Why? Grey Hair has lost all its Natural pigment, leaving little for your Hair Colour pigment to grab onto or build off. Your nearly Lighter base will cause your Hair to look Lighter and/or Golden, even brassie.
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.
Neutral shades like soft blonde, mushroom brown, light copper, and caramel blonde balayage are the easiest to blend gray into (and maintain over time without wanting to shave your hair off).
More often than not a colour which won't hold is the result of a lack of treatment. However, in the case of home colouring, the problem can often be due to the colouring process. Either the application isn't even, the waiting time is too short or you aren't using the right product for the desired effect.
A common reason behind fast-fading hair color is insufficient processing time, meaning the hair color did not stay on long enough. This especially holds true if you or your client have grey hair. Grey hair cuticles are tightly packed down and take longer to open and absorb artificial hair color molecules.
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.
If you're dealing with a lot of gray hair, you should touch up every four to six weeks. If that sounds expensive—and time-consuming—that's where at-home coloring is key. With it, you can keep the hair color you know and love—without spending a ton.
let your color develop longer
Try increasing the development time. For resistant gray hair, leave the product on for 45 minutes. This will allow the color to better absorb into the hair strand.
1. Blonde Highlights. There are three reasons we recommend blonde highlights Opens in a new tab when covering grays. First up, the difference between blonde and silver shades is subtle, so gray roots won't appear as visible - even if it's been six to eight weeks since you last went to the salon.
It's a good idea to give your roots the most time to absorb color—at least a 10 minute head start, 20 minutes if you have stubborn grays at your roots. But please remember that you should not apply color all over every time you color (see above).
Knowing what colors do not work with gray hair
Avoid mustard, olive green, camel or rust. These colors bring out the yellow undertones of your skin. With age the skin can get thinner. Yellow tones will make you look jaundiced.
Amla, henna, black tea, sage leaves, coconut oil, curry leaves, potato peels, fenugreek seeds, coffee, and apple cider vinegar are some of the most popular and common ingredients used to make different natural hair dyes or hair rinse solutions for gray hair.
Always Use a 20 Volume Developer
Since there is no pigment, there is no need to lift. You just need to open the cuticle enough to deposit the color. If you feel you can get full coverage using a 10 or 15 volume then by all means use a lower volume.
Blonde is one of the best colors to cover gray hair because there's only a slight difference between blonde shades and silver shades, so the new dye can be easily blended. Take a look at these fresh blonde color ideas you can try out to cover gray hair.
Chocolate, deep caramel and toffee, rich auburn reds and deep blonde tones all work, but try to avoid going too light or insipid feeling with colours. Grey is usually naturally warm, and it's usually best to embrace and even enhance this rather than trying to cool things down with blue tones.
The good news is, unlike grey on dark hair, grey on blonde tends to blend a little more seamlessly, so when the post-colour regrowth comes through, clients get a softer, subtler line.
Your roots are lighter than your ends
Like the orangey issue discussed above, your virgin hair at the scalp reacts differently to dye than previously colored strands. This is because the strands you've dyed before are more porous than fresh hair and quicker to absorb color molecules.
In essence, it is not safe to dye if your wet hair stretches more than usual or if the texture feels “gummy”. Check whether the hair surface is uneven, if it has kinks or if some sections of it snap quite easily. These are important signs that your hair is too damaged for a new shade of colour.
How Long Should Hair Dye Stay in Before Washing? Many hair dye products come with instructions telling you how long to leave hair dye on your hair before you rinse it. Most say that dye needs a minimum of 30 to 45 minutes to process.
The answer to this age-old question requires considering many factors. But the short answer is about every 4 to 8 weeks to touch up the roots from an overall hair coloring job. But if you have had just highlights, lowlights, or balayage coloring, you can recolor as the shades grow out from your hair.
Shampooing Too Often After Coloring
All colored hair has an expiration date. Depending on whether your dye is temporary or permanent, your color may last anywhere from 6 to 30 washes. For those who wash their hair multiple times a day or week, this means your hair color may fade faster.