Growing out hair dye

[Xx97]

4 months in and starting to struggle with the demarcation line...any words of encouragement from people who have done the same?!

I just stopped looking in the mirror at that stage. It took me 2 years 3 months to grow out as my hair is long and didn't want to go short, but once it reaches the ears, it's obvious to others that you're doing something and not just being lazy. And depending on your style you can start playing around with the coloured ends like layering them or something.

Never once regretted doing it that way, and glad I didn't lose the will to stick it out. It's definitely worth hanging on in there!

I avoided a harsh demarcation line by applying dye only along my parting, about an inch on either side and at the front of my hairline, while allowing the rest of my hair to grow out naturally. I only dyed the parting here and there, so it wasn’t completely covered and didn’t look like one solid block of dye, but just broke up the obvious line.

After a year, I changed my parting to the other side and continued growing it out. I had already started subtly shifting my parting to let glimpses of undyed hair show through, so the change wasn’t too abrupt.

The whole process has taken 18 months, and I haven’t found it too difficult since there was no obvious grow-out line. The biggest challenge was the front of my hair line, but as I had grown out the rest of my hair it didn’t look too awful. My hair is just above my shoulders.
I am so pleased I kept going. I wanted to keep my hair long but had regular trims to speed up the process. Good luck.

You could use semi permanent dye which will soften the line and fade more gradually. Then redo it when it's fading out

Could you transition the colour gradually ?
I’m usinga light brown die as I’m going grey.

Thank you all - my hair is dyed copper but my natural colour is dark brown. I'm 38 and have a lot of grey at my temples and some in my parting but I'm just so sick of dyeing my hair as I have done for the last 20ish years!

I wore mine up a lot in different hairstyles. I also wore a lot of hats & caps.. as soon as enough grey was there I had it cut .

I am 4 months in too and mine is looking pretty bad. However I am fully invested and now always wear caps when leaving the house. I plan to get it to shoulders and then cut the rest off (it’s currently very long). How much has yours grown?

Some HDs specialise in highlighting greying hair so it 'grows out' quicker. I would do this

I had a lot cut off mine a few weeks ago so it's a long bob now. What colour is your dye / natural hair?

@Xx97i’ve been debating whether to do the same next month, are you glad you cut it? Where has the colour grown out to? Dye is a very dark brown and natural is a much lighter mousey brown

I’m 7 months into growing my dye out and what’s working for me is using Plantur 39 brown shampoo. It sort of covers the grey, subtly, and reduces the demarcation line.

Hang on in there. Don't fret in front of mirrors. View it like a slow-running marathon.

Mine looked really "challenging" for a good while but now it's totally au natural and I'm glad I stuck it out.

My hair is burgundy, and my natural a sort of mousy brown. I'm also going quite grey.

I want to grow out the burgundy, and am about 2 inches or so outgrown but it feels a long journey and no way to really blend in burgundy.

The least obvious way to do it is using highlights (or lowlights). So for the OP, instead of having your whole hair dyed copper, you just have copper highlights, reducing how many you have put in over time. You could also have mixed tones eg some in the copper and some in a similar shade to your natural hair. To save money, you can just have the top of your hair done and leave the underneath hair to grow out.

I did it with Leganza conditioner. Took a couple of years to get all of the dyed hair down to my shoulders then I stopped using the Leganza.

I'd say it took me 18 months to grow mine out, and I did go much shorter at one point to help the process. I was starting to react to the colour each time (getting really bad headaches) so to be honest, it was a fairly simple decision.

Yes so good as I feel like it looks loads tidier and it'll have to grow regardless! Would definitely recommend

It's hard isn't it! How do you feel about the grey? I'm 38 but would really like to embrace it!

I'm not much older than you, OP, and started growing my natural hair (inc. a fair bit of grey) out last summer.

I still have a lot of naturally dark brown hair and my grey is mostly in a mallen streak near the front on one side, though I'm noticing more grey growing around it now. The dyed hair below the regrowth is slightly darker brown than my natural colour.

Ten months in, my regrowth is almost down to my ear now and the demarcation line has softened a lot. I found the first few months hard but now it looks more intentional and I'm more used to it. Early on, I'd use root spray or dark brown eye shadow (you can buy special powders, but eye shadow works as well) to disguise it, then I got fed up of doing that so stopped.

I think it's going to take at least another 18 months to fully grow out, but I actually have days where I quite like it now. I feel like I'm unapologetically embracing my true self, and it's so nice not to have to think about dyeing it every few weeks. I do get the odd pang of envy when I see someone with shiny brown hair, but I'm so glad I'm doing this now as it's only going to get harder the older and more grey I get. It's quite freeing. And much cheaper at the hairdresser's!

Keep going, it'll get easier!

I quite like the grey some times and not so much other times. But I do hate dying my hair.

Select a few bundles of hairs the way they do for highlights and apply a root cover powder like colour wow over the bottom length of the copper coloured hair in those sections so it blends the root colour of brown through it.
ie don’t put colour on the brown root sections, just on a few hairs all over your head to make the copper coloured hair more brown so you can’t see the demarcation line and it looks like you’re growing out copper highlights.

Root spray is what I used. I had to stop using most brands of dye due to a patch test that reacted.

This was about last May so I used more and more spray for the summer and autumn and winter plus hats.

The spray worked way better than I thought.

Since March this year I've stopped the spray; it's nearly all grey; my hair between ear and shoulder length.

There are lots of brands and shades of root spray that I experimented with.

Look into toner (blue) for the copper - toning that to a more ashy colour will help it blend with the brown/grey.

My hair is about halfway grown out, the bottom half had a lot of blonde highlights which go coppery with time. Toning to get rid of the warmth helps a lot - I buy Fanola conditioner but put it on dry hair as a mask and leave it for awhile.

Keep going!
Personally I preferred to keep cutting hair to a just above the shoulder length. This mean that the old colour gradually got less and less, but I also preferred to tie hair back as I felt it looked a bit better during the transition.