How to Remove/Lighten Eyebrow Tint at Home

You’re just from the salon for an eyebrow tinting treatment and you notice your brows are too dark and make you look like you’re wearing Halloween makeup. Well, you don’t have to worry because it’s a common scenario and there are ways to either lighten or get rid of the tint.

To remove or lighten eyebrow tint at home, you can use baking soda and a shampoo solution, lemon juice, or an oil-based makeup remover. You can as well opt to go back to the salon where they will use facial bleaches, toners, eyebrow lightening gels, or clarifying shampoos to get rid of the tint or at least brighten the shade.

Read more about these methods below as we explain each of them in detail.

Contents show

Baking Soda and Shampoo to Remove Eyebrow Tint at Home

If you don’t have a clarifying shampoo, you can make one. Simply mix a tablespoon of baking soda with a tablespoon of shampoo, it should come to a paste. Once done, proceed to apply the mixture onto your eyebrows using a makeup brush, foundation or eyebrow brush will do the job adequately.

Let the paste work its magic for about five minutes then rinse the paste off. Maintain a downward position to prevent the paste from getting into the eyes. You can repeat the process if your wish to.

Lemon Juice for Eyebrow Tint Removal

Lemon juice is an acidic solution with citric acid that can be used to clarify and cleanse residue in the hair. In this case;

Squeeze out the juice of one lemon.
Take a cotton pad and dip it into the lemon juice. A little can go a long way.
Again while in a downward position, apply the lemon juice on your eyebrows and let it stay.

After some time, you will start to feel sticky, rinse it off then. Alternately, you can head out to the sun, the sun will cause a lightening effect activated by the lemon juice.
Wash your face and your eyebrows and you’re done.

You could also use one side of cut lemon and massage it over the eyebrows. Ensure the juice doesn’t get into your eyes. This method is fast and you can repeat it as long as you want. Remember the longer the lemon juice stays on your eyebrows, the more the lightening effect.

Use a Clarifying Shampoo

A clarifying shampoo can strip dye residue from your hair, which is why it can also work well on your eyebrows. Clarifying and anti-dandruff shampoos contain selenium disulfide that treats hair flaking, dandruff, and can be used to fade hair color, in this case, eyebrow tint.

To use the clarifying shampoo;

Squeeze a small amount of shampoo onto your hand.

Wet your eyebrows and apply the shampoo. Make sure you’re facing down to avoid the shampoo getting into your eyes.
Scrub your eyebrows for about a minute or more using your finger. You can also use an eyebrow brush or a toothbrush.
Once you’re done, wipe it off with a damp cloth then wash your face to ensure no shampoo is left on your eyebrows.

This method works when you know you had applied too much dye on your brows and it needed to be washed away.

Makeup Remover for Brow Tint Removal

A silicone-based or oil-based makeup remover can perfectly get ring of unwanted brow tint

Simply use a cotton pad to wipe over your brows with the silicone-based or oil-based makeup remover. After a few swipes the extra tint should removed.

Wash Your Brows With a Facial Toner

You can also get facial toner from the store, supermarket, or beauty shop. Toners such as witch hazel have extra cleansing abilities that brighten and deeply cleanse the face more than soap would. To use the facial toner;

Squirt a small amount of toner onto a cotton pad.
Wipe across your eyebrows gently to lighten the tint.

Repeat the process severally until you acquire your intended results.

Facial toners are available in a variety of formulas and ingredients, be sure to go for moisturizing ones as those that contain alcohol can easily dry out your skin making the tint look even more dull/ harsh.

Use Brow Gel to Lighten Eyebrow Tint

Lightning brow gels should be your first line of defense, but it’s mostly available for salon use. The brow gel works by lightening and brightening your eyebrow tint to at least one or two shades down.

Using an eyebrow brush, apply the gel lightly over the eyebrows as you would with mascara.
Ensure you comb through the eyebrow evenly so the effect is unilateral.
Let the gel stay on until it dries up, then wipe it down after a few minutes.

Feel free to repeat the process if you want to further lighten the appearance of your eyebrows.

Some eyebrow gels can be irritating on your face so you should try a simple patch test at home before using the gel and see if it stings. If safe, then proceed to apply.

Lightenning Eyebrow Tint with Facial Bleach

This is another salon solution that should be the last resort. It’s a great choice for lightening your eyebrows but it can have some serious side effects including causing burns on your skin. Therefore, you know you need a stylist or professional for this method.

A facial bleach is first-aid-strength hydrogen peroxide. It’s relatively safe for use, but can be risky around your face because hydrogen peroxide can cause serious allergies among other negative effects. The process of using facial bleach is;

Take a cotton pad and squirt a few drops of facial bleach on it.
While in a downward position, gently wipe across your eyebrows with the cotton pad.

Let it stay for about a minute or so, then completely rinse your face and your eyebrows thoroughly. You don’t want to be left with bleach on your eyebrows.

This method however isn’t recommended even by estheticians as it’s too strong and frankly more risky than worth it.

How to lighten without bleach

Tips to Avoid Too Dark Eyebrow Tint

Before the hustle of all these ingredients and processes, you could try to avoid getting the tint darker than you intended in the first place. Below are a few tips you can use to avoid too dark eyebrow tint.

Always choose the right shade. As mentioned before the shades can come in multiples so your best resort is to go for something lighter and allow for more time.
Time your processing time accurately. Even an extra two minutes of dark eyebrow dye could cause the tint to appear way darker than you intended.
If your eyebrow dyes always surpass the shade you want. Opt for vegetable-based dyes or organic ones such as henna. You can easily control them as opposed to chemical-based dyes.

It’s better to have a professional do the job rather than yourself at home, especially if you end up in such problems every time you do it yourself at home.
Always conduct the right preparation of your eyebrows such as cleaning them up, removing any makeup you have such as powders and pencils, get rid of any oils, treatments, and serums. These extras can cause the dye to adhere more than it should, leading to a darker shade.
Don’t get a new eyebrow treatment before the time elapses. Eyebrow tint lasts approximately a month, getting yours down every two weeks isn’t doing you any favors, you’ll eventually end up with too dark eyebrows.