There are two main ways you can apply hair dye.  One way is by using the non-bleach technique.  In order to get away with successfully dying with this, it would be beneficial to have lighter-shaded hair such as light brown, red tones, or blond tunes.  First thing you need to do is use something like tape or petroleum jelly (Vaseline) around the hairline.  The reason for this is because you want to make sure that the dye doesn’t go beyond the desired areas of your hair (your face or areas around the desired hairline).  Then with gloved hands (I use non-latex gloves because they are less likely to get through to your fingers than latex gloves), you comb it through rather than rub it in as you would shampoo/conditioner.  By doing it this way, you won’t have as much irritation on your scalp.  After you applied the desired amount of dye on your hair, I suggest putting on some sort of plastic cap (or you can use cellophane) on your hair and leave it on there for up to 60 minutes.  If you’re using a vegetable-based dye, leave it on for a few hours so it would settle in your hair in a stronger light.  After leaving it on, rinse it off with white vinegar, then your conditioner of choice.  Reason why it’s best to use the vinegar stems from the fact that it would raise the actual Ph level of your hair; letting it “soak” in the dye even more to give your hair the color you desire for a longer period of time.

The other technique for effectively using hair dye is by the bleach-technique.  You must use this technique if you have dark natural hair.  If you don’t bleache, it would be very difficult to change your hair color to any sort of lighter shade besides brown.  Applying the bleach dye the same way you would a regular dye, after washing it off, you want to wait a period of 1-2 hours.  This way it gives the scalf some time to breathe before applying the desired hair color dye.  The scalp is very sensitive as if you rub any sort of hair dye on it/leave it on for any period of time, it will actually start to dry out your scalp to the point of it flaking (dandruff) immensily.  You want to avoid that at all costs, so always be weary of how much of the dye “drips” all the way down to yoru scalp and adjust accordingly.