This is my gray hair transition journey. You too can learn how to transition from dyed red hair to natural gray with a clear, step-by-step process. Tips for blending, maintenance, and embracing your gray journey.
Since my last update was so small, I decided to combine my sixth and seventh appointments into one post to start moving things along. It also helps with the story as my fall two months prior drastically changed my hair and my growth. I’ve read that a trauma to the body can impact hair growth, and now I can honestly say I have lived that.
This is my sixth salon appointment, and my last hair appointment for two months. We are traveling (Spain) and I know I will not be having any work done on my hair besides a few blowouts on a cruise ship.
My hairdresser toned and when she pulled off the towel I gasped… it finally looked gray!
The photos do not do it justice for how much better it looked to me. I also had another few inches lopped off knowing it would be a few months before I would have another haircut.
My intention going forward is no more low-lights (dark) until it becomes apparent I really need them to break up the white/gray/silver in my hair.
As far as a mid-appointment update, there isn’t one, sorry. This is my hair on the ship. It doesn’t look at all gray, and that was only a few weeks after my salon visit.
For my seventh salon visit on this transition, it has been two months since I had any work done at the hairdresser. We were traveling during that time, first on a transatlantic cruise east, then through Spain. I think I did myself a real disservice not bringing a moisturizing mask with me. I did bring K18, but when it ran out, it ran out, and this turned out to be a bad decision. A very bad decision. When I got home my hair was yellow-ish, and dry.
My first wash home I ended up using Olaplex 3 (before shampooing). The next wash was a purple shampoo, and a purple mask. The purple shampoo and mask got quite a bit of the brassiness out and really helped make my hair softer (note: there are people whose hair dries out using purple shampoo. I used it for years as my cleansing shampoo and never had an issue, but that was pre-fall.)
There appears to have been hard water where we were staying in Spain, and while I did have my hair blown and treated on the cruise ship, I did not visit a hair salon while on land, even with Hubby encouraging me to do so (he knows I love getting my hair washed and styled at a salon!)
To my eyes, my hair did not look like it grew very much. I can only see the gray/silver/white when I pull my hair back, although to be fair – there is a good amount of white framing my face that I am now used to, and could be gray-blind (is that a term?)
At this point, I am about nine months into my gray transition and wish it were complete. In reality, the grow out portion of my hair is only a few months in. This is due to the process of removing the red out and get my hair to a grow out, non-demarcation, color.
I think I watch too many YouTube videos and Facebook reels that highlight 8-10 hour white/gray transitions, and get a little depressed that my hair has not transformed so quickly. Sure, going from red to white is not fast or easy, but I had hoped to be further along in the process.
I noticed I get unhappy that this process has not been a faster transition every few months. That just reinforces to me that my trying to have grown out my hair naturally from red to white/gray/silver sans color transition would never have happened. I’d have been back in the stylist chair asking for a dye job very quickly.
My hair had thinned out a lot at the ends, and I noticed it about 3-4 weeks prior to my salon visit. I knew I was going to need another cut this time as the ends really looked scraggly to me.
I told my stylist that I no longer wanted to touch the roots. At some point, I needed to bite the bullet and let the natural gray/white/silver grow in. We are here.
My hairdresser was pleased that there was no line of demarcation at the part or pulled back, but she was fussing in the back. She also did not like how much yellow was in my hair in spite of my purpling it (toner lasts 4-6 weeks, this was 10 weeks from my last tone).
She agreed I needed a haircut, and so took off another 4″ or so from the length. I think I’ve had over a foot of hair cut off since starting the gray transition (includes new growth). I do not think my hair has been this short since I decided to grow it longer many years ago.
As mentioned, the back ends of my hair were so thin that a cut was necessary, even though I had two cuts just prior to leaving for Europe. My stylist thought the ends finally gave up the ghost due to the bleaching process. I thought it was because I did not do much to my hair in Europe. And then I remembered… my trauma from my fall a few months ago. Supposedly, any time you have trauma to the body it can impact your hair (my whole head of hair feels thinner). It is six months for a hair cycle though, and this was at the 3-to-4 month mark, soooo maybe? My guess? It is a combo of those three issues.
I have always had a lot of hair so it will be interesting to me to see if it grows back thick again (I have fine hair, but had a lot of it).
In addition to cutting, my stylist also toned my hair. No lifting, no low-lights. After a consult with her colleague they came up with a silvery/icy blonde toner. In person, my hair looks like it is pretty gray – except in the front. My hair around my face is fairly uniformly white naturally, the toner darkens it. It will be interesting to see how long the toner lasts.
I can tell how much my hair has grown since starting this process about 10 months ago since the hair by my ears is solid white and over 5” long. That tracks as that one area has not been lightened with foils since the first lightening and so I can tell how long my white/gray/silver hair would be if I did not move from red to calico cat, and if I had allowed it to grow out naturally without transitioning color. (I’d have dyed it if I had had to do this without a color transition!)
I have one more hairdresser appointment left before we head back to Europe for 10 weeks (UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia). When we return from that trip, I will be a year into this process, and will have two hairdresser appointments before we head back out on our travels (New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Japan). As I said, one of the reasons (but not the main reason) I wanted to go gray is to make traveling without getting my hair done possible. While I loved getting my hair done around the world, it was not always possible even using Goldwell (Spain would have been difficult, and South America impossible (there are no Goldwell salons in South America)).
Update: I am halfway between appointments, approximate 4 weeks from my last service. I stretched the service due to when we are leaving on vacation. I may regret not doing my last appointment closer to my leave date (and tucking in a third appointment), but what is done is done.
My hair looks and feels very good, but thin.
We have a water filter on our showerhead and I really think it helps to remove minerals from the water. I have purple shampooed every other week, use a clarifying shampoo those other weeks, and am faithfully using K18. I have not masked yet (lazy) or used Olaplex-3 (lazy) and probably should.
My hair has not (yet) yellowed, and the toner seems to be holding up.
I do have four weeks until my next appointment, so it should be interesting to see what it looks like before I go in.
Note: This is the sixth in a series of posts about my gray hair transition journey. I hope you will stay with me for my monthly (or quarterly) updates on the highs, and lows, of transitioning to grey/silver/white. My multicolored hair journey!
● Transitioning Dyed Red Hair to Gray: All My Steps This is my initial post that includes all the in-depth research I did when coming to the decision to go gray.
● Transitioning Dyed Red Hair to Gray: All My Steps, Part 2 Lots and lots of highlights and lowlights
● Transitioning Dyed Red Hair to Gray: All My Steps, Part 3 more highlights, and finally some gray!
● Transitioning Dyed Red Hair to Gray: All My Steps, Part 4 The start of visible natural gray.
● Transitioning Dyed Red Hair to Gray: All My Steps, Part 5 – A bad month
● If you enjoyed this post, be sure to sign up for the Ann’s Entitled Life weekly newsletter, and never miss another article!
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