Many women opt to cover their greying locks with hair dye in an attempt to maintain a youthful appearance, but it’s entirely possible to don grey or silver hair and still look vibrant and young; it’s all about knowing a few essential tips.
Glam Girl Gabi, a licensed hairstylist and beauty influencer with a following of more than 500,000 subscribers on YouTube, shared her wisdom for those looking to love their natural greys.
In a video posted to her channel, Gabi offered her “biggest piece of advice” for those ready to transition away from artificial dyes.
The beauty guru pointed out that while embracing your natural grey isn’t complicated, it’s not as simple as just ditching colouring products.
She advised: “The biggest piece of advice that I have for you if you’re looking into transitioning out of colouring your hair is to start by ashing out your hair.”
She highlighted a common error stating: “Mistake number one is having a warm hair colour contrasting with your grey hair.”
Gabi explained that warm hues like chestnut browns and honey blondes starkly contrast with grey because they are opposite tones.
L’Oreal Professionnel weighed in on the matter, clarifying that ash hair colours, whether blonde or brunette, contain undertones of grey, green, blue, and violet. Ash tones fall on the cooler side of the colour spectrum, devoid of red or orange shades.
Gabi urged: “There are warm colours and there are cool colours and grey is cool, so if you put it beside something warm it looks really bad.”
As for how to avoid this, there are a few methods salons offer, including root smudging. A colourist can blend the natural grey roots with the rest of your hair to create a gradual transition.
Ash blonde and grey highlights are another worthwhile venture, whereby blonde and grey highlights are blended into blonde or brunette hair as it goes grey.
“When you first decide you’re nearly ready to go natural, a step in the right direction would be to start going lighter. That way, the roots grow in a little more gracefully”, claimed Kali Ferrara, a hairstylist and colourist at the Salon Project at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Colour-matched lowlights can also be utilised to soften the contrast; try mushroom brown, ashy lowlights to cheat a seamless blend through your strands. Hair experts warn against going darker than your natural colour, which is what lowlights are usually used for, and instead try to match your non-grey hair colour.
Another quick way to transition to fully grey hair is to grow your roots as long as you possibly can and then get a super-short haircut to remove the leftover colour.
A pixie cut can be chic and low-maintenance, but if you’ve never had short hair, that could be too big of a change. A short bob looks good on just about anyone, it’s usually a safe bet.
Any good stylist will be able to help you determine just how short to go to flatter your face shape, but as a general rule, slimmer faces tend to look great with hair that hits just under the jawbone, while fuller faces may want to go slightly longer – perhaps a few inches below the jaw.