growing out my grey - need advice and support

[madwomanacrosstheroad]

Have been dying my hair for around 32 years. From what I remember I was originally kind of light brown. First went with henna, then various reds and darkish browns with chemical dye. Am quite grey now. Last year I got my hair dyed back to something not unlike my own original colour in the hope it would be not that noticeable and maybe blend in if I I started to grow it out.
After a few months it looked horrendous.
The grey/brown natural part is not so bad, but the fact that I have the grey pepper and salt bit on top and then the light brown dyed bits makes it look horrible. I have tried wash in wash out products but they make the top of my head look purple!!!.
I do not want to start harsh chemical dying again, short hair does not suit me and I don't want to look the way I do now.
So far hairdressers have told me there is nothing that can be done. I have a vague idea that it should be possible to pit some very ashy highlights and lowlights in and over time have less to make it all less noticeable.
Happy about any ideas.

[Levismum]

Sorry as a lady in my 40 ' s, I honestly say harsh chemicals over grey hair...Every time!

[madwomanacrosstheroad]

That may be fine for you but firstly my skin is starting to react and secondly it is not what I asked. I have had enough and want my own hair back and never have to think about roots again.

[BunnyLebowski]

OP my advice would be to cut your hair as short as you can and let your natural colour grow in.

Really obviously dyed hair looks much worse than grey in my opinion.

Life's too short to spend time trying to cover up your natural self and wasting time and money on it.

Fwiw I shaved my head after a bleach/dye disaster and let my grey grow in. I didn't love having short hair but it's grown to jaw length now and looks pretty amazing. It was well worth the strife .

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

I had it dyed back to my original colour, then when the roots came in I had a mixture of lighter hi lights plus more streaks of my natural colour. This allowed the grey to grown in and blend rather than be noticeable. Now I only have it done 3x a year and if I wanted to grow it out completely it would be very easy just to stop having it done.

I think it's worth seeing a colour specialist rather then a bog standard hair dresser.

[MyFriendsCallMeOh]

Be prepared for not loving it. I did it (age 41, 85% grey). Took nearly 2 years to get it to a style I liked but I felt I looked really old (despite the old tricks of good grooming, bright lipstick etc.). I'm now back to chocolate brown.......

[madwomanacrosstheroad]

Unfortunately short hair looks even worse on me than horizontally stripey. Had it done once and looked shocking. Have a very round face.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

I would never choose to have my hair cut short either!

[BunnyLebowski]

For me it was a choice between cutting it all off and growing out faded pillar box red hair with grey roots. No way in hell was I doing that so reached for DP's clippers instead .

OP it sounds like Dame's suggestion of seeing a colourist is a good idea. Although it doesn't tally with your post saying you don't want to have to worry about roots . Any artificial hair colour is going to require regular upkeep.

[madwomanacrosstheroad]

Could try seeing a colourist to help me do it gradually.....spent part of today people watching at a local festival and was really envious of women who were obviously naturally going grey. I have a couple of inches out so far and kind of try to hide it with different non ammonia non hydro peroxide products.

[ChablisTyrant]

I'm doing this by having ash blonde highlights put in and gradually trying to reduce the amount I have. Working great but my hair may be naturally lighter than yours which makes it easier.

[Kahu]

I just went cold turkey.

It looked awful for a long time - I spent a summer wearing sun hats and a winter wearing beanies. But once you get past a few inches and it looks intentional rather than just "dishevelled & needs a root touch up" you will feel like you're making progress. I ended up having a fair bit cut off the bottom just so I could get rid of the faded dyed ends. I then spent six months feeling frumpy and mumsy because I hated the shorter length.

But now, a year and a bit on, I am really, really liking my hair again.

Get a fedora for summer and just hang in there!

[DontBeAMeanie]

How about some blocky highlights in various colours. Might they detract from the horizontal stripe?

[UrsulaBuffay]

Will colour b4 work? I used it recently and my hair stinks to high heaven but it looks so good and healthy, not quite my natural colour but the grey showing looks much better than my home box dye job did

[daimbardiva]

That's interesting ursula - there have been several threads on this sort of thing recently, and people always say going short is the only way. Like the OP, I'm just not willing to do this, but no one's ever mentioned Colour b4 before. What colour is your natural colour and what colour had you dyed your hair?

[ihave2naughtydogs]

round face here. would you consider layers , or shaggy meg ryan style haircuts , you would get rid of alot of coloured hair that way and still have hair around your face?

[MyFriendsCallMeOh]

I did colour b4 and ended up a fabulous shade of bright yellow. I covered this with a grey dye from Amazon. It was ok but my hair condition really suffered and I was still using dye that faded very badly..... You can also de-colour using lots of vitamin c..... Google it. Better at stripping henna and red dyes than colour b4....

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Avoid the colour stripping, you'll end up with straw for hair!

[KissyBoo]

I think short is the way forward. If you have a round face you need a haircut with height on the crown and either the fringe swept off the face completely or an side swept longish one. This will short the proportions out and allow it to grow in more easily.

[LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett]

I honestly think you have to go short as you can then grow it out. If you start mixing other colours in, you're still going to have the same problem.

One really great, short, hair cut which you then grow out is going to be cheaper than another couple of years of colouring too.

[MewlingQuim]

I am 100% natural now after years dyeing my hair various shades, and though I am sometimes tempted by the colours I used to wear I don't think I will ever go back to dyeing it. I stopped colouring when I didn't have much grey but all mine is at the front/top where my hair parts so it is really noticible even though there isn't a lot of it. I realised I was going to end up like many women of my age - crispy ends plus the white badger stripe in the middle, hair cut short because of the poor condition from frequent dyeing. No thanks. My hair may be grey but it is long and glossy.

I dont think there is an easy way to do it. At some point you will have to cut all the dyed ends off and that is the point when I felt the most frumpy because short grey hair made me look like my mother an old lady. But once it grew back to my normal length it was much better. Good luck

[hippospot]

I went for a pixie cut which grew pretty quickly into something more flattering. It felt amazing to be free of the dye.

Now I have the style I like and my hair is in fab condition. It is so liberating to not have to dye roots. I stand out among my contemporaries as being the one who doesn't cover her grey, but I see it as my tiny mid-life rebellion :)

DH loves it which helps!

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Honestly OP, it was so easy growing mine out, please go and see a proper colourist. There really isn't any need to go short, there's no way I'd have chopped mine! Do it gradually and it's much easier. I see loads of women in my salon doing the same, they all look better imho than when they had full dye jobs.

[JoyceDivision]

MyFriendsCallMeOh... have you done the vitamin c hairdye stripping? Did it work? Did it worsen/ improve the condition of your hair?

[CMOTDibbler]

When I decided to grow my grey in I stripped my hair 3 times with colourb4 (very long, had a lot of dye). It didn't go straw like, and though it didn't get all the dye out, and there was a orange cast, it was a lot better than the dark dye/ very grey divide and Touch of Silver reduced the orange.

Now I have lovely, long, grey and white hair. And I'm 42.

[MyFriendsCallMeOh]

The vitamin c got rid of red / orange tones left by henna (which color b4 couldn't get rid of) and lightened my hair a couple of shades. The problem is, vitamin c is very drying. I practically spent weeks with my hair in coconut oil and deep conditioning packs after that.....