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.
Returning to the hairdresser in month three of my gray hair transition I am happy to report the low lights were intact, so my hairdresser decided to just highlight. Because she did not have an assistant working with her, she finished the back of my hair first. She then did the top. Before proceeding to the sides of my hair, it was a trip to the sink to remove the foils from the back of my hair and give it a wash. She then bundled up that hair, sent me back to her chair, and finished foiling the rest of my head.
Transitioning Dyed Red Hair to Gray: All My Steps, Part 3
When everything was cooked properly, the rest of my foils were removed, my hair washed, and a silver toner was applied.
I actually gasped out loud (and so did the salon owner) when the towel was removed from my hair and I saw the transformation in the mirror. I immediately saw the gray/silver and the blonde. I was much, much lighter than the previous visits, and the gray/silver was more pronounced to my eyes.
I have a halo of white around my head and the rest of my hair received silver/gray highlights via the toner.
Hubby said I look blonde.
I do look blonde … and light brown, gold, dark brown, and a teeny-tiny bit of red as well as silver/gray and white. I am still in the calico cat stage, but lighter and grayer. My hair is not as gray as I expected it to be, but the gray/silver/white is definitely there and noticeable to me.
What is interesting is the front of my hair that is white no longer looks bald. It is backed against gray/silver/blonde, so the optical illusion of baldness no longer is there. The white hair is white against light instead of white against red or brown, so not the contrast that lead to the “bald spot” optical illusion of the last few rounds (and against the original red hair color).
This was my shortest time in the chair to date – I was in and out in 4 hours, and that included a haircut and blow-out.
Some of the brown and gold is quite pronounced, but there is no orange and I was told that that is a very good thing. I was instructed to K18 (which I do) and use at least one wash of purple shampoo per week after the first week (I wash my hair twice per wash, so of those four washes (two per time), one wash needed to be purple shampoo). That is to try and keep the brass-y at bay as purple shampoo is a toner. I will be interesting to see if I am successful.
The next salon appointment will be in four weeks. She wants to tone only. If that does not work, we are back to highlighting, but she appears confident that toning my hair gray/silver (icy blonde) will be how to transition me to gray/white-ish so a natural grow out can happen without a stark demarcation line.
At this point, I see gray and silver in my hair, and there is no hiding it. The front of my hair is white, as well as the sides. There are some very long pieces that are gray. I asked her why that happens – some blonde, some gray/silver and she told me it depended on how porous the hair was to pick up the gray/silver toner.
I am “almost” to the point of being able to grow out without a ton of highlights or low-lights, but not quite. I expect to tone frequently while my hair is a dyed silver (icy blonde) and not a natural gray/white – at which point I am told I will be able to tone less frequently.
Going in, I expected this gray transitioning process to take a year, and I am at now three or five months, depending on how you count it. It is now January, I stopped coloring in August, and started the color transition process in October. It will be interesting to see how it plays out, and how close the timeline I come to what I expected to happen, and how close to that year mark it will be for me to transition to gray.
Two weeks after the last procedure I had gotten the sads. I walked into the bathroom to brush my hair, and the gray/silver/white was not very noticeable to me. At all. I was a bit frustrated that the process wasn’t going faster. I had started growing my bangs out in May after my original hairstylist in Florida had cut them so short that I had taken to calling them “Mamie Eisenhower bangs.” My bangs were now down to my chin, and they had been trimmed twice, so why wasn’t my gray hair (nearly) as far along!?
And then I pulled my hair back into a ponytail.
And, I readjusted my thinking. Wow wee, was there gray/silver/white. I could actually see how this was going to grow out, and I loved it!
I then walked out into the hall and saw Hubby standing under the light and made mention of the tinsel in his hair.
Even though there is “no such thing” as black hair, my husband has black hair. He also has very, very little gray, so when the light hits his hair just so and I saw a few strands of sparkle, I mentioned it. (His father passed away in his early 70s and only had gray hair at the temples and sideburns, so I expect Hubby to very slowly go gray.)
Hubby looked at me like I was crazy and said something along the lines of “have you looked at your hair lately?” So I knew I was not imagining things when I pulled my hair back and saw all the gray/silver/white. And, it made me feel better that the process was coming along.
I have read a lot of gray transitioning experiences as well as watched a ton of videos on gray transitioning and recognized that it was not an easy process. People have doubts. Heck, I have had doubts. Many people started the transition and then went back to coloring their hair before going fully gray. And many people stopped the transition and continued to dye their hair forevermore.
I did not want to give up as what has been done to my hair to get it to the place it was now (no longer red, more blonde/silver/gray/white/brown) was a lot of effort and work. Something as simple as pulling my hair back allowed me to see just how far along in the process I really am, and keeps me going on this journey to go gray.
I took a picture for a friend one day to show her my white sides. This was a few weeks after my third trip to the salon.
Note: This is the third in a series of posts about my gray transition journey. I hope you will stay with me for my monthly update on the highs, and lows, of transitioning to grey/silver/white. My multicolored hair journey! You can read my initial post here, and my second post on gray transitioning is here.
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