But how can you remove hair dye after you’ve had an epic colour fail? We spoke to expert colourists Gemma Smidmore, colour director at Smiths Salon and Saffy Lett, colourist at Josh Wood, to get their professional advice on when (and how) to remedy things at home and when it’s best to head straight to the salon to salvage the situation.

When should we go to the salon – what dye fails can we not deal with at home?

“Anything you consider a ‘dye fail’ should be fixed at the salon to prevent further disasters,” says Saffy.

“My advice is to go to the salon when stripping or changing your hair colour as these are very tricky jobs and can result in damage if not done correctly. Most stripping products contain bleach and bleach dissolves bonds in our hair so it’s best to leave it to the professionals,” says Gemma.

Why is it important to admit exactly what we’ve used on our hair to the colourist?

“It’s important to know the history of the hair. A permanent colour will stay in the hair permanently, until it’s cut out or lifted out, so even if you haven’t coloured your hair in over a year, the colour is still there,” says Saffy. “Natural hair will react differently to colour treated hair and therefore the colourists will use different formulas and different processes to achieve the desired results. Henna is especially important to mention, as it reacts differently to permanent hair colour,” she adds.

“If you don’t go through the whole history of your hair it can result in old colour not being removed and the colour you desire not being achievable,” agrees Gemma.

How do hairdressers strip hair colour?

“Depending on the history of your hair, there’s different techniques, processes and products available to colour technicians to remove different types of hair colour, but what colour technician’s do is highly specialist – there’s no guidebook,” says Gemma.

“It depends on the starting colour and desired end result,” agrees Saffy, “but to give an example, if someone has very heavily saturated permanent colour, the colourist may use a deep cleansing treatment to soften the colour as the first step.”

How can I remove hair dye at home?

“At home you can only fix the colour tonally (e.g. warming it up or cooling it down). Or if the colour is too heavy you can soften it with cleansing shampoo. To rectify a big colour change we’d always recommend going to the salon,” says Saffy.

Gemma recommends using a detox shampoo like Kevin Murphy’s Maxi Wash, to take the edge off unwanted tones in your hair.

SLS shampoos can help with this too – they’re normally best avoided to prevent colour fade, but if you’re wanting to strip colour back subtly, they can help to accelerate the fading process. Fairy Liquid will get you a big frown of disapproval from your colourist (it’s exceedingly drying for hair), but if you’re in a pinch, it can help to lift out unwanted colour slightly – it can help to lift you from dark brown to a slightly lighter dark brown – but for wonky colour (like green tinges), don’t try to rectify this at home.

As for unwanted brassiness or cooler tones that you’d prefer warmed up – rather than removing them, you can nudge them in a more desirable direction. “Josh Wood’s Colour Shade Shot Glosses, are a great entry point for ‘non scary’ home hair colour treatment, that plays around with the tone,” says Saffy. “They can be used on dyed hair or non-dyed hair, and they give your hair a treatment mask at the same time.” Or any at-home toners, such as purple shampoos will also help things along.

What should we do after stripping the colour to repair our hair?

“After any colour service or after using chemicals to strip the hair, I would always advise home care,” says Gemma. “Philip Kingsley’s Elasticizer, once a week delivers elasticity and leaves hair stronger and healthier with less breakage.”

Other nourishing hair treatments include K18 Leave-in Molecular Repair Hair Mask – Treatment for Damaged Hair and Guerlain Abeille Royale Double R Radiance and Repair Mask – specially formulated to soothe and repair your hair after stripping the colour.