How to Dye Your Hair: What You Need to Know (and Buy) Before You Take the Plunge

If you’re thinking about attempting a good ol’ fashioned DIY operation you’re in luck: Today, the best home-dye kits are specifically designed for easy use, leaving minimal room for serious color-related fiascos at any point during the process. And at-home hair dye tends to be thinner than its salon counterparts to allow for intuitive application sans any of the tools a professional colorist would typically have on-hand. (All you need is a few nimble fingers and a little bit of free time.)

Better yet, if you are about that DIY life and are looking to merely make a few errant gray hairs disappear, then—ding ding!—you happen to be the perfect candidate for an at-home hair dye attempt. Fair warning though, if your hair is more gray than any other color, it’d behoove you to find a colorist you trust who can work with you to ensure an even tone, helping you steer clear of any mortifying mistakes along the way.

First things first: What color do you want your hair to be? If you’re turning to hair dye as a means of staving off the inevitable march of time ever so slightly, you’re going to need a concoction that blends in seamlessly with your natural hair color. Ditto that if you’re looking to try out a different shade, but one that still resembles your original hair color. If that’s the case, you should reach for a hair dye that’s about a shade or two darker than your natural hair color (or, alternatively a shade or two lighter). In other words, keep it relatively simple. If you’re trying to replicate Jared Leto’s lime-green Joker locks, a DIY job might not be the way to go.

FYI: If you’re interested in touching up those rapidly graying tresses, it’s important to remember that gray hair tends to be less receptive to dye, so a product specially designed to target your salt-and-pepper temples is almost always going to be a better call than snagging a general-purpose alternative—no matter how alluringly packaged. If you want up your hair’s receptivity you might need to start with a developer, a formula specifically designed to open up the cuticle, helping the dye stick. (Many kits come with a developer of some kind already included so be sure to read through the instructions thoroughly before applying.)

As to how to actually, uh, do it? Simple. Now that you’ve figured out what type of dye you need (and have temporarily sworn off committing wholesale to some garish neon hue you’ll only regret down the line), applying the dye itself is a pretty straightforward process. A few days before you plan on doing the deed, wash your hair and don’t apply any styling products. The day of, try to gather any additional tools the dye you’re using calls for—like gloves and brushes—so you’re not making a mess of your makeshift TikTok studio (surprise: it’s the bathroom!) while mud-colored goop slowly drips down your face a la Rudy Giuliani. Then apply the dye to fully dry hair and allow it to settle for however long the packaging advises. Finally, rinse it all out using a color-preserving shampoo for added vibrancy.

But wait, the fun doesn’t stop there! Depending on how long your hair is, you might have to ready yourself to do the whole thing all over again within a month or so (you can hold off for slightly longer if your roots really take to their newfound color with gusto). To get your money’s worth, try to reduce the amount of shampoo you use and always opt for col0r-safe shampoo when your hair is feeling too greasy to avoid lathering up.

Ultimately, though, whether you’re a budding silver fox not yet ready to accept your AARP card or just a relative young’un looking to mix things up a little bit, the only way to find out what you’ll look like post dye job is to have at it yourself. To paraphrase the great Amy Winehouse: Even if you dye a hundred times, you can always go back to black. (Or brown. Or blonde.)

To narrow all the best hair dyes out there down to these 12 options, we tried and tested the options you see above. Then, our experts read thousands of reviews from other users to make sure that you would love ’em just as much as we do.

We’re not going to say something is great unless it’s actually great. Every product in Esquire’s round-ups is carefully curated by our fashion and e-commerce teams.

Our grooming team puts in the work to make sure these products are the very best for you. We continuously test hair dyes, new and old, and even award some of them.

Every pick on this list (and our other lists!) comes from years of trying different things, seeing what we love and what we don’t, and going from there. No two tastes are the same, and no two men are the same. Your proverbial mileage may vary. But if you’re looking for the right place to start, with advice from folks who and care (possibly too much!) about this sort of stuff, this is the place to be.