Any advice on how to make salt and pepper hair look like blonde highlights?

[Corr77]

Hi everybody, just wondering if anybody could give me some advice? I am naturally a brunette (level 6, I think!). Basically long story short, for years I had blonde highlights in my hair, then a few years ago after becoming around 50% grey, I was advised by the hairdresser to go for a full head bleach, as the highlights were not really covering the grey, which I have been doing ever since.
Needless to say my hair is now in really poor condition with hair loss. I also don't really like the block colour look and preferred the highlighted look. Going natural and rocking the grey just isn't for me. So I had the idea of trying to find a product that would make my grey look like blonde (creating natural highlights!) but not change the colour of my natural brunette, which would be kinder to my hair and a lot less expensive than bleaching regularly! The products I have seen that may be suitable are Wella color fresh in light blonde or (with a bit more damaging) Wella colour touch (in a blonde colour) with emulsion 1.9% - so should deposit only? I have spent a long time trying to find a product that would be suitable but there seems a real gap in the market, which is a shame as I am sure lots of people would like to utilise their grey to be lighter naturally. If anyone has had the same issue and found a suitable product I would love to know, any advice appreciated! BTW sorry for the long post!

A blonde semi permanent?

Hi thanks for the reply! The thing I am worried about with a blonde semi- permanent is it also lifting my natural brunette (to a orangey colour), this is why I would prefer a more natural approach if possible! :) But if anyone has used a blonde semi-permanent successfully to colour just the grey (and not altered the brunette) I would love to hear what you used :)

There's an MNer who uses natural ingredients to temporarily tint hair using things like turmeric.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "grey". Women are taught that grey is ugly and aging. I spent year doing everthing I could to avoid "grey" despite the haidresser telling me over and over that people paid him good money to make their hair look like mine would naturally be. In the end I surrendered and have used only one thing since (although I am now more salt than pepper) - purple shampoo / conditioner to stop my hair from absorbing brassiness. I am lucky though, I am blessed with silver hair naturally. 20 somethings are paying a ffortune to have their hair died great - of course you can rock it, and also be smug at the fact it didn't cost you!

What about this?
There seem to be several shades of blonde & gets good reviews.

https://www.superdrug.com/Hair/Hair-Colourants/Wash-In-Wash-Out/c/pt_hair_wash_in_wash_out

Superdrug toners and shaders . I use honey blonde once a month and it blends in the greys but gives me highlights and the rest of my hair remains a lovely dark colour. For best results do it on dry hair and leave for half an hour not five mins.

I’ve wondered about this too. I’m considering using Cassia, sometimes called neutral henna I think?

The idea so I’m told, is that it ought to deposit some slight yellow or strawberry blond colour but has no bleaching affect so won’t lighten darker hair.

I wouldn’t mind having silvery grey hair but mine just looks greenish in some lights and in the past has looked a bit purple. It’s not good.

I’d love to see a picture if you could do a photoshop scrub out of any identifying features. I use the honey and cool blonde according to instructions and it’s kind of working but kind of not. I’d love to see the effect of putting it on dry hair for half an hour.

You could try the colour fresh and see if it does anything. I would be extremely wary of putting any level of developer over your grey hair as the blonde toner mixed with dull grey will turn khaki green.

If you have some parts of your hair that are very white or really light grey you may be able to tone them with a vegetable based dye. Manic panic the punk brand of crazy colours are the best known brand of this type of dye ....BUT there is a brand called Adore - you can get it from ebay and possibly amazon.

Try and get the lightest colour of blonde you think your hair will take.

Remember if it's not clean clear hair about the colour of the inside of a banana then dyes with no developer will not work...
Well they will, just in no way whatsoever the way you wanted them to.

If you have some nice bright salt in your hair this should turn blonde looking like highlights against the pepper.

Plantur39 Brown will do exactly what you ask for. It is a colour depositing shampoo/conditioner, so it washes out if you don't use it, but if you use it to wash your hair each time then your greys will go blonde and your browns will stay brown.

I used to colour my hair blonde with box dye. Ended up with terrible condition and grew the dye out cold turkey and was salt and pepper grey. While the condition improved amazingly, I struggled with the colour until someone on here recommended Plantur39 Brown. Haven't looked back since!

Interesting. I think many people want this.

First you need to get rid of the ock effect of the full head colour. Ask your hairdresser to do foils to cover your roots & in-between to do a colour maybe 2 shades lighter than your natural Colour, you could have a semi permanent or a permanent. Ask them to do a toner after to bring your highlights up white, then use purple shampoo every wash. When you need your roots doing, just have a T section instead of foiling your whole head.

I think you need a better hairdresser.

Happened to me naturally from sun exposure. My brown hair turning grey naturally turned blonde in the son.

Agree with PP, purple shampoo (I use Milk Shake silver shine) lightens the grey and takes the orangey brassy tones out of hair and you end up with natural looking highlights.

I'm going grey and also a natural brunette. I had a baylage or whatever you call it for ages then found that the grey was coming through too quickly. My hairdresser advised have a full blonde to start, then switch to high and lowlights. I hated the full blonde and wanted to have dark roots back in but she talked me into foils and I am glad she did. Grey isn't noticeable now and I only need a few foils. For the first time in a years I feel the colour stays longer than the cut.

Condition is also fab but I do use shampoo and conditioner for blonde hair from hairdresser, and she puts a treatment on it when she's coloured it.

Shade 7 - which is sometimes called dark blonde and sometimes called lightest brown depending on the brand - gives me something close to what you want, I think? My brown remains brown, but without the red undertones of previously darker dyes, and my greys are golden brown. The more greys that come through, the more golden highlights I will have.

The superdrug shampoo https://go.skimresources.com/?id=470X756&isjs=1&jv=15.4.2-stackpath&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mumsnet.com%2Ftalk%2Fstyle_and_beauty%2F4894088-any-advice-on-how-to-make-salt-and-pepper-hair-look-like-blonde-highlights%3Freply%3D129136849&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.superdrug.com%2FHair%2FHair-Colourants%2FWash-In-Wash-Out%2Fc%2Fpt_hair_wash_in_wash_out&xs=1&xtz=-60&xuuid=df5dc020cc620c4e5a3f93e179e509d4&xjsf=other_click__contextmenu%20%5B-1%5D looked like it could be what I was after, but in the "caution" at bottom of the page is says do not use on grey and bleached hair, for some reason? :(

Thanks for all the replies, alot if great advice. It's really valuable to hear what others are using. Seems a blonde shampoo may do the trick. Some do seem to warn not for grey hair though,
which has put me off in the past. I have had my roots done this weekend and had my hair toned down from.platinum to level 8 natural blonde, so when my roots start growing in I will be able to try a blonde shampoo. I would try a silver shampoo but I am worried the "highlights" would look white rather than blonde?

Would it work in the Plantur39 blond colour too?

They do that because if your hair is grey or highlighted, it won't behave the same as non-grey, untreated hair.
I've used it on hair that has previously had a semi-permanent dye. I think the nearer my natural (i.e pre-greying colour) worked best.

If you have hair that has been dyed or highlighted it might be more porous and not wash out.

I put a dark blonde semi permanent on mine each month.

If you have natural brunette hair along with the grey, does it lift the brunette at all and if you don't mind me asking which brand do you use please?

I've found that with the deposit only colours, they don't touch my grey at all and only colour the already dyed parts.

John Frieda Defy Grey is supposed to have this effect on brown hair with salt and pepper - the brown stays brown but the grey slowly blends to more pale blonde / mouse brown like highlights