Studio A Hair by Angie

Today, women who want to hide their grays have many options.

For example, there are demi- and semi-permanent hair color options that are ammonia-free, and, therefore, less damaging, as well as permanent color, a stronger cocktail of chemicals that keeps the color longer. (Semi-permanent color typically fades in about a dozen shampoos, while demi-permanent color lasts twice as long. These options are best for those whose head of hair is about one-quarter gray.)

In addition, there’s a completely different contingent of women ready to get their gray on, but whose husbands don’t want them to.

Either way, there’s no getting around the stereotype that gray is “distinguished” on gentlemen and “dowdy” on ladies. “The high-level women I consult with say, ‘I can’t let it grow out now. It won’t work in the boardroom. That’s true in reverse.

Steps to a Color-Free Future

Therefore, if you’ve been coloring your hair regularly but feel ready to take the gray plunge, realize that growing it out isn’t going to be a quick and easy process.

Firstly, get a consultation with a good colorist, preferably one who has helped a lot of women slide into silver.

Secondly because your look is going to be one of “transition” for a while, choose your timing carefully and plan to be patient. You don’t want to start growing out your color right before an important presentation or social event.

Tips on How to go Gray Naturraly

• 1. Go shorter. A different cut helps to eliminate a bulk of the hair you’re trying to match or catch up to — it also introduces the element of new.
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  • 1. Go lighter. Ease into gray by going lighter first, says Phillips, who recommends starting that process as early as possible. This eliminates and/or lessens the demarcation between regrowth and pigments that you’re applying.
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    • 1. Add lowlights. Instead of doing a full base color, start doing lowlights — that is, instead of coloring all of the hair, re-pigment hair that’s your base color in strands as opposed to in full. “There are several benefits to this,” Phillips says. “It buys you more time between appointments and it can look very natural — not like you’ve gone gray overnight.”
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      • 1. Temporarily cover new gray growth. Within five days, you start to see the shadow of roots; by week four, they’re obvious. In response, the hair-care industry has created a number of products to cover you up in between appointments. You can use a crayon-like cover-up stick from Roux; mascara wand–type color applicators, such as Generation Klean’s Gray Disappear; spray-on hair color powders, like Bumble and Bumble’s; and rinses and foams, including a line from British hair guru John Frieda.