Colouring your hair

[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.

[indysteel]

My hair is a very dark brown. About three years ago, it started to fade a bit and then more and more white (not grey) hair started to sprout, mostly around my hairline. I started coloring it to it's "natural" color at the lon. The salon I go to is an a Aveda salon, and the dyes they use are vegetable base. I get a lot of compliments about how shiny my hair is after I get it colored. I try to do it every 3 months or so, but I'd do it more often than that but for the expense. I get it highlighted about once a year, too. Nothing dramatic, just some subtle strands around my face. I have fine hair and I wear it long and one benefit of the coloring is that it plumps my hair, making it seem thicker.

[SouthernBelle]

I'm in the process of growing out my natural grey & white, well at least 80% of it is.

There are different shades of grey. My mother had a rather dishwater shade. My grandmother had lovely silver and white. Fortunately, it looks like I've gotten my Nanny's shade.

[indigoiis]

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.

This is an awesome idea and very silly, too. Just my style!

I am about 60% grey at age 40 and am weaning off hair dye. I went from winter (auburn) to spring (sandy brown) to let it grow out. In about a month I will get highlights and a shine coat applied, and then I'm on my own.

I like the lemon juice highlight idea though.

Anj

[evangundy]

I found my first grey hair at age 13 and when I showed my mom, she told me she had too at 13, and that's the first time I remember her coloring her hair (she said she had been doing it since her early 20's). I colored mine when I was 30, so I wouldn't look old next to my little sister in her wedding pics (I had about 30% white by then). Treated myself regularly for 10 years, changing colors and cuts frequently. Then decided to grow it all out at age 40 to see how it looked. Haven't colored it since. And I keep it quite short. I get lots of compliments on my hair, but really, I keep it short and natural because I'm lazy and don't want to mess with it anymore. Here's a picture from my birthday party last July.
Edna

[Tuckervill]

I colored my hair for the first time in January, before I went on a cruise with the Barenaked Ladies. I was feeling mousy and I wanted to feel beautiful. Especially if I was going to meet my idols, who are younger than me.

It went bright brassy red on top instead of the chestnut brown it was supposed to be (don't ask me why) and I had to have my DIL fix it for me at her Aveda salon the day before we left. So, it grew out at the roots a few weeks later and I had to have it done again because it didn't look right. She did it in my natural color, but when I got a warning ticket for speeding the other day, the cop put my hair color as RED.

It looks almost like my natural color, to me, but I've always had red undertones. I'm about 30% gray, with it mostly in streaks at the temples. My grandmother was silvery, and my dad is bright white. If I thought my hair would be bright white like that, I'd do that. But--just yesterday on my ride I had two people who didn't believe I was old enough to have a son with a 3 year old child. Of course, both of these gentlemen were 62, and I'm 46. Perspective is everything.

I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to color it again when the roots grow out. :-/ Oprah said she doesn't believe in plastic surgery, but she BELIEVES in hair color!

Karen

[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.

[mimitabby]

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.

rotfl!