To keep colouring my white hair or not?

[Ang69]

Help please! I'm 57 and have been colouring my hair since I was a teenager. I haven't used bleach for around 3 years now and normally just get a dark blonde tint to cover my roots. I am almost 100% white now. I've faded brassy which I know is normal. I haven't coloured my hair since May this year as I wanted to see what my white looked like. It is very bright and does look nice but I'm so unsure of going the whole hog.

Skin tone wise, I'm fair with light blue eyes and have a neutral to cool leaning skin tone. The best colour I ever had was a cool chestnut brown. Hairdressers are telling me to just keep it white and have been advised to have a bleach bath to strip all existing colour to get a clean canvas. I was shocked when she showed me what I will go to! The tints she could apply didn't seem to add much depth.

Has anyone been in this position and continued with full on colouring or did you embrace the white and love it? I'm scared I'll look washed out going white and also scared it will age me.

Chat GPT just telling me what it thinks I want to hear so wanted to ask some real life people what their thoughts are.

Any ideas welcome!

You may not want a toner, just have it stripped and cut and see how you feel from there - I’d definitely cut it into a bob like the AI pic if I were you. The white is going to make you look like a gorgeous ice queen 😍

white hair will be stunning on you and definitely get your hair cut into a bob, you have excellent bone structure and it will look fabulous on you . ❤️

Love your root colour! I’m in a similar position so have stopped the blonde hair lights as they don’t look good anymore. They just look yellow and don’t even blend with my grey roots. I bought a pigmented colour mask (semi permanent and washed out gradually) in silver and put it in my hair once every 3 weeks for an hour. My hair looks lovely now and blended. It looks like a taupe silvery blonde. I love it! Best part is, in 2 years time I can stop using it as it will all be one colour!

@Ethelspagetti sounds great, which mask do you use? I’m in exactly the same position, original hair colour dark warm chestnut but have been greying slowly for 30 years and now roots are bright silvery white, ends yellow blonde from years of highlights. I’m due a good cut and so tempted to just get a cut and skip the highlights this time but your solution sounds ideal

White hair will look beautiful on you.

I love white hair. When I was a teen, many moons ago, I was sitting on a bus and an older woman got on. She was only wearing a simple black polo neck jumper and black trousers but she had the most beautiful thick white bob and even at 17 I thought she looked stunning.

I wear hair toppers as my hair is horribly thin but in a few years time I will slowly transition over to white toppers. IMO white hair, worn in a great cut can look really stylish.

I think you could get away with a wide headband or scarf on your hair for indoors and a hat for outside this winter.
Then get it cut in a bob in spring. The thing about high/liw lights is that they go brassy eventually.

You will probably want to put a silver toner through occasionally to prevent any yellowing at the ends. They are actually purple and some of my friends experiment with leaving them in longer to give a faint lavender tint that lasts a few washes.

Honestly I think pure white is gorgeous though and you are very lucky to have it - I'm going dull steel grey and looking at my parents, I don't think mine will ever go lighter. I'm very jealous!

I started going grey at 20 and ditched the dye at 37ish and a few years later that grey is now completely white. I love it and get nothing but compliments, including genuinely people stopping me on the street and in bars etc which if they were just saying it to be kind (as many people on here will tell you because grey/white hair must always make you look older and haggard and anyone saying it’s nice is just doing so to spare your feelings) seems a tad unlikely.

Anyway, I vote go for it. If you don’t like it you can always dye it again. Often your natural colour looks far better against your skin tone than any colour you can colour it.

I embraced the white some years ago. I get endless unsolicited compliments on my fabulous hair colour. I love my pure white hair. I keep it short and funky.

I'm 63 and pay a fortune to keep my hair your natural white/silver! Embrace it 😁

I had some baby lights on the top third of my hair, it took my hair to your dyed bit colour.
My natural hair is pure white.
My only issue, even tho it helped with demarcation is it's so dry, so I'd probably ask for something gentle to strip that colour, if that's possible.

I stopped dyeing 12 months ago, I'm late 50's.
Had the baby lights done in January. My white is about 5 inches now, tho I will say it's slightly yellow in places. Not bright yellow but more like the palest blonde.
Most purple shampoo etc are drying so I'm avoiding that at the moment also terrified of getting a lilac hue!

It’s gorgeous. So few people have this colour naturally - more often they’re getting it tinted to match that shade. My grandmother had the same and always looked amazing (it somehow gave her skin a constant peachy glow), and there’s a woman I see around who has a very similar tones and wears hers long and straight. She looks so glamorous and always gives me hair envy! Definitely go for it, OP

Pic 3 looks great. The colour and style suit you. Hope that helps. 😄

I’d love it if my hair went that colour!

This!

Thanks again to everyone for your insight and encouragement, it's really appreciated. I'm going to give it a try. I've had a word with myself and realised it's only hair and it can be changed so why not!!

I really love white and grey on other people and dont think they look older. I'm fair skinned so just don't want to turn into a ghost.

I wish AI could give a realistic look without the full face lift and botox, be easier to see what I'd really look like!!

Thanks again all, lovely that so many are encouraging 😊

You would look better with all white, one tone hair. It would look chic and majestic. See women like Helen Mirren or Andie McDowell who look incredible. Women always look better with one tone hair that is their natural colour. Just get it professionally cut and you’re good to go.

You are lucky to have pure white, rather than greys. I’d definitely say go for it, and it’s an easy transition from blonde.

Grow it out. It will look great with your skin tone.

i stopped dying my hair at 40, I grew it out from dark brown - awful badger look for over a year, but the resultant colour is lovely. Dark grey in places with pure white elsewhere. It looks like I have expensive highlights.

i am still quite young for my hair colour but numerous people have commented on it positively, some I have never met before. It’s so much easier than doing it every three weeks!

I absolutely love my white phase. It's so beautiful . I have relatively straight , fine hair.
I dyed it for years but this white look is the best of all.

ChatGPT will use your actual face if you tell it to.

(Although when mine gave me a similar 'glow up' to yours I asked it 'what did you do to my face to make me prettier?' and it gave me a makeup tutorial including what to do and with which colours - obviously couldn't completely recreate the look it gave me but it was actually really helpful!)

I am blonde and get white hair at my crown. I will never embrace it as it’s incredibly ageing.

Once it is natural, you need to treat it really gently, for example, make sure you really use good heat protectant and avoid heat as much as possible, that will stop it from going yellow. It’s going to be beautiful!

Wella do them among others, theirs is called pearl, others are labelled silver. There is a cheap make I used last time that was actually better but have forgotten its name. They are a pigmented colour mask that’s semi permanent, and washes out. They all state,
leave in for 15-20 minutes which doesn’t work for me, I leave it in for an hour! My hair is so soft afterwards! Remember to apply it on damp hair but not wet! Then wash out completely.

No regrets over going white. I love it, really love it.

I did it because at 66 the constant root touch ups felt like I was in a race I could never win. Now it’s a white pixie ( I know) I feel it’s so much more flattering to my skin tone and people seem to love it.