We’ve all been there: four weeks after leaving the salon for a root retouch, and those pesky wisdom highlights have already grown back in. It’s aggravating to be a four-week guest, especially if you’re attempting to hide your gray hair.
But what if there was a look that gave you more time between sessions and did not have a clear growth line as it grew? What if there was a method to combine gray hair with highlights?
What Is Dimensional Hair Color?
Dimensional hair color has been popular for many years. It was created to give your hair a natural look by adding numerous tones. This coloring technique allows for a wide range of looks.
Highlights and lowlights, which are typically applied with a foil, assist blend in with the natural hair color while providing a full-coverage style color. Something as simple as strategically positioned foils can easily cover your gray hair and allow it to grow out for a longer period of time than a standard salon root retouch.
Let’s Talk Options
There are several hair color options available to everyone, but not all of them are appropriate for your hair. When it comes to gray, there are two options: full-coverage color and gray blend. Whether you have to cover your grays all the time or simply want less upkeep with your grays, I’m sure there’s a choice for you in the paragraphs below. What type of gray-coverage individual are you?
Gray Coverage
If you don’t want anyone to know you have gray hair, you can still cover it up in the salon or with temporary touch-ups. Adding highlights to your usual root color can help to soften the rough line as your gray grows in. This will make you feel like you can’t see your few silver sparklers as well because they’ll mix in with the highlights.
Blending Gray Hair with Highlights and Lowlights
Let’s discuss the incredible benefits of blending or transitioning to gray hair using highlights and lowlights. This is a lower-maintenance appearance than a solid color since it blends your gray in seamlessly, eliminating the need to visit the salon every four weeks. It looks more natural and allows your gray hairs to blend into your natural color. Most ladies feel more confidence knowing that in three weeks, they won’t see that “skunk stripe” around the crown of your head, as my mother refers to it.
I often remind my clients that highlights attach to new gray hair and make it appear as if the new grays are just part of the highlight, which not only hides the grays but also blends them in as they grow.
Lowlights darken your hair by utilizing darker tones than your natural color. Highlights, on the other hand, use lighter hues than your original shade, resulting in lighter-colored hair.
Lowlights and highlights combine to create a multi-tonal effect that can help hide any unpleasant colors. A mix of light and dark hair can help to distract from new gray hair growth and provide an overall more natural appearance.
A knowledgeable hairstylist will determine if you require highlights or lowlights for your gray hair. By the way, they are not your only alternatives.
Gray Hair Glossing
A hair gloss treatment is another option to blend your gray and eliminate the line of demarcation at the top of your head! Glosses are semi-permanent, meaning they fade away over four to eight weeks, depending on the brand. You could come into the salon whenever you have a special occasion and need a refresher, or you could come in every eight weeks and maintain it.
Have you noticed that your gray hair is coarser? This is because the cells that make your hair color have completed their cycle, and your hair follicles produce fewer moisturizing oils. Applying a gloss to your grays will actually soften your hair. Glosses are typically very hydrating and shiny. They do offer some dimension because they do not go all the way into the hair strand. It is more of a stain that fades with time and can cover up to 75% of gray hair.
Going Au Naturel
Growing gray hair is often not a graceful process. You either opt to go blonde after coloring your black hair for years, or you let it grow in naturally. What if I told you that there was a simpler way?
Depending on how much gray you have, it might be as simple as adding a few highlights to bring some of that lighter color through your ends and allowing the gray to grow in. Others may find it more difficult and require repeated sessions, but it is still within reach for the majority of individuals.
Adding cool-toned or silver highlights throughout the hair is the ideal approach to allow your gray to fully develop. Allowing your roots to grow out is a multi-step procedure, but with gray highlights and regular maintenance trims, you’ll be there in no time.
Maintaining Faux Gray
You can apply some false gray to help your natural gray grow in and blend in with whatever color your hair is currently. However, it is difficult to maintain the false gray. When you add it — it’s essentially highlights — you’re removing any color from your hair, turning it blond, and then applying the (fake) gray on top of that. This method is highly harsh on the hair, thus the color may only last a short period or may not last at all.
Fortunately, the industry has progressed, and we now have some fantastic products to help keep the color in. There are shampoos and conditioners designed specifically for grey hair. Some contain pigment, which helps deposit more gray onto your highlights and fully freshen the color, but there are other purple-toning shampoos and masks that help to keep those unpleasant yellow tones hair bay.
Even mixing gray hair with highlights and lowlights might harm your hair. The most important thing you can do before and after going gray and beginning the process of allowing it to grow in is to take care of your hair. Protein and bond treatments significantly improve how your hair retains color. If the hair is too damaged by a drastic color change, it may utterly reject the gray you’ve worked so hard to incorporate. Keeping your hair happy and healthy throughout the process is the key to achieving the low-maintenance appearance you’ve been after.
