People Are Using Nutella to Dye Their Hair and We Have a Lot of Questions

Like: Why?

Brown, Milk, Dishware, Long hair, Street fashion, Plant milk, Blond, Artificial hair integrations, Raw milk, Serveware,
Brown, Milk, Dishware, Long hair, Street fashion, Plant milk, Blond, Artificial hair integrations, Raw milk, Serveware,
(Image credit: Animation by Crystal Law)

Chocolate may have secured a place in our face beats, but our haircare routine? That's where we draw the line—not that that's stopping the internet.

Nutella is officially the latest so-weird-it-just-might work household item people are using to dye their hair. At Abed & Samer salon in the United Arab Emirates, the chocolate-infused hazlenut spread is being repurposed by colorists to take women from blonde to brunette.

The colorist applies dollops of Nutella straight to the hair, drizzles condensed milk over each section like a sundae, then lets the sweetened strands process in foils as they would with normal hair dye.

As can be seen from these two different examples, it definitely works, yielding a rich dark chocolate hue for one woman and a soft mocha for another. The problem, though, is not the results, but how long they last.

"It depends on the hair," salon owner Abed Allahitani told Metro UK. "If you want light caramel color, it can last around two or three weeks, but if you want it dark and are willing to leave the chocolate on longer, it will last longer."

Seems like a LOT of trouble to go to for color that won't even last a month, but Nutella does have other hair benefits: It contains palm oil, which can nourish and repair the hair/scalp. Thus, it can double as a hair mask (as long as your color isn't too light), which will make it shinier.

Or you can just, you know, eat it.

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Beauty Editor

Lauren Valenti is Vogue’s former senior beauty editor. Her work has also appeared on ELLE.com, MarieClaire.com, and in In Style. She graduated with a liberal arts degree from Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts, with a concentration on Culture and Media Studies and a minor in Journalism.