same thing: indigo is still working after you rinse, and how long the hair stays damp decides which way it goes. Protect that window and most colour problems never start.

Do

  • ✓Cover the paste while it processes. Paste that has dried on your head has stopped working, whatever the clock says.
  • ✓Give a dark shade the longer end of its time. Longer again if you are covering grey.
  • ✓Wrap it in a towel after rinsing and let it dry as slowly as it wants to.
  • ✓Add humidity if your air is dry. A humidifier, or a bathroom with the shower run hot.
  • ✓Read the first line on the pouch. It tells you what family a shade belongs to before you mix it.

Don't

  • ×No dryer after rinsing. Not warm, not cool, not for thirty seconds. It sends indigo towards red-violet, and that cannot be undone.
  • ×Don't panic at green. That is indigo mid-reaction. Reaching for the dryer because of it is how green becomes red.
  • ×Don't shampoo for two days. Water only if you need to rinse.
  • ×Don't judge it on day one. A result that stayed damp is still deepening well after you have looked in the mirror.
  • ×Don't pick a shade from a photograph alone. Your starting hair changes where it lands.

None of this is unique to us

Any herbal colour built on henna will run warm. Any built on indigo will pass through green and keep moving for days. Those are properties of the plants, not of a brand — so this page applies whoever packed your pouch.

What differs is whether the label tells you which one you are holding. Ingredient lists run in order of quantity, so the first line tells you more than the photograph on the front. All 24 of ours →

If it still isn't right, we'd rather sort it out

First-time customers who don't get the result they expected can have a different shade sent free, or a full refund on the colour. How the assurance works →

Not sure which shade to move to? Send us a photo and tell us what you were aiming for. Talk to us →