Transitioning to Gray Hair: The Pro Colorists Guide

Table Of Content

• Ask a Beauty Editor: How to Transition to Natural Gray Hair
• Tone with a Temporary Color
• Flexible Curling Rods: How to Use Flexi Rods on Natural Hair
• Lowlights disguise grays
• Transition to Gray Hair With Lowlights: Step-By-Step Guide
• How To Transition to Gray From Dyed Hair
• Opt for Purple Shampoo and Conditioner

If you feel as if your gray growth is unusual, or has an abnormal growth pattern, it is best to play it safe and mention it to your doctor. As soon as you have a few inches of regrowth, you might face some “useful recommendations” from people, whose opinions you don’t ask. If you don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself or are worried about making a mistake, it’s probably best to leave it to a professional. Once all the dye is out, condition your hair with a color-safe conditioner and style as usual.

Ask a Beauty Editor: How to Transition to Natural Gray Hair

However, your natural gray color can be a little more care-intensive, as gray color can go wrong if it is not properly taken care of. You can touch up the coloring depending on how well you did the dye job and how fast your hair grows. With a warm skin tone, gold jewelry will compliment you best, and you want to look for hair dye that mentions “golden,” “bronze,” or “copper”.

Tone with a Temporary Color

Maham is a seasoned beauty & lifestyle writer with a master’s degree in agricultural science. She loves to research latest hairstyle & hair color trends and isn't afraid to try out the newest hairstyles. While it seems to be widely understood that stress contributes to premature graying, studies have shown that smoking and poor diet are the real culprits (via Healthline). So, embracing a healthier lifestyle could keep the grays at bay.

Flexible Curling Rods: How to Use Flexi Rods on Natural Hair

Instead, you are allowing your natural gray to take center stage. You can opt for an all-over permanent gray dye if you want to go all in. This is a bold decision as it involves covering your entire head with a gray shade. This gradual fade from your natural color to gray at the ends offers a striking and unconventional transition. It works particularly well for individuals who want a distinctive and eye-catching style. Temporary gray hair products, like sprays, gels, or chalks, provide a short-term option for experimenting with the gray look.

Something as simple as creatively placed foils can easily mask your gray hair and grow-out for longer than just your basic root retouch formula from the salon. In addition to perfectly transitioning to gray hair with lowlights, hairstyles like curls and braids can also disguise silver hair. And many women seem to have hopped on board the trend of going fully gray, per The Zoe Report. The variation of shades will allow your grays to blend beautifully with the rest of your strands while adding some brightness to your color.

Lowlights in Gray Hair: The Secret to Natural-Looking Gray Transition

Enter lowlights, a coloring technique that, especially when coupled with highlights, can strategically blend and disguise grays without fully masking them. Finding your best lowlight shade match isn’t all that difficult. “When looking for the right tone, just match your natural level to the lowlight,” says Naselli. “You don’t want to choose a tone that’s much darker than your natural base color because you don’t want to create too much contrast when adding lowlights. You want to create a softer, more natural blend.” Of course, your skin tone will also inform how warm or cool the lowlights should be, so keep that in mind as well when honing in on a hue. The purple tone will wash away after approximately 4 shampoo days and change into a combination of silver, light brown and golden hues, which look fantastic with gray hair growing in.

Be careful with the process but keep the comb close to the scalp. If you have coarse hair, preheat it with a 10-volume hair developer. For a better frame, you can leave a few strands untouched at the front of your face to give it a delicate appearance. If you see blue and pink undertones pop out, then you are cool-toned.

How To Transition to Gray From Dyed Hair

Schedule trims every six to eight weeks to remove split ends and prevent them from traveling up the hair shaft. This creates a protective barrier that minimizes damage caused by heat styling, helping your hair retain its strength and health. To counteract this, incorporate purple or silver-specific shampoos and conditioners like the ones from Kerastase and Jhirmack into your routine. To achieve the best results and minimize potential damage, it’s advisable to have this done by a skilled professional to ensure even coverage and hair health. This means the color gradually becomes darker as you move down the hair length. Graying of hair is primarily caused by a decrease in melanin production, the pigment responsible for hair color.

Opt for Purple Shampoo and Conditioner

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Pick whichever suits your routine and makes you feel the most beautiful—there’s no hard-and-fast rule for embracing your grays. The best way to transition is to change your lowlights to a softer, lighter tone, says Robert Bennett, a colorist at Maxine Salon in Chicago. Also, pull less hair into the foil, allowing more of the natural gray to shine through. "This technique will lessen the line of demarcation helping with the transition," he explains.

Martin also recommends Schwarzkopf’s Goodbye Yellow and Fanola’s No Yellow formulas. Deep conditioning treatments specifically designed for colored hair are also essential, and you may want to consider a purple-toned formula like Better Not Younger's Silver Lining mask. Aside from the time investment of a salon session, there's how long it takes to fully transition to gray hair, which is anywhere from six months to a year, Ferrara says. "Some people won't have the patience, so they choose to color their hair again," she notes. Going gray from black or dark brown color seems the most difficult; thus, dyeing your hair black to transition to gray seems totally counterintuitive. However, if your salt and pepper hair has many dark patches, adding a black ombre can be a life-changing idea.

Chunky bits of steel gray contrasting with the lighter strands complete this natural look. Natural gray hairs tend to be stiffer and coarser than their pigmented counterparts—and adding dye into the mix can increase the likelihood of strands becoming dry and brittle. Applying a deep conditioning treatment can help restore much-needed hydration and softness to your color-treated tresses. Once a week, show your hair some extra love by swapping out your daily conditioner for the L’Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate Free Simply Clean Elastic Fiber Masque.

It comes in 15 shades, including Cool Blonde, Silver, and Smokey Bronde, so you can choose the one that best matches your base color and highlights. Foils usually require touch-ups every 8-12 weeks, depending on how fast your hair grows. If you like a seamless blend of grays with your highlights and base color, then aim to get your color touched up every two to three months to maintain the look. For balayage and foilyage highlights, the touch-up period is a little more lax—you’ll want to plan for a coloring session every 3-6 months.

It took approximately 9 months to fully transition but it was so worth it. My hair stopped falling out, my scalp felt better, the dye was drying it out, and my hair was shinier. A complete transition depends on your genetics, water, and hair quality. For some, it can take six months, but for others, it can take years. The best way to speed up the transition is to allow the gray to grow, add highlights or lowlights, and get a shorter cut.

This approach ensures that your transition to gray hair with extensions appears smooth and realistic while allowing you to enjoy the desired gray look. These products allow you to add gray color to your hair for a day or until your next shampoo. If your lowlights have been applied using a semi-permanent dye, you will want to avoid or protect against heat styling, direct sunlight, and UV rays. To care for your lowlights, you will want to look into a hair gloss, preferably one that has blue tones. This will also mute any orange or yellow brassy tones that may in throughout your gray hair.

So, after looking at many, many gray-haired women on the internet I took the plunge – with the help of my supportive, skilled stylist. Obviously, time has passed, I’ve grown older and wiser and I’ve earned a crown of glory that had been dyed over, time and time again. If you are anything like me, you have a lot of questions about how to begin this gray hair journey. There are some tricks you can use at home to help with gradual fading, but if you’re looking for a quick transition, we recommend you go to a stylist to help with this process. Instead of penetrating the hair shaft, semi-permanent coats only the cuticle, giving you the look you need with less damage done to the hair. If you absolutely must pick up your hot tools, be sure to prep your damp strands with a heat protectant, like the L’Oréal Paris EverPure Sulfate-Free Blow Dry Primer for 48 HR Frizz Control.