Grey/dull hair - do you dye?

[Druzhok]

I have just re-coloured my hair, having lived with what I believe L'Oreal call 'unsightly greys' for a few weeks.

I also saw this link on yahoo daily mail article reader beware - some brave soul (or lazy mare) who no longer bothers.

It occurred to me that ALL of my 30+ friends colour their hair. I can't think of a single one who doesn't. Are we all grey underneath??

What do you do?

I did the same as you and I'm about to crack. If I could go decently white and looked like the model in your link it would be different and one could go for a really dramatic look but salt and pepper is really depressing - neither one thing or the other. I always feel great when I finally go for the colour and about 10 years younger!

I find that sun-bleached orange with grey is a particularly bad look

I don't dye my (greying) hair. Somebody telling me it is 'unsightly' would just make me roll my eyes. It doesn't depress me. I think it's fine.

I think we should put our ages on here when we reply.

I'm 35, so I just don't feel ready to accept grey yet.

I have been dying (dyeing?) my hair since my mid twenties (am now 37). I have one friend who has really short hair and doesn't dye it - it looks great, I envy her courage. She looks a lot better than the model in the pic - I don't think I can do long, grey hair. Long, white hair would be ok, but hers is just grey and lank and...Sorry. I am not worried about what I wear, or my figure, and I don't wear make-up - but I'm really fussy about making sure my hair's dyed! I manage to make one Nice N' Easy last 2 dyes.

39. I've been feeling fine about my greying hair for about ten years.

Lio, what colour is your hair? I think it's ok when you're blonde/ light brown, it's hard to tell really what bits are white. My hair is black. The white bits are very uneven (lot more at the side and top) and I do look a lot older if I leave it.

I'm 30 and dye mine once a month because of greys.

No chance in hell am I just going to go grey. I feel so old and frumpy looking when the greys come back.

Tricky one. I dye my hair as I don't like the natural colour. I was always blonde (naturally) until about mid-twenties when my hair went much darker. Highlighting is too expensive and too much hassle, so I decided to go auburn. Am currently pregnant so not dying hair. The worst part of course is the inbetween stage.
One tip, if you want to go grey/white, even if you're naturally dark brown, keep going a shade lighter. My aunt had naturally very dark hair but got fed up of the ensuing "badger" look when regrowth started. She's now sandy with silver (natural) streaks, looks very nice and works with skin tone.

I posted on this some time ago and somebody suggested low or high lights. Presume that would be a first stage towards comtessas idea of gradually going lighter.

Anybody do this?

I think it depends on your natural hair colour, frogety. As I said, if you are very dark, you will never be able to disguise black hair with white streaks in it! I do know someone who did this and it looked ok, but it is expensive to keep getting it done as they do grow out in a couple of months too.

I'm 44 and having this dilemma right now. My hair is a medium/dark chestnut brown, (naturally) and I'm very pale skinned with green/brown eyes. Around my hairline I'm pretty white now but the rest is still very patchy with grey v. natural. I'm guseeing about 35-40% grey. My hair is a longish bob so the only way to do it is to crop it all off, or just look vile and shabby for about a year whilst it all fades and grows out.

The other thing is thickness and texture. My hair is quite fine and it has got frizzier and thinner in recent years. I like to think I could have a lovely elegant white streak through my sleek brown bob, like Mrs Robinson, but I'll probably just look like some skanky witch from Poundland.

I wish I knew what to do! I can barely go a month without neeing a colour now and at some point I'm going to look to old to stay dark.

I think lots of mixed blonde highlights blending with the grey is the way to go, gradually getting blonder and greyer until there is no brown left, but it's an expensive habit to start.

I think you can safely stay dark(ish) till you're 60! My Mum didn't go grey for ages, and has only stopped dying her hair now she's 64!

MerryMarigold, it's dark brown. I don't mind whether it makes me look the age I actually am or older.

Lio, what kind of style do you have it in?

I´m mid 40´s and am getting a few.
My problem is that I love my hair colour & only want to hide the greys, not change my hair colour.

So I´m going to try some repigmentation stuff.

I have naturally dark hair and have been finding random greys since my early 20s. Now 34 and I would say I am about 10% grey. I hate the 'salt and pepper' effect and wish the whole lot would go grey - then I would wear it so with just a few blonde highlights to lift it. Grey is a tricky colour for women to pull off so those who do go for the natural look need to make sure that their hair is on great condition and use products especially for this hair colour. For now, I spend £50 every 6 weeks for highlights in browns, caramels and blondes that blend in the greys so they are not really noticeable - worth every bloody penny as far as I am concerned! Alas, men can look distinguished with grey hair but I fear the majority of women just look old!

I will be the token reply who doesn't dye the gray out and never has (am now 42).
I just wouldn't be me if I started dying my hair for that reason. It feels uncomfortably vain to me.
NB: I don't care what others do, as long as they don't get snooty about my choice, either.

ooh, I've never been called vain

i keep trying to stop. my hair is very dark brown (dcs refer to it as black) and curly/ frizzy.

i get to the point where i have about an inch and ahlf/ two inches of white/ grey (which is even frizzier then the rest) and decide that i'm not ready yet.

my feminist principles are utterly bemused by the shall i/ shan't i?

i tried going with the 'lighter highlights' option to blend the grey in more gently so that it wasn't such a stark contrast, but it was such a faff, and the regrowth/ re highlight thing so complicated that i gave that up on the second try...

i'm 39. visible grey for about 10 years.

and the least vain person i know. even my manager has voiced her desperation to make me over.

Apparently when the city Sarajevo was under siege, (remember that war?) the women all went grey! They had no access to their colourant / maybe all the stress?!

Most of the women I know put a colour in their hair: if not a salon job, then a 30 minute bathroom affair!

I'm 42 and use a Garnier light brown permanent to cover my greys. Works perfectly and looks natural as the grey comes out slightly lighter and so it looks like I've got highlights naturally!!

I was just thinking about posting something on the same topic!

I'm the same as diddl - I really like my hair colour (chestnut brown) and wouldn't want it a different colour.

I also wouldn't want to have to pay loads to keep it looking nice and think that sometimes dyed hair can look a bit dull and one shade (although I'm sure that doesn't apply to anyone here! )

On the other hand, I wouldn't want people to think I'm shabby (vain!). My mum's hair is lovely and silvery so hopefully I've got that to look forward to - I'm 34 with a few grey's coming through...

I'm 62, just greying at the sides:)
I've never coloured my hair - I'm just not adventurous enough.

I'd be very salt and pepper if I didn't dye my hair and I can see from my dad that I'm never going to get the lovely uniform silver grey look. I did have lowlights but in the end they didn't cover enough of the grey so now I have an all over job. My hair is also quite curly and the grey hair is very coarse, so dying improves the texure. One day - in 20 yrs or so - I will change to dying my hair silver like a friend of mine does, she has the most amazing blonde/silver bob and it is so becoming.

Dh, who never notices anything and who throws out random 'you look nice' when he remembers that he hasn't said anything for a while, nearly fell over the first time I had an all over colour and said that I looked 10 yrs younger. [shocked]

I've always changed my hair colour with home dyes since Uni (went to a very strict school and was never allowed to through teenage years, so catching up now!).

Didn't dye it during recent pregnancy though, and after DS was born 4 months ago, DP kindly pointed out (and pulled out loads of greys, so I've started again. I'm 33, and like Druzhok, not ready to accept the grey just yet.