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.
The best color to blend with gray hair is going to largely depend on your base color. With that said, light base colors like platinum, ash blonde and light brown mix best with gray hair. Because gray hair is similar in tone to these hues, it makes them look almost undetectable when they're blended.
Gray blending is a subtle hair color application that oscillates between highlights and balayage. Like a game of chiaroscuro, the colorist will first lighten large sections of hair with a light balayage, then accentuate the effect on a few finer strands to blend in the gray hair naturally present.
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.
There are three main ways of transitioning to gray hair from dyed hair: the cold turkey method (letting the dye grow out or cutting it out), the salon transition (having a stylist blend your dyed hair to match your natural gray), or the dye-strip technique (a combination of various methods).
Henna. One of the most popular and gentle ways to treat gray hair is using henna powder. Henna is a powdered form of leaves which essentially helps to treat the gray hair when used every month. Henna comes with natural color pigmentation, thus, covering the gray roots easily.
Blending grey hair with highlights can also look more natural and youthful than a one-shade process, and make locks appear thicker. Put simply, the benefits are limitless.
Caramel, honey, gold, copper, and strawberry give a healthy brightness that makes us look and feel younger. (Framing your face with lighter shades draws the eye away from any complexion concerns, as well.)
Pros of Gray Blending Techniques
Fewer trips to the salon for touch-ups. Less gray coverage than all over permanent color. Showcases shine and depth while also creating color movement and contrast in the finished style. Less maintenance than other blended coloring techniques like balayage, highlights or lowlights.
It's Going to Be an Hours-Long, If Not Months-Long Process
Depending on the thickness of the color or length of the hair, one of Martin's gray hair transformations can take anywhere from six to 14 hours. In terms of technique, it's all based on the pattern of the roots and how light or dark a client's hair is.
Be patient with the process.
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.
Can Gray Hair Be Highlighted? Yes, gray hair can be highlighted. Just keep in mind that, when you're highlighting gray locks, the goal is to blend silver strays and create an ultra-natural finish.
It's a truth universally acknowledged that gray hair can be chic, glamorous, and oh-so-flattering. And when it comes to adding depth and playfulness to gray hair, there's no better technique than lowlights (a good shampoo helps too).
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. The best hair color to cover gray with highlights for you will depend on your base hair shade, the number of grays, and your desired result.
If you are a natural brunette, you'll want to blend your greys with darker lowlights. For natural blondes, you should add highlights and lowlights ranging from pearl to medium blonde. And if you are a natural redhead, a range of brown and blonde highlights and lowlights will enhance your grey locks best.
Blonde highlights can brighten your natural hair color and help to disguise gray hair with a blended finished look. Blonde highlights can also create depth and interest in your overall hair color by adding brightness to your natural hair color and mixing in the gray hairs so they're less noticeable.
Before Hairprint, Henna was the least-toxic, most natural option for coloring your hair. And it's still a good one. Affordable, available in a variety of colors, and easy to apply, semi-permanent Henna is completely natural, non-toxic, and can even work on gray hair.
A root smudge is like the hair color equivalent of blending your makeup. It blurs the line of demarcation so that as your hair grows, the root doesn't have an obvious contrast to your color-treated hair. It creates a more natural, lived-in, and lower maintenance look.
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.
Typically, white people start going gray in their mid-30s, Asians in their late 30s, and Blacks in their mid-40s. Half of all people have a significant amount of gray hair by the time they turn 50.
But how to blend gray hair into brown or naturally dark hair seamlessly? Less saturated shades of highlights and dyes can make the gray strands less visible. Butterscotch, light auburn, golden brown, ash brown, and pale brunettes are some of the best shades to conceal them.