Help Me Go Gray, Gracefully.

I can’t help because I just did it cold turkey. It took a couple of years, and though it’s all done, my hair is very patchy. It’s almost totally brown in the back! It’s an interesting look. But I don’t really care, lol.

Just letting it go is hard at first, but I found a FB group that helped me to feel excited about it, and gave me the courage to be public about it.

Once it starts to go over the side of your head and it’s obvious that you’re not just behind in your coloring appointments, it really gets easier. I love not having to stress about color anymore. I am a silver vixen. 😏

I remember when my mother finally decided to let her hair go gray. She has always had a very short cut, and she just simply stopped having it colored. Her hair was streaked/mixed gray and brown when she died of cancer in 2000.

I had a really wonderful hair dresser who would do anything I wanted (or tried, my hair will not hold a perm) in the way of color or style, though she would give me gentle advice if I was edging toward crazy. About the time I left work on disability retirement, the folks who owned the shop lost their son, and my hair dresser got cancer and had to stop/retire for chemo and health. At that point, I decided no more coloring (I couldn't afford it anyway on my new, less than half my previous salary), and I just went to great clips for a chop job whenever I could afford it. I have some skin conditions, so keeping my hair short is preferable.

A few days ago, I was having so many issues with my skin and my hair (which is now the heavily gray streaked brown my mother had), I walked into great clips and asked for a "number 4 all over," which is the haircut one of my cousins gets every time he goes in. Short, even, done. Well, a "number 4 all over" is basically the visual my cousin gave me as "a gray tennis ball" - it is a shave to about 1/2 inch and it is even all over, but we added a number 2 blade to the back to blend it a little better so it doesn't grow in an overgrowth like an overhanging clif, so to speak. So, I'm as close to a "zero" (bald) as I want to get. My skin is happier, at least. I've actually had three people tell me, unsolicited, that I "rock" the "cut."

Long story short, I just let the gray do its thing.

Purple shampoo...and don't wash it too much as it makes it dry and brassy.

My hair has always been a light blond. When I was in my 30s, it started getting darker so I started getting highlights. Then after seeing my sister's hair from a boxed product from the store, I decided to do the same thing and go with an all over light blond. I kept it like that for several years. Then during the pandemic, I wasn't coloring it and I wasn't going out. My hair grows extremely fast and by the end of the two years, I could sit on it. I hate having long hair. It is a hassle to take care of so as soon as things were lifted in my area, I went and got it chopped off to just barely touching my shoulders again. That is my preferred length, long enough to keep my neck warm and to put up in either a clip or a ponytail. I use a CPAP machine at night and always put my hair into a ponytail holder to keep the straps from the mask in place. What was left after I had it all cut off was very light white/grey, not that much different than the light blond. I love not having to color it anymore. The hair I have now resembles the hair I had as a child, very light and almost white. And not coloring it keeps it healthy.

I have also noticed that as I age, my hair doesn't need washing as often. I used to wash it every day because I always had people standing over me looking at my computer screen as we made decisions about the look of a document. I cannot stand the smell of dirty hair and wanted to make sure anyone that was required to stand that close to me wasn't getting a sniff of sour smelling hair! Once I had to stop working, I started washing it every other day. Then I noticed it wasn't oily at all and I started going 3 or 4 days between washing it. It seems the older I get, the less oil my scalp produces and the longer I can go without washing it. Well, unless I have worn it up and used hairspray on it. That needs to be washed out or it will dry my hair to the brittle stage.

You know, you can have your hairdresser actually ADD grey to your hair to blend it in faster. I've watched YouTube videos where people go in with that demarkation line and he adjusts the color of their darker hair to where it blends in so much better. A few cuts down the road and they won't have to have any blending done at all anymore. I would have gone that route if I hadn't started out with such light blond hair to start with.

My hair was probably shoulder-length when I decided to go grey. I let it grow for 6 weeks and then got a pixie cut. Another six weeks and another cut and all of the colour was gone - quick and painless.

So, my advice is to suck up the short hair for another month and a half, and then grow it out.

I'm starting this journey, as well. There's a great Facebook group called Going Gray Gracefully with some really supportive women and lots of advice, too.

Good idea -- it was a LOT of chemicals to get my colored hair stripped and turned gray. My hair can take it, but it wasn't very good for it.