Aside from the time investment of a salon session, there's how long it takes to fully transition to gray hair, which is anywhere from six months to a year, Ferrara says. "Some people won't have the patience, so they choose to color their hair again," she notes. "But it's super-rewarding if you can stick it out."
From the time a person notices a few gray hairs, it may take more than 10 years for all of that person's hair to turn gray. Some people think that a big shock or trauma can turn a person's hair white or gray overnight, but scientists don't really believe that this happens.
Apply Hair Color With Foils
If you're trying to transition to gray hair, you want to avoid an all-over dye job. Instead, have your colorist apply your hair color with foils — much like applying highlights, except you won't be lightening your hair. This will simply help you transition between the two shades seamlessly.
Gray Hair Returns in Less than Two Weeks
If your client can't seem to keep their gray hair or roots covered for long, it may be time to discontinue using hair dye. Going to the salon every two weeks for treatment is too often, and along with all the damage it can do to their hair, it can also be expensive over time.
Don't assume that grey hair makes you look older
Hair naturally loses pigment as we age, but stylist Paul Falltrick points out that the notion that grey hair makes you look older is increasingly becoming a misnomer: "Grey shades can be stereotyped as ageing, but a clean-looking grey is stunning" he says.
When should I go gray? That's a question a lot of us ask ourselves as we start getting older. Cosmetologists and colorists, as a general rule of thumb, advise going gray when 80% of your hair is white or gray, or when your hair starts feeling increasingly dry and brittle.
If you add the right hair colour, your 'grey' hair will act as highlights, giving you a completely new look that will get you noticed for all the right reasons. Professional colourists usually recommend a darker shade for your roots and a lighter shade that matches your natural hair for the rest.
Growing Out Gray Hair with Highlights & Lowlights
To blend that line of demarcation, ask your hairstylist to paint babylights (very thin highlights) throughout your hair. This will help to blend those grays in with your colored hair, creating an all-over salt and pepper effect.
Grey blending is a subtle way of handling your greying hair. It is an approach that blends the grey with colours similar to your natural hair tone. It's an option that allows you to embrace and enhance your greying hair, rather than hiding it. Your natural hair colour is the inspiration for the final effect.
When you use silver hair dyes, it can last up to 3-4 weeks, depending upon how often you wash your tresses. Using this silver dye, people with light brown, dark blonde hair or dark brown hair can quickly achieve grey shade hair and be able to dye hair dark grey.
The most popular easy ways to disguise the grays among women are blonde highlights, silver balayage, soft lowlights, icy and ashy hair dyes, red and brown colors.
Your Hair May Look Thinner
Secondly, hair dye creates the illusion of depth and light in hair, making it look like it has more body. So when you stop coloring your hair, you may see a decrease both in actual volume, and in the appearance of body and thickness.
Your hair follicles produce less color as they age, so when hair goes through its natural cycle of dying and being regenerated, it's more likely to grow in as gray beginning after age 35.
A single strand of hair can't turn gray once it has emerged from the scalp; hair "turns gray" when a non-gray hair falls out and the hair that replaces it does not contain pigment. Graying is a gradual process, and only becomes noticeable over time, once a large number of gray hairs have grown in.
But while hair cannot lose its colour in an instant – at least not without help from a bottle of bleach – scientists at Harvard University have shown how stress can, over time, speed up the greying process.
One of the hardest things, maybe the ONLY difficult thing for some people about growing out their gray hair is the dreaded "skunk stripe." The line of demarcation, that ever-widening stripe of white that begins at your roots, and cascades ever so sloooooowly down as the months go by.
As we said before, going blonde makes grey hair that much easier to cover, as blonde hair and white hair are quite close to each other in aspect. If the natural hair is quite dark (level 6 and below) you will need to use bleach first and lift the whole hair.
According to hair biology experts and styling experts alike, grey hair is more resistant to color than younger hair because of its texture. The relative lack of natural oils in the hair compared to younger hair make it a rougher surface that tends to reject the color being applied, especially around the roots.
It depends on your skin tone and your shade of gray. Brilliant white, glossy platinum or shiny silver hair is pure genetic luck. It helps if your skin has warm golden undertones or is a rich color. When gray grows in dull, ashy or muddy, it needs help, especially if your complexion is ruddy, sallow or very pale.
The choice to stop dyeing your hair and go completely natural…and grey… is one many women battle with as early as in their twenties. In the end, it's about the way you feel about yourself inside and out! Some women choose to put down the dye bottle at 30 and others continue well into their nineties.
Some women may begin going gray in their 30s or 40s. But for others, the process may begin as early as when they're 20 years old. For some women, hair can be a form of self expression. When it begins to turn gray, some women think nothing of it or even realize that they love their new silvery strands.
BEST EYEBROW PENCILS FOR GRAY HAIR
If you prefer darker brows, consider trying dark brown, black-brown, taupe, or dark gray shades. If you prefer lighter brows, consider trying light brown, dark blonde, or light gray shades.
Purple shampoo has been used for decades by hairdressers, mostly to help tone and neutralize blonde and gray hair, getting rid of brassy or yellow tones for an overall more cool-toned look.
Scientists still don't know why some people turn gray early, late, or not at all, although they suspect genes, nutrients and possibly the immune system play a role in depleting melanocyte stem cells.