Going grey (or not).. how to do it properly?

[IKnowRight]

Up until now I've always coloured my hair at home myself, but using block colours doesn't really work for me any more as they grey seems to come through in around 3 days.

I've bitten the bullet (or I thought I had) and dyed it one final time, a bit lighter than my (pre-grey) hair colour, in the hope that I could grow it out and not have shockingly horrible roots.

How wrong I was.

Money doesn't really stretch to a salon colour unfortunately, although I could probably manage it once or twice if it was the only way round it.

Is there anything I can do myself at home to get past the horrible growing out roots stage? It's so obvious, it looks awful but there aren't enough roots yet to get all the colour cut out - I really don't have the face shape for a pixie cut sadly.

There must be something I can do that won't cost a fortune

[KissyBoo]

How about using a Tween time hair crayon to cover the roots until it is obvious you are growing out the dye rather than neglecting to do colour your hair.

There really isn't much option really than braving the blorange stage apparently.

I am currently growing mine out. I have pure white temples which show up in under a week and shop bought dyes just seem to wash straight off. I popped into a hairdressers today to see if they could run some highlights through the hair and tint them grey to ease the transition. She said she could only do it blonde (which I really don't suit) as it would turn a really murky grey. I am going to ask somewhere else as I am sure it must be possible....

[TarquinMoriartyGruntfuttockII]

This was an interesting thread and might help a little.

Look how grey I am

[bigoldbird]

I went grey a few years ago, mostly because I couldn't be bothered to dye my hair any more.

What I did was get loads of blonde highlights a couple of times which sort of broke up the hard edge to the roots, also my dyed hair faded a lot which helped. I am not sure whether people realised I was aiming to go grey, but that is probably just wishful thinking on my part. Anyway, 4 years on and I love it and get lots of compliments (which I never did before). My greatest tip would be, once you have gone grey, make sure you use a blue toned shampoo so that you are proper platinum and not all yellowy and horrible. There are a few available. I promise you it won't make you look like you have had a blue rinse.

[Charityworker34]

I am around 70% grey now, at the age of 34! I dyed it for a long time, then last Autumn I just decided I couldn't be bothered with the upkeep any more. I have a short, choppy style which definitely helps- the grey makes it look textured rather than a parting with grey roots. I definitely agree with using a blue toned shampoo (Aveda Blue Malva for me), and more moisturising products as grey can be coarse and wiry. I don't regret it for a minute!

[Pippidoeswhatshewants]

Hm. I just read through the 'look how grey I am' thread linked to earlier, and had a look at howbourgeois.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1 (hello! Mumsnet again!) and I am considering cancelling my grey-hiding hair appointment at the weekend. That bourgeois lady looks stunning!

[CMOTDibbler]

When I decided to go natural, I stripped my hair with colourb4 3 times, and then the front section where I was totally white I bleached with a platinum blonde kit so that didn't have roots.

Using Touch of Silver weekly treatment kept the gingeriness of the stripped bits down, and then I toughed it out.

I'm 42 now, very, very grey with the front all white, and I love it. And get loads of compliments.

[IKnowRight]

Thank you :)

I must admit I really cba to dye my hair any more, seeing as realistically I'd need to do it every three weeks or so to hide the obvious white roots... and whilst I'm not quite ready for retirement just yet, I'm keen to avoid the "old lady block colour I've been using for 30 years" look. Aside from the laziness factor, my hair isn't all that long, shoulder length, but the ends are already wrecked from too many dyes.

I'm 41 and have an almost white streak at the crown, more salt/pepper towards the front and still fairly natural mousy brown at the back. I'm actually really interested to see how it will end up, it may well look as though it's a bad highlighting job with dark bits at the back

I have about 1.5 - 2 inches of roots just now, this is the most painful bit I suppose. I generally sport an updo/messy bun so I don't have a parting but even that isn't hiding the worst of it any more. If I can tough it out long enough I'll give the roots another inch or so, get it cut shorter and maybe try and blend in any dyed ends with a one off trip for highlights.
I did one lot of colour b4 and went ginger, it didn't occur to me to do it more than once. Maybe I'll try it again and do more than one, then go for highlights if it looks crap.

Loved the links, I am going to spend the rest of the day kidding myself that I will look as good once this process is done

[Pippidoeswhatshewants]

Dh has just decided that I am going grey. Somehow I had never told him just how much money I spend at the hairdresser's...

[Rosie29]

I stopped using dye about 15 months Ago. It was in a shortish Bob and after about 6 weeks of no dye I had it cut short into a funky crop. As I could have it all sticking up it sort of hid the worst but there was about a 2/ 3 period when it was all two tone. I had a cute every five weeks or so and after 6 months all the dye was gone.
I make a lot more effort now with my make up and style my hair too. Lots of people think I have grey highlights in my hair, rather than it being mine!

[IKnowRight]

lol pippi Hair maintenance is just so damned expensive - and why? Grey hair can look amazing - or at least it will on me I hope. I'm hoping to buck the trend of needing to have no visible grey in order to look / feel young.

I'm soooo tempted to go for the funky crop, not sure I could pull it off though as I'm somewhat round of shape... not sure how much worse it could look than always having it tied back I suppose