Grey hair - with pics

[TableDesk]

OK so I'm looking some advice.

Attached is a pic of my hair 3 weeks post root colouring at the hairdressers which cost £60. Obviously I would love to be able to manage the upkeep of this by having a full time stylist and disposable income at my finger tips, but I don't

I am a young (ish) looking 38 Yr old. I sometimes get ID for over 25 places etc. Most people are surprised that I'm 38 and most would put me at 28 ish without this being a braggy one!

WIBU to bit the bullet to go grey. I'm not talking about just leaving it to go naturally and looking two tone for god knows how long. I'm talking about bleaching it up and dying it a funky grey with the intent to then let it do what it wants?

Am I being silly to even consider this? I'm not sure I could pull off a funky grey...

Has anyone ever done this and pulled it off successfully? I follow some 'Greys' on Instagram but they are properly glam, whereas I am less so

YABU - keep with the brown & 3wk upkeep
YANBU - bleach it up then go silver grey

Thanks

@FastFood thanks ☺️ That’s really kind. It has bad days but then I had plenty of those as a bottle blonde as well 😏

I have just done this. I used to visit the hairdresser every 5 weeks for her to sort out my grey, it would last 2 weeks before I would have to use root blur. Every social event was built around my roots! It was driving me mad.In-between I looked like a badger. In the first lockdown, I was so stressed with the hairdresser’s been shut. Last August I decided to go for it. Initially I was trying to just go cold turkey but I got a lot of negativity, people seem to think it’s their God given right to comment on your hair. I’m an impatient git so at Christmas my hairdresser worked some magic.
I had full foils to stop the colour/bleach, then some darker pieces in between. It took two 4 hr sessions 10 days apart. I was very dark brunette before, now the grey at the front is very white, darker grey part through and lighter caramel strands still through some of it but now think it’s mostly my own colour. I’m happy with it, it’s been a journey as so invested in being a brunette and I was worried about feeling and looking old. I don’t think I look any older and I have had so many compliments since we started to be able to leave the house again ( and about the time I relinquished my hat! )
It does help that my hairdresser is young and ‘with it’ and able to speak her mind, she tells me I have to have a ‘modern’ cut, keep my eyebrows dark and ‘don’t start dressing like a granny in a tabard!’
I also have teenage girls and work with teenagers who like to keep me ‘on trend!’
I don”t think I will ever go back to dyeing it, I love not worrying about my grey showing, I feel a bit different to most of my friends and I like it, best of all my trips to the hairdresser only take an hour and cost a fraction of the £90 it used to!
Go for it, it takes a little while but worth it!

I raise my eyebrows when I hear people say unprompted (about others) ‘you’re too young to go grey’. If the grey is coming through naturally, then you can’t be too young, that is just the reality of you being who you are, whatever age you are. Obviously, people can say whatever they want about themselves!

I am 45 and am patchy - some of my hair grows through white, other parts mid brown, other parts peppery. It’s a pain!

I’ve dyed it (permanent tint) for years. After lockdown, I tried to think through what I would do going forward, given that I’d never had four months’ growth before, it seemed like an opportunity.

I had really, really fine highlights put in, all one colour, alternating with no highlights at all. I think I had about 100 foils. So it’s sort of half and half. It means that I don’t have a demarcation line. I don’t know what I will do at my next appointment, as obviously the hairdresser won’t be able to identify which hairs she highlighted last time and just do those!

@WorraLiberty

I think it depends on how much looking younger means to you. You seem quite pleased about it, which is fair enough.

As grey hair (no matter how beautifully styled) never makes anyone look younger than their years, you might want to consider that first.

I look younger with grey hair. Flat, dyed hair that is too dark for your skin tone is incredibly aging. People assume my grey is hair is dyed and therefore don't assume I'm a pensioner.

@TableDesk It's up to you, but hell will freeze over before I go grey. I don't object to looking my age, but no way am I going to look older than it.

And grey hair IS ageing. I know people deny it on here, but it really is.

I think flat lifeless box dyed hair can be equally as ageing. Let’s face it, most of us with the kind of grey/white hair we’re talking about have no more than 2-3 weeks post dye before the roots are really visible, while a good hairdresser multi tonal dye job might look the business, not many people can afford the upkeep of getting that redone every 3 weeks.

And aye my hair might be ageing but the freedom of not worrying about roots for a big event or whatever is priceless.

[quote BearOfEasttown]@TableDesk It's up to you, but hell will freeze over before I go grey. I don't object to looking my age, but no way am I going to look older than it.

And grey hair IS ageing. I know people deny it on here, but it really is.[/quote]
You haven’t looked at @Greyhairdontcare1982’s pictures, have you? That’s full on glamour puss. Most women would kill to look like that at any age.

Haha cheers blossom but I suppose I don’t really care even if I do look older than 38. The genuine peace of mind I get from not worrying about my roots is enough for me. That sounds daft but honestly, so many evenings getting ready to go out spent in tears in front of the mirror because my roots were coming through again making me feel frumpy and old.

I look younger with grey hair. Flat, dyed hair that is too dark for your skin tone is incredibly aging. People assume my grey is hair is dyed and therefore don't assume I'm a pensioner.

I'll have to take your word for that (it making you look younger) but I've genuinely never seen that effect of anyone in real life - not that looking younger matters to a lot of people, but like I said it seems to matter to the OP.

I'm not sure why anyone would assume only pensioners have grey hair though?

I know plenty of 30+ women and men who are going grey.

I'm talking about bleaching it up and dying it a funky grey with the intent to then let it do what it wants?
No those funky colours fade fast and never look the same redone, you'll end up with lots of different tones.
Try breaking the colours up with highlights with Ash blonde tones before growing it out.
I've highlighted hair 1 blonde two shades of brown, my roots barely show.
I mainly get it redone as my colours fade every 4 months.

@Greyhairdontcare1982

Ok so I’m a similar age but made the decision to go grey over 18 months ago. I considered doing what you are thinking about but everything g I read suggested A) it would be just as much of a headache with upkeep as dying my hair was proving to be and B ) the dyed grey was unlikely to look anything like the natural stuff coming through. So I but the bullet and just grew it out. I added highlights throughout and used those to help break up the demarcation line. I used pink and purple temp dyes to funk my hair up a bit to get me over the difficult bits (I know, that sentence alone makes me seem about 30 years older 😂).

Good luck whatever you decide to do. I have genuinely had nothing but positive comments - maybe folk are slagging me behind my back but 🤷🏼‍♀️ I get stopped in public by strangers asking me how I get my hair this colour. My stock answer of a teenage pregnancy and over a decade as a midwife is rarely the answer they are expecting

This looks SO GOOD.

Probably be easier if you had some highlights added, diffuse the regrowth as it grows out, rather than trying to dye your hair grey. Dyed grey tends to look quite flat. Sali Hughes recently had an all over grey dye job and tbh I don't think it looks great.

There's grey and there's partially grey.
I don't think you're quite there yet and grey streaks are the worst of both worlds. However fashionable it is, grey hair is aging and I would avoid it at your age unless you want to look 10 years older.
You could just use a home colour every 3 or 4 weeks to cover it up if you want to cut the costs

I grew my hair out when I was 49 on this photo I'm 53 . Truly the best decision I've ever made . My hair was naturally almost black but trying to keep that colour up was so wearing. I got my first greys at 19 so that was 30 years of putting a monotone flat colour on my head . Now I have entirely natural high snd lowlights. I refuse to conform to the sensible grey haircut and have grown it back to my favourite length. If I get fed up I put temporary colours on it or use a colour shampoo but mostly I just leave it grey as I love my sparkles.

Lots of beautiful grey hair photos, very glamorous.

@Hax

There's grey and there's partially grey. I don't think you're quite there yet and grey streaks are the worst of both worlds. However fashionable it is, grey hair is aging and I would avoid it at your age unless you want to look 10 years older. You could just use a home colour every 3 or 4 weeks to cover it up if you want to cut the costs

However fashionable it is, grey hair is aging and I would avoid it at your age unless you want to look 10 years older.

True.

People don't like to hear grey hair is ageing though, and are in a bizarre state of denial about it.

Weird.

And no WAY will someone look younger with grey hair. Anyone who thinks that is deluded.

I have dark naturally brown hair. At 40 i had to dye it. It was very severe. Every 6 weeks my hairdresser dyes and highlights it. Had to let it go grey from dec to may due to covid restrictions. Aged me terribly. I aso have eyebrows died every 6 weeks.
I look like i have had a facelift when all is done. Could not be without it. Worth every penny.

I started getting greys at 19 but dyed my hair from 19-38…. Then at 38 I decided to let it grow out naturally. The first few months were the worst as it just looked like roots needed doing but as it got longer, had the occasional trim and the colours blended more, I really liked it.

I’m 41 now and some areas the full length is grey and some areas are still light brown but it’s all natural and the colours blend and compliment each other well.

I stopped dyeing my hair a very dark brown, and this was what was underneath. The freedom from having to touch up the roots regrowth every three weeks is fantastic.

despite the grey millipede you've actually got quite a lot of brown roots still there.

my hairdresser point blank refused any talk of dyeing myself grey. Would ruin the hair.

Now I've stopped during, my hair feels really good condition.

I do look older though - sorry. I just don't care any more though. and when you have parting roots they imply it's worse than it's going to be. I think if you grew it out you'd be browner than you imagine. but the ideas of lots of highlights sound good.

OP, all I can say is that you are only 38 (I wish I were 38!), so you will look young and beautiful whatever colour your hair is.

I stopped colouring my hair when I was in my early 40s - it's now mostly white.
My concession was that if I was going to have white hair, I wanted a really non-old-lady cut. so I've had an asymmetric style for the last few years.
Get quite pissed off if I go more than a week without a random stranger telling me how nice my hair looks

@BimiBluebell

OP, all I can say is that you are only 38 (I wish I were 38!), so you will look young and beautiful whatever colour your hair is.

That's a lovely thing to say (honestly it is) but how can you mean that?

Not all 38 year olds look young and obviously not all 38 year olds (or any age for that matter) look beautiful no matter what their hair colour is.

The OP is asking for advice and has mentioned that most people she meets, think she is 10 years younger than she actually is.

Her hair might well look lovely if she lets it go grey but it's extremely unlikely anyone is going to mistake her for a 28 year old.

It's so easy to do your own roots at home. A box semipermanent between hairdresser visits, eg. You might find that you then prefer to do the whole thing yourself.