Stains in bathroom from hair dyes?

[serenitygal]

Hmm. I'm renting too, and quite anxious to avoid staining my bathroom. My bathroom is also carpeted (dumb idea if you ask me, but no one did). I put down old towels all over the carpet and around the sink area prior to dying. I wear old and black clothes, and dye just a small portion of hair at a time. Finally, once that stuff is on, I don't leave the bathroom until after I've rinsed it out, which keeps the stainable square-footage down to just the bath. My fixtures are older, but the dye seems to wash right off of anything except a couple of caulk spots, which I just recaulked.

[chrissy-b]

rubbing alcohol. dab a little on the spot with a cotton ball. takes out the dye every time.

[Darscilla]

I rinse, rinse, rinse the tiles in the shower with lots of water the moment I've rinsed the dye out, and I've never had any discolouration in the 10 years I've been using permanent black dye. Any 'whoopsies' that get on the walls or floor during application come off with just a swipe with a damp cloth if you get to them right away, as well.

[Isilme]

ok if you are using henna, it will stain textile and plastic, but not tiles, not even white ones So, watch out if you place a henna bowl on top of your white washing machine!

[Kallisti]

I've used shampoo on a washcloth to get dye stains out of white counter tops and linoleum with success. Recently I dyed a friend's hair red with that Feria Power Reds dye, I dripped a few times and wiped and it wouldn't come off. (That is some powerful stuff) So I grabbed an old washcloth and coated it in shampoo and scrubbed the stain, all of them came off pretty easily when scrubbed with the shampoo.

[AlleyKitten]

I find baking soda is my best friend cleaning tubs and sinks, because it's nice and abrasive, but not so much it will damage the finish. It works really well mixed into a paste with whatever soap you're using. Definitely give it a shot before resorting to bleach and paint.

[LifeisAdventure]

In my 10+ years of chemical dying (I only gave that up a few years ago, bad me!) plus a few experiments with henna, I have never stained any bathtub/shower surfaces. Old tile, new tile, plasticy basins, linoleum, metals, ceramics, none of that had a mark, but what DOES stain is counter tops and cabinets (look out for your vanity!). And if all else fails, there are some good posts here suggesting quick-fixes before your move-out!

[Ash]

At least you don't have carpet in your bathroom! I'm thinking about coloring my floor with a box of hair dye to hide the stains, at least until we redo the floor with tile.
One thing you can do is to put several garbage bags covering your floor and an old towel over them to hold them in place. Another thing that works for me is to use the kitchen sink (stainless steel) to rinse out the dye and maybe to wash my hair in for a couple of days. I barely have to scrub then.

[hazelceleste]

I've made a ton of stains with hair dye, and 99.9% of them have come out with plain chlorine bleach. The only stains that wouldn't bleach out completely were on white grout, which wasn't a huge deal, imo, since grout is easy to repaint.

[k_hepburn]

Thank you all very much for sharing your experience and advice!!!

I am reasonably comforted since the risk of staining does not seem to be as big as I feared.

I am still wondering about the tiles which will end up in the floor of the shower since these have some kind of a roughened surface in order to prevent slipping. I don't know whether that makes them porous (surely putting tiles in a shower that would "suck up" anything intensively coloured must be a bad idea?). Well, we'll see, but I'll definitely be rinsing, rinsing, rinsing (unfortunately the kitchen sink is nor really an option - almost impossible to maneuvre your head under the faucet, plus the hot water supply is limited). I might also take on the idea of using pertolium jelly for "at risk" parts of the grout (I guess putting it on the shower floor tiles themselves wouldn't be such a great idea, since it might make them permanently ultra-slippery ).

And I will be covering up the rest of the floor and vanity surfaces and, just in case, will stock up on some rubbing alcohol and bleach (not to be used at the same time, I presume... ). But I very much like the idea of using shampoo first, before breaking out the hard stuff. It's such an obvious option, I really wonder why it never occurred to me - I must still be mentally compartmentalizing to much (cleaning agents here, hair care there).

So again, thank you very much everybody for helping me with my inquiry!

katharine