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.
Last update I combined my sixth and seventh appointment as they were both small updates. This month, I am gonna combine eight and nine even though they are not small updates because this is dragging out. What do I mean by that? Well, my ninth appointment is a solid year in, yet in real life I am two and a half years into this journey. I gotta mush it along. (Clearly that’s a hint that I stuck to it, in spite of my setbacks.)
This is my eight salon visit.
I took a few photos before leaving for my hair appointment today. I have to look at the roots from time to time so I do not get depressed that it hasn’t magically grown three feet overnight and fully transitioned to gray.
And, alas, it has not.
The roots show about six inches or so of growth in most place which makes sense. The last time I had any highlighting done to my hair was 6/7 months prior, and low-lighting was a few months before that.
It was a sunny day when I arrived at my hairdressers, and she made the comment that she noticed the gray as I got out of the car.
She has a real eye for color and detail. I am not certain how much the average person would notice, but it was still reassuring to hear.
She wanted to do some lowlights which I have been against. My hair looks very dark to me, and I do not want it darker. She felt it was necessary though, so I acquiesced.
She also added some highlights.
My only stipulation was that, whenever possible, she not touch the new growth. I want it to grow out as naturally as possible before adding lowlights to my natural white/gray/silver. She agreed.
We talked a bit about the process, her recommendations for keeping the yellow out while I travel, her cautioning me about overuse of a metal detox shampoo as it will strip the toner out, etc.
I mentioned a pixie haircut because I now have several inches of natural growth all over. That was quickly nixed by her (to be honest I wasn’t serious). “After all that work? No.” I laughed.
My next trip is coming up soon and it is several months in Europe. We are going to Scandinavian, Belgium, Netherlands, England, Scotland, and Ireland, and then a transatlantic home with stops in Portugal, Spain, and the Caribbean.
I do have access to a salon on board both ships (we are cruising for 6/7 weeks of this vacation), and I can always stop in a salon. Maybe I should see if Hair Buddha has any appointment available? I have never shied away from visiting a salon while vacationing, but part of the reason I wanted to go gray is so I do not have to stop in a salon if there isn’t time or it isn’t convenient.
When my stylist was putting in the highlights and low-lights she made sure to show me the regrowth. There are some sections of hair that have not been touched by highlights of low-lights and they are a good six inches or so long. That looked very pretty against the low-lights when she was finished.
She also mentioned that I have no breakage and my hair looks very healthy.
We both now believe that the thinning that happened to my hair a few months ago was due to my fall. The body trauma impacted my hair; it thinned out, broke a bit, and just needed to recover. Now that I am (mostly) healed, my hair is no longer in stress (or shock) and it is growing again very nicely.
My stylist was well pleased with my highlights because they “looked like the inside of a mushy banana” when she pulled out the foils.
heh
I knew they were supposed to be banana colored, but I never heard it described quite that way before!!
I know the toner has been icy blonde the last two times I had my hair done, and I have really liked the results. So, she decided to go with that toner again.
When she pulled the towel off my wet hair it was easy to see my natural white/gray/silver coming through. I asked her if my whole head were those colors. It is not. Apparently there is still some pepper and steel gray in my back up near the top.
*le sigh*
I had hoped for it to all be shades of white and gray, but I guess I have a few more years before that happens.
I must admit the low-lights look good. While it is very difficult to see in the photographs, my hair looks to be blonde, dark brown (she went darker with the lowlights this time), gray, silver, and white. In the photos I look like a calico cat, but looking at me in person it is much more just silver and dark brown. She mentioned she wanted to low-light to black, and while it is very dark I do not think it is quite black.
I am very happy with how it looks right now, and if I can keep the yellow away, it should grow out very well before my next appointment in three months.
This is my ninth salon visit:
I went away from August until November on a fairly long trip. We were on land for a few weeks, but most of the time was spent on cruise ships Celebrity and Princess). The same company has the spa account on all ship lines except two (MSC and I never heard of the other line the ship hairstylist told me). They use Kérastase products – which normally makes my hair happy – but not all stylists use the same products, and not all products are used in the same way.
I had my hair washed and styled several times on Celebrity, and that worked out well. They used the Kérastase for colored hair, and my hair looked good and held up.
On the Princess ship, the stylist put on some sort of conditioner on my hair my first appointment which made my hair very, very soft. That was fantastic to touch, but terrible to hold a curl. I went four times to the ship salon, the curls never held, so I canceled the rest of my appointments (we were on for 30+ days) and did my hair myself the rest of the trip.
I used a purple mask several times, and used the Un-Do Goo a few times, too. My hair started to hold a curl by the end of my trip, and when I got home it held fine.
I did not think my hair looks very gray/white/silver, and did not think it had grown much while away… until… I caught a glimpse of my hair in a ponytail out of the side of my eye. I wasn’t expecting it, but wow has it grown! There appears to be a decent amount of new growth, all in the silver/white family.
I am either very used to seeing the gray now and so no longer notice, or that one piece on my side part that doesn’t seem to have grown as much of the rest of my hair is obscuring the new growth. When I pull my hair back, it is now obviously silver or white to me. And, there is a definite demarcation between the high-lights and lowlights, and the silver/white/gray.
It is amazing what we can see once our eyes have been opened. Yes. I still see a lot of blonde and dark brown on the ends, but the top is starting to noticeably come in.
My time in the hairstylist’s chair was long this session – four hours total. She didn’t like the beige-y color that had developed while I was away so did a lot of highlights on me. Little of the gray/silver/white was touched, so that is continuing to grow naturally.
I also got a haircut to take off a few inches of the dark from the back.
My hairdresser noticed right away that my hair had gotten longer and appeared to have recovered from the accident trauma from earlier in the year. Not only was my hair longer, it was thicker and I have a TON of baby hair growing at my crown and throughout my hair. So much so that my hair looks like I have bangs in front and uneven hair lengths in back (no, no breakage). Those baby hairs need a bit more length to do anything with, but the regrowth is noticeable.
My hair, which started at below the middle of my back when I made this decision a year ago, is now cut up to my shoulders. This is the shortest I have had it in a good 10 years, and it is intentionally this short (my next haircut will not come for six months due to travel (unless something happens)).
I am not sure about the color this time. Yes, it was only highlights and toner – the highlights were done with 10-volume so it was a slow process. She was concerned about my hair possibly still being fragile from my accident trauma, and so she was extra cautious. I now have more of the blonde to blend in with my silver and white, but there were a few pieces not highlighted and it is fairly obvious that they are a beige color. Oh well, next time.
My next appointment is in two months. I wanted one more appointment before our next trip and this worked out well. I will be curious if it will be highlights + toner, or just toner. Either way, I am fine with it.
A month later and pulling my hair back looks odd. The blonde/light brown against the white/gray is noticeable to me. I guess it means it is growing out, but it almost looks like a small demarcation line. It only looks like this when I pull it back, so I guess the solution is… don’t pull it back.
So far my hair is doing well holding a curl, not turning yellow, and it feels better.
At the half way point between salon visits my hair looks very blonde with dark highlights to me. Yes, there is a decent amount of gray, just not enough to make me happy a year in to this process. I would honestly call my hair blonde more than gray at this stage.
Hopefully, my next appointment makes me see things differently.
Note: This is the seventh 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 low-lights
● 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
● Transitioning Dyed Red Hair to Gray: All My Steps, After The Fall – This is what happened after I had a major fall.
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