To ask you what I should do with my grey hair.

[midlifehope]

I'm 39 and I guess pretty prematurely grey all over. I had dyed it for years - and took the chance, whilst expecting ds 2 to grow out the dye (cos I didn't fancy chemicals whilst pregnant and breastfeeding) and have gone 'au naturale'. I'm now grey all over with a short asymmetric cut. I have brown eyes, paleish skin - though pretty tanned in summer. I have dark eyebrows. The lack of faff is a revelation. However, I have noticed lately that people treat me a little differently - either I am invisible, or people keep their distance - I'm guessing it may be my hair making me look a little severe (or it could be something else that may or may not be my appearance).

Anyway AIBU to ask you what to do about this. I don't want a block colour again, as frankly, hair dyes make me feel a little ill anyway (I'm sensitive to chemicals). Highlights with blond tones look too salt and peppery IMHO as I have really dark eyebrows (I had jet black hair as a kid).

Please help me decide what (if anything) to do to get a better reaction from people - I'm still only young!

Found one.

I just saw a woman yesterday with beautiful grey hair in a longish bob with a fringe. I think she had quite a bold lipstick on and she looked so nice I had to stop staring. She was older than you, but I've also seen younger women with grey hair who looked fantastic (and I mean naturally grey, it's very easy to see when it's fake.) I think grey hair can look really stunning. It's hard to know if it looks good on you, or give good advice on what to do with it, without seeing a picture. However, the way you describe your face, with the black eyebrows and between eyes, sounds like someone who looks nice in grey. If you like lipstick you could try experimenting with different colours. Cold ones like fuchsia pink or a red without any orange should look nice.

Meh, I have a bunch of fashionable grey hairstyles on my Pinterest, all with amazing silvery dye jobs, bayalage, really beautiful multi-toned colours, and they're older women. Gray is in. Embrace the gray.

Don't go to your bog-standard middle-of-the-village hair salon though. Start looking around for something in the city, something with a great online gallery showing the dyes they do. I've found a lot of little salons go miserable on me when I want to talk colour - "Oh, why colour it, you don't need to, your hair is nice..." - for fuck's sake, I'm trying to give you money! And that's just me (brown) trying to dye it brown. They'd probably outright refuse if I asked them to bleach or lighten it or do something fancy like grey.

So yeah, find somewhere cool, youthful, fashionable and willing to actually do what customers want. If their gallery has blues and purple shades and post-box reds, you're golden (little salons pull faces at these colours because they're hard, they fade, blah blah.)

Then go Pinteresting, and Instagram, find some beautiful dyed-grey styles.

Print, take in, CHAT FIRST. If they give you crap like that poster above who said 'well it won't suit you because you're not 19', move on. Find a stylist who's enthusiastic.

Voila. It'll look gorgeous :)

• brown eyes! Not 'between'!

I think grey hair needs to be nicely styled and a bit of makeup worn with it to avoid becoming invisible.
Do you need to up those bits? (Presuming you can be arsed of course.)

If women all stopped dyeing their grey hair, grey hair wouldn't be 'ageing' any more because we'd all realise just how many women go grey in their twenties and thirties - just like men do.

OP, get yourself a new lipstick. I bet you look amazing.

Wow biscuit - that is super cool :) I bet you're young looking indeed.

Im 42 and going very grey...i always had dark brown hair and olive skin....i am getting really fed up dyeing it every month ..i currently look like a badger with a grey stripe running down my parting....i wish i had the confidence to stop dyeing.

biscuit your hair 😍

I tried non toxic temporary dyes (purple, pink etc) on my grey and they didn't fade out 😮. Had to shave my head to get my grey back.

Highly recommend purple shampoo though. My favourite is Lush Daddy-O. Smells like violets and lemon and keeps my grey super steel-like and shiny.

You can play around with hair chalks to see if you like the effect of some soft pastel streaks in your hair.

I'm 47, with salt and peppered, originally dark hair and one thing that I've noticed is that my colouring has cooled a lot. In my 20s, I rocked royal blue and emerald green. I still really suit deep, rich jewel colours, but no longer suit many bright clear colours - so where I once wore bright purple, I now prefer a plummy shade. I can also wear white for the first time in my life. So it might be worth experimenting with adjusting the colour palate of what you wear.

And this, from RawPrawn, needs to be up there in neon lights

If women all stopped dyeing their grey hair, grey hair wouldn't be 'ageing' any more because we'd all realise just how many women go grey in their twenties and thirties - just like men do.

And Daddy-O is gorgeous!

Pink! Not helpful

That Daddy 0 shampoo looks amazing..... Might have to invest. Think I am also going to do more obvious lipstick / make up - I can ususally get away with this.

And don't have the money for a new wardrobe, but might have to look into cheap ways of doing this. My youth hippy floaty clothes so don't suit me any more.... I like 'country' clothes - i.e joules type stuff, but we will see.... argh, with small kids I never have time to style myself hardly!

Pink :)

I'm in my mid forties and after dying my grey out for a few years stopped when I had a very short haircut and no time for a dye. I thought that my dark brown and white hair actually looked quite striking. What I like to do to liven it up a bit is to bleach a chunk of it at the front and colour it a nice bright pink/lilac/red. I don't wear make up but I guess a bright lipstick might have the same effect.

Love Daddy-O, it smells like parma violets. Dd2 uses mine and I follow her round the house sniffing her head.

Can't wait for grey hair have a few strands at 51. Id have silver and grey highlights

what is daddy o scrolled back but cant see it mentioned orginally.

op I use l oreal root touch up, roughly every 6 - 8 weeks its about a fiver usually less, takes 20 mins and its fine. I dont use block colour, just the greys.....my hair is still a natual myriad of colours. ie I take strands no scientific precision and put dye on, but sides need solid dye.

Stick it out and DON"T colour it, you'll regret it. This is so true 'The women I've seen with prematurely grey hair who have rocked it have had a) a really good cut with their hair kept in fab condition and b) a strong personal style so high contrast clothing or makeup.' I went grey after an allergic reaction to hair dye, am 55 with an unlined face and people tell me every day how lucky I am, how they'd like to do it but don't have the nerve, etc. Yes, it took a bit of adjustment mentally but I am SO glad I stuck with it - I feel myself, I feel able to wear stronger colours and lipstick than I did, and I learnt to overhaul my personal style rather than slide into a frumpy middle age with a mousy bob or menopausal blonde highlights that fool nobody. Personal preference - invest in a great quality short cut - especially if growing out colour.

biscuitkumquat you have given me a plan

No prob TripTrapped

My hairdresser puts a very pale blond through hair that's gone grey. Friends who have this done look amazing IMO, and it's low maintenance. However, this seems to work only if you're properly grey rather than pepper and salt, and have cool toned skin. Too bad that I'm olive skinned and my light chestnut hair is going slowly streaky!

You need to go to a salon. I'm in beauty, so not an expert on hair. But I know we use RUSK who do a kinda translucent set of colours. So not a block of false colour, just to tale the edge of the grey.

Nah you really don't need to go to a salon OP.

Every single one I went to while greying told me how I "needed" to cover it and tried to strongarm me into it. They make a large proportion of their profits from hiding womens greys I guess.

Anyway here's a recent pic of mine. I fecking love it. Scuse the hand .

wow pasadena - your hair is utterly gorgeous!