Can grey roots be covered without going darker than natural colour?

[safetyfreak]

I am a 36-year-old whose grey hair is now coming pretty fast :(

I have natural brown‑blonde hair with some highlighted blonde still in the mid‑lengths. At my last hair appointment, I asked my hairdresser to cover my grey roots using a light brown that matches my natural colour, but she told me light brown wouldn’t cover grey and that she had to go darker.

She also suggested pulling the darker colour through my hair, which I didn’t want. She applied the darker colour only to the roots, which doesn't look great, but after three weeks, the greys are already showing again.

Is it true that you can’t cover grey with a lighter shade? Do I really have to go darker, or should it be possible to match my natural colour and still get proper grey coverage?

My hairdresser is young, only early/mid 20s so I wonder if I need to change stylist.

What do you guys do to cover grey?

I think if you start to try and cover greys you’re on to a losing battle. I have subtle highlights through the roots to help the greys blend in. I’m naturally dark haired so the best I can hope for is to blend rather than cover.

I went lighter! Now the grey is mixed in with ash blonde balayage and I can go months before the greys are really obvious.

Well my hair is dark auburn, and colouring it an ashy brown at the hairdresser covers the grey and makes it a lighter red. I think this might be something to do with red hair though.

If you can find someone who does colour who has more experience of dealing with grey blending.
You are still nowhere near 40, but trust me going darker than you are will add more years than some greys. It makes your hair look dull.
Once the greys arrive you can embrace them but still using colour - there are so many techniques now, but you need to look around and find someone who understands the process. Your hair will look fabulous.
The thing about whole root tinting with a darker colour means you gets bands of colour and you don’t want to be getting your roots done every three weeks.
Set yourself free from that tyranny. You won’t regret it.

Found a before and after of grey blending for you. No roots all done using highlights.

If I could afford it I would go for subtle highlights and lowlights.
Going darker will give you a badger stripe every few weeks.

I'd try really ashy highlights as opposed to solid colour. I'm in my 30s with alot of grey and although I preferred myself with darker hair it just looked crap after a few weeks once the greys grew in. Having lighter ashy highlights made it look intentional and blended.

Eventually I have up and went au naturale - I actually think it's less aging than trying to cover up!

I've spent a couple of years growing out my horizontal tide mark. My naturally greying hair is a mixture of white, strawberry and ash and I really like it. My hairdresser has been a genius and just recommended highlights to blur the line as the dyed half faded/was trimmed off.

Honestly would recommend you just let the greys come in, OP. But whatever you do, see a hairdresser who is a proper colourist and knows how to cover grey as your current hairdresser doesn't sound very knowledgeable. I don't think you do have to go darker to colour grey necessarily. Just be aware that whatever you do other than highlights, you'll probably end up with a choice between frantically dyeing forever and spending ages trying to even two halves of hair out/cutting the dyed bit off.

Someone will come along to say that grey hair is really ageing but I think that's mainly because women are under so much pressure to start covering grey so early. The more of us embrace the grey, the less ageing it will be.

I have never heard of going darker to cover grey/white hair. Usually hairdressers recommend all over lightening.

Lots of dark haired ladies on MN use caffeine shampoo. There have been loads of threads on this and on the curly girl method.
I think Plantur 39 is the favourite brand. This might make your hair darker all over though.

My hairdresser of many, many years recommended a blonde tinting shampoo and I use John Frieda go blonder.
I have medium brown hair which goes lighter and streaky in the sun so the blonde shampoo makes the grey/white look more like highlights and generally lightens my brunette colour to help blend with lighter strands.

Love this! I agree

It does sound like highlighting might help, but I know it won’t actually cover all my grey hair. I definitely need a new hairstylist. I’m really glad I didn’t let her pull the darker colour through my hair, because I’m fair‑skinned and the darker root is already washing me out.

Thank you for all the advice.

You need to go to a proper colourist who knows what they’re doing.

Agree with silvery ashy highlights being the way to go. After decades of having bleached highlights in my dark blonde hair, I went through a few years of having dark blonde highlights as well before they were phased out and replaced with ash blonde highlights as the grey came in. It worked really well. I then lost all my hair due to chemo, took ages for it to grow out to a decent length, but have been natural ever since. I really like it, it's silvery with platinum white streaks. It totally suits my skin tone and eyes. It's very low maintenance as no roots to maintain, I have a pigment free gloss treatment every other cut, and as I've grown it out to a long, layered style it only needs trimming every 10 weeks with a fringe trim in between. Agree that nothing looks worse than grey roots on dark dyed hair. I really notice when mature people on tv have unnaturally rich coloured hair, it can look flat. Embrace the grey!

@threescoops I agree - one of the lovely surprises of allowing myself to go grey was that my skin tone evened out massively. I hadn't appreciated that I had just grown out of very bright/warm hair.

Reckon your hairdresser is talking nonsense. Admittedly I don't use one, I home dye with L'Oréal Excellence Crème permanent colour and even the blond dye will cover my greys just fine.

The root regrowth is just life. If your hair is that grey then there's no option but to dye monthly, with the last week putting your hair in an updo if it's longer, so you don't have a noticeable badger stripe of grey hair down the parting (which somehow looks worse to my eyes than just the roots showing next to your skin).

It's why so many embrace the grey (especially if they're happily settled with a partner or no intentions of finding one. Shoot me all you like but IMO it's a factor with grey hair often being perceived as messy/unbothered and ancient), they get fed up with the endless dying and still seeing root regrowth two weeks later.

I think it's better than the alternative though, hair that isn't growing well is going to be physically older when it's less long, so more inclined to be brittle and snap off or get split ends as a result of it's age. If it grows well you'll be constantly trimming it and your ends will be comparatively younger and in better condition.

This is amazing, but I can't see any grey

Where is the grey?

@safetyfreak yeah this hairdresser doesn't know anything. I'll be going lighter.

I find that really strange thing to say actually I know someone on here said that the hairdressing college is giving everyone a pass automatically to make the college look better- but it's getting a bit out of hand. I feel like I can't find a hairdresser who knows what they're doing anymore.

I think highlights is the way to go. All over dark colour is very high maintenance and needs doing every 6 weeks . Is it’s very blocky if that makes sense…I’ve gone for ashy highlights to blend in

My hairdresser emigrated but told me how to do it myself: bottle of 4 or 6% hydrogen peroxide and wella colour touch plus. Mix together and paint on. It’s semi-permanent gloss toner so if it goes wrong then it won’t last. I’d look at a light brown colour/dark blonde and give that a go at home? I do mine every month

Yes, it is strange. I also challenged her on it, and she was adamant I had to go darker than my natural colour.
As it was my first time, specifically asking for grey coverage, I just went along with what she said as I was/am also clueless! I wasn't happy about going darker as it does look blocky, and I'm very fair-skinned!

I wish she had been honest and said, I don't know much about grey coverage. Let me check with a colleague.

I decided I won't be going back to her, but reading the thread made me realise there are so many choices...i need to find a stylist who can advise me.

Wouldn't highlights need doing every six weeks as well
My hair grows very quickly so that solid line of grey is just unavoidable whatever you've done to it really

@safetyfreak you would think dying grey was pretty basic wouldn't you?! So what happened? You went in there and she just confidently decided to dye it a darker colour?

I actually am happy just fiddling around with colour kit at home

I feel like I've spent ages trying to find some magically skilled hairdresser - I've probably wasted a lot of money doing stuff to my hair

They seem to be lots of amazing ones making videos online, but the reality of finding one... it's not happening for me

I was actually quite impressed by the colour sprays for topping up in between btw

You can sleep on it and it'll be fine the next day doesn't seem to come off on the pillow or anything

I don’t have loads of grey so it blends in I can go months and not have colour done