Want to embrace going gray but my graying hair is ugly

[Anonymous]

I stopped highlighting my long hair blonde during COVID and now it’s completely grown out. My actual hair underneath is much darker brown than when I was younger and while I like my hair and it’s much healthier, it’s about 10 percent gray and the grays are ugly, wiry, and stand up. I want to embrace my graying hair but without it looking ugly. My face also looked better with some face framing highlights, I feel like now I just like look sallow and tired. I don’t want to do all over color and get stuck on that boat, and have tried all over glosses for my hair but they aren’t keeping the grays under control. I’m considering maybe talking to a stylist about adding some silver highlights around my face or doing gray blending. I don’t necessarily want to sign up for two more decades of expensive salon bills as my hair is finally color free, but wonder if that could help me transition my hair without feeling so ugly. I do love an all over gray or silver color but it’s going to be many years before I’m fully there (42 now). Has anyone done this?

[Anonymous]

Have you spoken with a good stylist about ways to embrace your texture and tame your gray fly aways?

My hair has never taken well to color and ends up gross and damaged, so I've opted to keep my grays and do a natural shaggy cut that compliments my natural texture. It keeps my hair healthier and ends up looking better, IMO, even with some natural gray "highlights".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you spoken with a good stylist about ways to embrace your texture and tame your gray fly aways?

My hair has never taken well to color and ends up gross and damaged, so I've opted to keep my grays and do a natural shaggy cut that compliments my natural texture. It keeps my hair healthier and ends up looking better, IMO, even with some natural gray "highlights".

This is similar what I was going to write. It sounds like the issue is a texture change and I wonder whether there is treatment that would help with that.

[Anonymous]

I'm a dark brunette with a patch of white hairs developing at one temple, just like my mother. After some thought, I decided to henna and indigo my hair.

I do it at home, the price is negligible, but the time and effort is moderate. I need a day to do it properly at home every month and a half, although I usually stretch it out to once every 2 months because I'm lazy. The henna adds a barely visible reddish luster to my very dark brown hair, and the indigo only shows on my white hairs, by temporarily coloring them a lighter reddish brown. Indigo is a natural blue-black dye that sticks to the red henna dye, and it's the henna that sticks to your hair. Since the transfer isn't 100%, my white hairs don't take the color completely, but they are hidden satisfactorily. The overall effect is that my hair seems to have a subtle variety of dark brown and bronze shades. I love it.

Henna is permanent and doesn't mix with salon colors, so if you decide to do that, you cannot get it corrected with artificial dyes. You'd have to wait until it grows out. Indigo fades with time, but my roots show up anyway, which is why I need to dye every couple of months.

[Anonymous]

Hello! I started a thread on going gray that is still active. I’d say that brown with some grays likely looks better than what you’ll get with gray blending, which is brown, greys, plus ugly brassy streaks that clash with the cool tones of the brown and gray. And possibly very damaged hair from repeated highlights.

[Anonymous]

I have light brown hair (highlights to dark blonde in the sun) and the grey just looked awful. It just made my hair look dirty all the time. I think when it's mostly grey it will be okay, but less than half grey just makes my light brown look like a depressing greige or dirty taupe color. My sister's hair is dark, and hers was fine -- more salt and pepper. Anyway, I ended up dying it. I do it at home with a Madison Reed color kit -- I use only half the kit and do it every three months just on the top part of my hair where the grey is growing in. I match it to my natural color (light brown) so this seems to work fine and is less damaging than doing full hair color all the time -- the one tip I have is to go more ashy than you think. Since my highlights are all blondish, I started with the golden light brown, but that ended up really brassy, so now I use the ashy light brown, and my hair still ends up as a sort of golden brown.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies. I’m not necessarily interested in all over color. More like some face framing silver highlights. But does that involve bleaching?

Sort of like the woman on this page here with the header: Subtle Silver Highlights in Black Hair

https://www.floeyeliner.com/health-beauty/silver-highlights-gray-blending-ideas/

About 8 scrolls down. What does this sort of look entail? It is so pretty, unlike my hair.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, greys are a different texture often. And yeah, some people look a lot worse with grey hair. I'm one of them. People have asked if I'm sick, assumed I'm a DECADE older, etc. I'll be dying my hair until I die.

[Anonymous]

OP< I believe that artificial silver is a very hard color to maintain. I am mostly grey and have asked about platinum or silver highlights and they gave the eyeroll. I have a nice natural grey, but am probably better off with lowlights and a gloss. Have you thought of talking to the hairdresser about the texture--like a brasilian straightener? that might be what's really bothering you. And just get a few accent highlights that will blend as they grow and call it a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a dark brunette with a patch of white hairs developing at one temple, just like my mother. After some thought, I decided to henna and indigo my hair.

I do it at home, the price is negligible, but the time and effort is moderate. I need a day to do it properly at home every month and a half, although I usually stretch it out to once every 2 months because I'm lazy. The henna adds a barely visible reddish luster to my very dark brown hair, and the indigo only shows on my white hairs, by temporarily coloring them a lighter reddish brown. Indigo is a natural blue-black dye that sticks to the red henna dye, and it's the henna that sticks to your hair. Since the transfer isn't 100%, my white hairs don't take the color completely, but they are hidden satisfactorily. The overall effect is that my hair seems to have a subtle variety of dark brown and bronze shades. I love it.

Henna is permanent and doesn't mix with salon colors, so if you decide to do that, you cannot get it corrected with artificial dyes. You'd have to wait until it grows out. Indigo fades with time, but my roots show up anyway, which is why I need to dye every couple of months.

Can you link to the products you use?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP< I believe that artificial silver is a very hard color to maintain. I am mostly grey and have asked about platinum or silver highlights and they gave the eyeroll. I have a nice natural grey, but am probably better off with lowlights and a gloss. Have you thought of talking to the hairdresser about the texture--like a brasilian straightener? that might be what's really bothering you. And just get a few accent highlights that will blend as they grow and call it a day.

Ok, thanks for this. I love the look but that sounds like too much maintenance. I’ve never had a Brazilian blowout so maybe time for something like that.

[Anonymous]

I can't help with color but I recently discovered this frizz tamer for the grey hair at my roots that makes it look frizzy. It's cheap, easy to apply and it works!

https://www.cvs.com/shop/garnier-fructis-sleek-and-shine-frizz-tamer-0-27-oz-prodid-827034

[Anonymous]

You need to apply a good color to the wiry grays in order to return their texture to their original state. You can buy a clear color at Sally's and apply it with a Volume 20 developer. You may also need to use a purple or blue shampoo to keep the gray hair from looking yellow/brassy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I stopped highlighting my long hair blonde during COVID and now it’s completely grown out. My actual hair underneath is much darker brown than when I was younger and while I like my hair and it’s much healthier, it’s about 10 percent gray and the grays are ugly, wiry, and stand up. I want to embrace my graying hair but without it looking ugly. My face also looked better with some face framing highlights, I feel like now I just like look sallow and tired. I don’t want to do all over color and get stuck on that boat, and have tried all over glosses for my hair but they aren’t keeping the grays under control. I’m considering maybe talking to a stylist about adding some silver highlights around my face or doing gray blending. I don’t necessarily want to sign up for two more decades of expensive salon bills as my hair is finally color free, but wonder if that could help me transition my hair without feeling so ugly. I do love an all over gray or silver color but it’s going to be many years before I’m fully there (42 now). Has anyone done this?

Exactly me. Exactly. And I am 26 years older ! Still not much gray,but enough to cover the darkish blonde making it dull. It washed me out and I'm pale. I HATE the salon, hate coloring, gloss was too garish, blah blah blah.

So- I left my front white hairs on top, around the bangs. They look pretty. Then I used a different parting just next to my usual part, not my usual parting!, and just lightly combed in a tiny amount of permanent color of dark blond ( 7) from Garnier in the very top strands, not every hair, not all over the top. Just a dusting. I did not dye anything else under that- my hair is still dark blonde under all this, never went gray really. So the dusting of color mixes nicely with the incoming sparse white hairs and nicely highlights the dark blonde gently without really dying it all again.
I will probably repeat this every 4 or 5 months. And my usual part is the same white mixed with blonde, so no growth demarcation lines.

[Anonymous]

Then don’t embrace your grays. Problem solved.