Colouring your hair

[KnottedYet]

Redhead going white and gunmetal-gray in patches.

I use mahogany henna about once a month. $3 worth (half of a $6 box) is good for one application on my thin baby-fine hair. Nice thing about the henna is that it leaves golden highlights where my white hair is, rich red highlights where my red hair is, and deep mahogany highlights where the gunmetal-gray is. So it doesn't really change the look of my hair, just the color tone. And it gradually washes out over the course of the month, so as my hair grows there really aren't any "roots" to speak of.

Tried letting it go natural a few times, and I looked like I had bald patches. My hair is just too thin. When my whole head is white or white-with-scattered-red-strands (like my Grandma's, our hair is similar) I'll let it be.

[emily_in_nc]

I have light ash brown hair that has gotten to be about 30-40% gray. I have been coloring it for years, since I found my first gray at 25 (I'm 47 now). I am too cheap not to do it myself, but I'd been unhappy with the damage from drugstore products like Clairol or L'Oreal. I recently found a hair coloring product I really like. It's a bit messy to apply because it is a powder that you mix with water, and is runnier than drugstore color, but the results are much more natural (no one who doesn't already know even believes I color my hair), and the damage much, much less. It's Robert Craig hair color and is available online. The color I use turns the gray into highlights (light golden blonde) and doesn't lighten the darker part (no ammonia or peroxide!) I love the Robert Craig shampoo and conditioner for colored hair too -- they make mine very soft and help with the frizzies. I have to touch it up (only the roots, except every couple of times) about every four weeks, but the roots seem to show less than with the drugstore products.

I do eventually intend to go naturally gray and cut my hair short, but like someone earlier on this thread said, "I'm not there yet". Once I am no longer in the corporate world, I might be ready. My DH wishes I'd just let it go natural now; he thinks hair coloring is silly, but he doesn't really understand -- the youth obsession definitely hits women harder in our society than it does men.

Emily

[tc1]

Started at 21. Been every color of the Rainbow from Billy Idol Blonde to purple. Only went black for 2 days; I looked like my mother. Now it's dark chestnut. I don't want to go all grey yet, its not a good look for me. If I let my hair get too patchy and raggedy I get mistaken for a man whenever I am in work clothes, which is most of the time.

[deedolce]

I swear, if I were blond, it would be a no-brainer for me to let it go silver/white. But I'm Asian, and it was dark brown/reddish highlights when I was young. I dyed it myself from mid-30's on, when the grey got to be more. Now that I can afford to 'splurge' I do, and go every 4 weeks for color and trim. She charges me $50, $58 with tip.

I'm probably 40-50% grey, still dark in back, all grey in front. That's what I can tell from the roots; it could really be scary! I'm 49. I tried letting it go grey years ago, and got depressed everytime I looked in the mirror, I looked so washed out. I just can't go natural yet!

I want to get to the point when I can cut it short, short and let it go grey! 70, maybe? I'm a little self conscious too, since my fella is 10 years younger.

[Tokie]

My hair is dark brown at the ends and coming in more and more silvery at the top - I like it, and I hate beauty shop appointments, chemicals on my head, and ROOTS showing. It always amazes me to look around a roomful of my peers and wonder how/why they all have the hair color of 20 year olds. It's so unnatural. I kind of like it though when people experiment and go from dark blond to dark brown, or add highlights. I'm sure I would look perky-er with the color of hair I used to have - but it just looks a bit odd to me when people have old faces and such young hair color. And I think women who have gone grey like the actress Judi Dench are very cool. I also think that as your hair greys that you may look better in different color clothing , and if you wear it (I don't) makeup. Tokie

[lph]

I'm soon 39 with maybe 20-30% grey. I've dyed it at home for some years, at sporadic intervals, but it was such a mess and a hassle, I felt. Once I could afford to get it done professionally I was so pleased with the results and the compliments that I deicded to treat myself to it 4 times a year. That way it still grows out and I'm reminded what I really look like but I get to feel real pretty at regular intervals

I'd prefer to have the grey show, but not just as a "helmet". I'm working on it - next time I'll try having it cut shorter and having greyish stripes.

[Duck on Wheels]

My hairdresser once talked me into getting a color "rinse". I guess it looked fine, but I was scared that I would never be able to let it go back to natural color again. Underneath the tinting it would be going greyer and greyer so the roots would look worse and worse as it grew out and I'd have to cave in and have it tinted again. I'm at sort of a dark pewter or oxydized silver now overall, given how much salt is mixed in with the pepper. Depending on your point of view (glass half full? glass half empty?) I guess my hair still looks kinda like the dark near-black brown it once was but with a silvery shine to it, or vice versa, pewter grey with a dark brown undertone. Sure, my hair looks my age (59), but I think the color as simply a color and not a symbol of age is quite nice.

A bigger problem is that it's thinning in front, or maybe thinned when I was flaring through an inflammatory disease and then never grew back. Anybody know of some hair regrowth treatments that work? I wouldn't care if it comes back greyer, but I would like to have more of it back.

[Zen]

I pull stands through the vents in my helmet then spritz with lemon juice.
Very natural effect.
And it also tends to make drivers slow down.

[Andrea]

I am a redhead who has been coloring my hair black for the last few years. Two nights ago, I went after it with a #3 guard on the clippers

Since my roots had grown out, I'm a redhead again! Not sure what to do now. I haven't colored it back yet, and I haven't decided if I'll keep it shaved- it feels awesome under my helmet, but I get pitiful looks from people who apparently think I'm recovering from cancer treatment.

[mimitabby]

brunette gone grey.
for some reason the front of my hair (over my face) is completely white and the back is mostly still brown.
so i dye it. i go from red to brown... I could never pay someone to do it, I am too cheap. And one of these days I'll stop coloring it; but not yet.

[michelem]

My hair is very dark brown and I am getting close to the big 4-0 and just started to see the grays these past couple of weeks. For about a week it seemed I was finding one each day! My hairdresser told me NOT to pull them out. She said that by pulling them out at the root, it will cause them to grow out in a "sticking out" fashion. She said that instead, I should clip them very short with scissors. This way they will grow back in more naturally like the rest of my hair, rather than poking out like beacons. We'll see how that works . . .

[Possegal]

gray hair by nature has a different texture. i don't think your hairdresser's advice will make much difference. i've never pulled mine out, and when my hair started going gray, the gray ones had a mind of their own, sticking up in all sorts of directions.

[GLC1968]

I'm 40 and probably 65 - 70% grey. My natural hair color is a dark brown that easily bleaches out by the sun into highlights of red and gold. It was gorgeous while it lasted! I used to have strangers stopping to ask me who did my highlights when I was a teenager - it was always fun to say "mother nature".

I've been dying my hair since I was 21. My hair is also super thick and grows very fast. If I had straight hair that laid flat, I'd have to color it every 3 weeks to keep the roots at bay. Since I started wearing it curly, I can get away with 4 weeks. I used to have it done professionally, but I've gone back to doing it myself because I can't bring myself to spend the money. My hair is in fantastic shape though - home color or not. I only shampoo my hair once a week or so but I condition it daily. It's super strong and healthy partly because I no longer use a hair dryer, too.

I am so looking forward to the day when I can comfortably go grey. I don't know if mine will be a nice color or not, but I think it will be fun to find out. I'm *almost* ready to do it...but not quite. I'll have to go back to a pixie cut again to make the transition because growing it out looks so incredibly bad (such a nasty contrast to the dark brown dye).

[tulip]

I'm 40 and the most greys I've been able to see at the same time is 6. Recently they seem to be hiding. I figure when it's time to go grey, I will do so gracefully, like Bonnie Rait or Emmylou Harris. We'll see how graceful I actually am when the time comes, however. Wrinkles--well that's another story entirely (I'm still fighting zits!! I thought I'd have at least a few years of post-zit pre-wrinkle skin, but it may not turn out that way).

BTW, great cut, Andrea!

[Tokie]

You have a pretty face and nicely shaped head - and you look a bit too healthy to be a girl on chemo! I like it! Maybe it's more aero too! Now everyone will want to run their fingers over your prickly head! Tokie