For the ladies - Embracing gray hair after years of dying--have you done it?!

I started to go grey when I was in high school. I have been coloring as well. I decided last year that I was going to grow it out and embrace it. I grew it out for several months. When I went to get a trim my hairdresser asked if I was purposely doing a two tone. Apparently I am only growing grey on the top of my head. All my hair in the back was brown. How stupid would that look? So I am back to dyeing it again.

I’m 49, been colouring my hair for 20 years. I think grey hair is lovely. But I also really love the colour my hair is at the moment and I also love my hairdresser. I don’t know whether I can put up with growing it out.
My mum actually bleached her hair then put a grey colour on it before she grew it out. It looks fab. Just not sure about bleaching my hair. It’s quite dry.

Home dye jobs tend to be very harsh on the hair. You can spot them, because the hair looks like straw. Long, thin dyed hair does not make you look younger. Out here in the harsh elements, women do keep their long hair way past its' expiration date. It's aging.

Men can always get away with grey hair. Cowboys used to use shoe polish. This was before Just For Men. Hair is a really big deal in my family. The men don't have male pattern baldness. Still striking and handsome. Bald can be great, unless you're a woman.

It's entirely personal. If you're comfortable with grey hair, own it.

IMO 45 is much too young to give up on keeping a colour that reflects your relatively young age. I work in a business where pretty much every woman - including myself - scrupulously keeps up her colour and often augments her look with artificial hair. I not only color, but employ hair pieces to not look like the limp-locked greying creature I am. I do allow a little grey at my temples as a nod to my real age and my chestnut brunette is now a soft butternut brown.
I have a same-age friend who has stopped dying her hair and embraced her grey. Ugh! She is constantly telling everyone how happy she is with her natural look and is always fishing for validation and compliments. Uhh... you look... umm... happy?

nay0m3 wrote: »

@katemcd495 What color is your hair naturally and is it naturally straight or curly?

What if you try doing a treatment first before dying again? John Frieda makes a great defrizzing serum.

@cupcakesandproteinshakes What color is your hair? I love my hair also and feel conflicted about letting it go gray but also just don't want to spend the time and money and have all the chemicals constantly and it just feels empowering to go gray!

I have heard about bleaching your hair and then dying it and I have thought of doing that but I have long dark hair to my mid back and feel like it would be expensive and time consuming but I also love the thought of not having that harsh grow out line that people always refer to as a skunk!

I don't know exactly the details, but one of my friends had a series of "highlights and lowlights" treatments to her originally-dark hair to change the rate when going from dyeing dark to an amount of gray she was happy with. (Recently, her hair is its natural gray, just a little dark mixed in, and is absolutely beautiful.)

This is less clearly applicable to your case, but maybe eventually: A co-worker who got quite gray quite young felt she was looking older than her age, then had some combination of lowlights and overdyeing with a medium-brown that didn't require pre-bleaching, and the result was natural-looking, flattering, and less likely to show distinct roots quickly because her natural color was still somewhat salt and pepper and that type of hair coloring fades gradually.

In both those cases, they felt that using a stylist who was very skilled/experienced at the techniques involved was very important.

I can't give you firsthand advice: Mine started going gray gradually in my 40s (from dark brown), so just ongoing salt and pepper with increasing amounts of salt . With my skin tone and such, I felt that the salt and pepper was actually more flattering than the dark brown natural color of my early adulthood. Nowdays, it's quite gray, only a little dark mixed in.

Yes, it's darker in back than in front, but sort of a smooth gradation so I'm OK with it (besides, I rarely see the back of my own head ). I'm more unsatisfied that it's thinner than it used to be, but oh, well. (I'm not going to do Rogaine.) It's fine and curly, so it could be worse. It's pandemic long now, but I prefer it short. I feel fortunate that the gray hairs are a white-gray (or maybe blue-gray?) rather than a yellowish gray.

I'd probably look younger with darker hair, but IMO young is overrated. I'd rather rep old but lively, if I can. FWIW, I don't feel like people treat me in any particular way because my hair is gray vs. brown. I know some women who say they feel invisible or dismissed in some way. However, I'm not very appearance conscious, and tend to have an assertive personality that I can make take up psychological space when I want to, so . . . !