I did it. I went grey.

[Cocolapew]

I'm growing it in from shaving it,I have no bleach left in it now.
It looks different colours depending on the light.

hmmm... am now thinking that the answer probably is to not dye when it's next due (mid June) and just book an appointment to get hairdresser to cut it to the ends of the white the first day I'm off. have gone white at the very front but i think other folk genuinely believe that's how white i am when i'm actually pretty much white all over with a few sprinkles of grey!

Stur if you can keep away from the dye (and use a wash out cover up stick if you feel more comfortable) then you are looking at around 1/2 inch growth a month.

If you want to do it yourself number 8 is an inch long but you can buy longer clipperr combs up to a size 10 which is around 1 1/2 inches.

Mine is very short - I used a 3 and it is mega short and at a length whereby I feel uncomfortable going out without a head band.

For those interested in hairbands I bought mine from eBay- just pop ‘fair trade long hair bands’ into the search. I Have bought the long ones to add volume and cover up more of my bonce until it grows a little. This sort of thing.....

This is the growth after a week....

Home Bargains do a cheap root spray.

think I'm probably not brave enough to cut/shave it myself. and while I think hairdresser might be kind of horrified at the same time I think she'll be up for working out how to make it work - she does like the stripe of white at the front.

when i say due by mid-June, that's me getting by with regrowth/spraying in colour so probably would have a full month's worth of regrowth before getting chopped which would then give me another month before I'd properly be back at work. and if I hate it then I guess I can develop a quirky new style that involves hats...

thanks for the pics @PaulHollywoodsleftbollockhair - although I'm slightly concerned that you're all slimmer/prettier than me and this could go terrible wrong

LOVING all these pics! I stopped colouring my hair when I was 38 because I wanted my natural hair colour at 40. NO ONE in my life at the time supported my decision. I have long hair and refused to go short for the journey, so I had a painful 18 months during which time I got to grips with what little vanity I had and threw that out of the window.

After that the next hurdle was finding shampoo, conditioner, oils and new routine for hair that had different needs.

I love my hair, a decade on I'm still anthracite in colour. When I was young I'd feared being a yellow sort of grey but that didn't happen. I love the natural highlights!

Coco yours looks lovely. I’m 12 months on from dark brown. You really don’t know what you’ll end up with when you take the plunge but I’m happy and saving $$$. It’s interesting to see what colours suit me now and I’ve bought a few pairs of silver earrings when I used to prefer gold.

Lovely colour corn looks like a proper ash blonde 🙂

This is mine at the back- hard to tell what it is going to look like yet!

@Sturmundcalm I wasn't brave enough to do the full shave but it did go for a really short pixie when I had about an inch of roots and the colourist dyed some streaks into the bits "left" at the front grey to hide the line. I wasn't overly keen on having a pixie, but as a way to get off the dye treadmill it worked for me. Plus no ability to cave in and get a dye job, which is what would have happened if I had just tried to grow out the skunk line. Thread of my whole angst here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/style_and_beauty/2316020-To-chop-or-not-Honest-opinions-please#prettyPhoto

thanks @ChopOrNot - had missed that thread completely. you were v brave to go for it considering the comments you got at the start

def leaning towards it, and your pics/story help as my hair is roughly same length just now, we're roughly the same age and I would probably want to grow it back out to this length. still hesitating slightly as i know i will be white rather than grey (few random bits of colour left but v little) and I'm a bit worried about the texture but your first cut where they left a bit of length and did highlights to blend in sounds like maybe what I want without going full-impact. and yes yes yes to moving on from a base colour that's now too warm for me, and the need to get a hair appointment instantly, and the cost!

Blythe I'm the same as you, and have dark skin.

I hadn't realised so many people going grey "naturally" were actually bleaching dark hair etc.

I really want to see more dark haired women just going grey as in, salt and pepper grey, no work to do. Sadly I think I will be waiting forever for that and just be considered an oddity!

I was naturally very dark and am going to be salt and pepper I think once I have some length.

There are LOADS of women on grombre Instagram with salt and pepper and every other variation on grey hair there too.

era, I remember your 2017 thread because it inspired me to brave a total shave because of my lifelong battles with alopecia. I was hanging onto the few bizarre strands and after I saw you shaved I whipped it all off. It has been totally and fabulously liberating :). I wear hair about 50% of the time, in a range of colours and styles, and the rest of the time I go bare-baldy-naked😂. I feel a bit of a total badass and just love the freedom of doing hair MY way, and not how society dictates. I’ve often thought of resurrecting that thread to thank you for inspiring me.

Glad I found this thread :) I have been growing in my natural colour for 5 months. I have dark brown hair with some white or grey hair through it.

I got my hair cut into a chin level bob, that is as short as I was prepared to go. So I guess it will take a year or more to be totally dye free.

Sometimes I feel like giving up so is good to read about others people's positive experiences.

ilovecherries What a lovely thing to say.
I often think back to my own experience with my shaved head and how liberating I found it, I would no longer be afraid to repeat the experience.In fact, last time my DH worked away he actually hid the clippers .
I'm glad my experience had a positive effect on someone. I imagine your experience with your alopecia has had the same positive effect on others.

I love that we share our journeys on here.

I was hoping to see salt and pepper women in real life, especially in the workplace.

my hair is quite long as well.

oh well, I will just have to try and deal with the comments. Mum - 80 and still dyeing her hair - says it will be patchy as well so that's going to be interesting!

I don’t think it looks patchy though with length....

Rosa do you have alot of grey? I have have found that after four or five months of not dying my hair it looks ok. The Grey's are kind of blending in and it honestly doesn't look too bad even though I have dark brown hair. I think the first three months are the hardest where it looks like roots growing in and I am late in colouring my hair. Now it looks more natural and ok.

CAN anyone recommend some great products to make the most of silver hair?

I bought the new Charles Worthington Ultra Violet shampoo and conditioner, only because it's on offer in Boots.
I really got it for DD2 who has dyed blonde hair. Its really good.
With purple shampoo you need to be careful you don't go lilac so don't leave it on too long. Sometimes I just mix the conditioner with my normal one.
It really made my silvers shine through. I get lots of compliments when I use it.
One thing to be careful of is coloured shampoos. I used a yellow one and it gave my hair a peachy tinge.
I stick to white ones if I'm not using purple.
On the other hand its a cheap way to temporarily colour your hair 😀

Thanks coco will try that one out.

Have now rounded up all the clothes that are not going to work for charity because I can see what looks off :)

sorry I didn't explain myself well

mum says the family pattern on her side - which I seem to have so far - is to go grey in patches. So the pictures shown aren't reality - it would be a lot of random stripes if she didn't dye it apparently.

if she could just be silver at 80, she says she would, but apparently what's under the dye is all a patchwork.

I don't have much grey now - enough for rude people to comment on - and I was just going to see what happens but both mum and older sis have said, oh just start dyeing it now because it will look crap very soon

I want grey hair (without having to dye it grey). I'm 45 and have very little grey and have never dyed my hair so it's a completely natural colour. Very jealous of all these beautiful heads of grey hair.

I’ve grown out the highlights that I used to have done to blend the white hair with my natural shade. Now I use a warm red conditioner on my hair which tinges the white a rose gold. I quite like it, have had loads of compliments, and it costs about £25 a year.

There isn’t a large enough coverage of white to just leave it; it just drains the colour from my face because it’s all around my hairline, and in a thick streak from my parting.