Hair Advice at Your Fingertips!

How to embrace the transition to gray hair while going gray?

by
Serena Piper

2. Highlights and Lowlights. Multitone color schemes always work fine for adding depth, which is especially beneficial for thinning hair. And, if you are a natural brunette or your hair is dyed brown, a mix of highlights and lowlights is perfect camouflage for your graying.

I want to go gray. How to do this as painlessly as possible?

Gray hair has undergone a significant reevaluation in the beauty world in recent years. Transitioning to gray hair, dyeing it ash gray, platinum, or cool blonde, has become a trend. This shift allows individuals to escape the continuous cycle of dyeing, bleaching, and combating aging signs. Nowadays, feeling confident and stylish means embracing your beautiful natural hair color, including shades of gray.

There are many ways to embrace your natural hair color as it ages, and each of them is special and interesting. While you can choose from a variety of colors and shades to dye your hair, have you considered returning to your natural hue? Read on to find your newest hairstyle!

1. Dark Underneath Lob. First of all, you need to remember that growing out your natural hair color is not a fast process. And the better this “process” is planned, the easier it will be to survive the rejection of your regular hair appointments. So, let’s check out the most popular and effective techniques and recommendations that will answer all your questions!

2. Highlights and Lowlights. Multitone color schemes always work fine for adding depth, which is especially beneficial for thinning hair. And, if you are a natural brunette or your hair is dyed brown, a mix of highlights and lowlights is perfect camouflage for your graying.

3. Mushroom Hair with Blonde Strips. Moving from brown to ash gray would be quite a mundane choice for your hair change, while this deep taupe shade is far more exquisite and beautifully accentuated.

4. Mixed Ashy Highlights. Aging hair is an amazing chance to create a style with mixed hues. The deep brown lowlights, silver, and ash gray hair highlights deliver a beautiful combo that ladies of all ages would envy.

5. Ashy Ribbons and Lowlights. Your natural color doesn’t always spread evenly, but today ladies know how to turn it to their advantage! Look how beautifully the ashy strands merge with the dark locks and create a unique style.

6. Layered Haircut. Layers are extremely helpful if you want to make all the process as smooth as possible. The texture will enable the hues to blend seamlessly, even when it comes to brown and ashy shades.

7. Wavy Brunette Hair. Here is an example to prove that natural hair looks hot and attractive! Leaving the natural hair color as it is can be a wise decision if you want to stay away from hair damage.

8. Champagne Blonde and Silver Hair. Looking at the before and after pictures is a great inspiration for your own transformation. For instance, this stunning champagne blonde and silver hair color mix is a beautiful example to follow!

9. Dishwater Blonde with Silver Sprinkle. These handsomely feathered locks give us a nice example of transformation with highlights inserted into a light brown base and sprinkled with silver.

10. Side-Parted Gray Bob. Today, there is a huge assortment of dyes that allow women to go back to their natural color gracefully and stylishly: platinum, ash, metallic blonde, and more. First, you need to decide on the desired tone – ‘cause a gray hair dye can sometimes give silver hair a light purple or dark gray shade, and those tints can remain in the hair for several weeks.

11. Salt and Pepper Hair. When gray hair appears uneven and gray strands mix with darker ones you get the so-called “salt-and-pepper” effect. You can also use highlights and lowlights to achieve a similar natural look. Try tinted balms and the technique of gray blending for hair that will allow you to try on a new style without causing much damage to the hair.

12. Platinum Highlights. Natural white hair may seem too bright to some ladies. We suggest achieving a softer look using platinum highlights and lowlights. This way, you will create a dimensional style with smooth gradients.

13. Aging Dark Hair. For a textured and classy style, consider enhancing your gray hair with highlights. Ask your stylist to mix various dark and light shades to blend the natural gray in as evenly as possible.

14. Silver Balayage. This seamless balayage keeps the base brown color close to natural for hassle-free grow-out yet gets the silver intensified toward the front to create an illuminating face frame.

15. Champaign Blonde with Grays. The rule of thumb for ladies striving to wear gray hair without looking old is that they should steer clear of harsh colors. If you have a light brown or blonde base, opt for a classy blend of warm and cool shades with rosy undertones.

16. Contrasting Highlights and Lowlights. A creative mix of highlights and lowlights is another great way to go: this ashy style gains contrast and depth thanks to silver strands peeking out of the darker waves.

17. Ashy and Pearl Blonde. This color combo is not as obvious as the classic salt-and-pepper blend, which is great! Merge the two rarest hues of ash and pearl blonde for a romantic and gentle appearance.

18. Chunky Silver Highlights. Silver hair is something many ladies wish to achieve, no matter the age. This trending hue will look lovely in chunky highlights combined with shadow roots. Wait no longer and give this styling a try!

19. Dark Gray with Silvery Shine. This long layered hairstyle is generously interspersed with super-fine beige and silver babylights to give a smokey feel and soft shimmer to the brunette locks.

20. Dimensional Smoky Gray Waves. Apart from being masterfully debulked with long shaggy layers, this head of smoky hair is made even lighter on the bottom with a more lavish portion of platinum added to the scheme.

21. Salt-and-Pepper Balayage. Whether you have already arrived at a salt & pepper combo or your brown to silver journey is underway, you should definitely consider adding such a stunning balayage to your final look.

22. Neutral Blonde to Ash Gray. Think of the effect you want to achieve at the end of the day: if your aim to dial down your grays, cool-tone blondes will work better than bright silver.

23. Aging Hair with Subtle Lowlights. Although going darker to camouflage grayness may seem counterintuitive, this hair transformation proves that spicing white hair with pepper adds more dimension and equals an elegant look.

24. Dark Charcoal Hair. Lowlights are a lucky find for those ladies who wish to achieve a dark charcoal hair color. Your light gray and silver strands will contrast with the lowlights while looking natural and extremely appealing.

25. Layers and Highlights. Don’t fight the graying of your locks – tame it. Layers and intermittent highlights are the best friends of stubborn gray hair. A stylish and memorable look is guaranteed!

26. Illuminated Black and Gray Hair. If you prefer to emphasize your natural silver strands instead of hiding them, incorporating icy blonde into dark hair will do the job.

27. Rooty Pearl Blonde with Metallic Sheen. This pearlescent gray blonde is a shiny and sophisticated color that comes with plenty of neutral and cool tones and, thus, adopts natural grayness effortlessly.

28. Streaky Gray Brown Bronde. You can rest 100 percent assured that telltale gray strands won’t be visible in such a mass of dark and light, beige and silver streaks, which also infuse the hair with dimension and movement.

29. Muted Balayage. Luckily for us, today’s hair color trends don’t center around block coverage, so you can rock low-maintenance hairstyles where honey and beige shades are interspersed with silver.

Beige Blonde and Silver Balayage
By Jess

30. Side-Parted Wavy Bixie. Gray hair can look youthful after ditching hair dyeing (especially with proper accessories and makeup): hair isn’t damaged by dyes anymore and it becomes healthier and thicker!

31. Platinum Blonde with Depth. Since a suitable hair color for silvery strands should not only blend with your natural strands really well but also provide easy maintenance, shadow roots complementing a bright blonde can tick all the boxes.

32. Pixie with Platinum Streaks. Before the pixie cut, try to refrain as long as possible from hair dyeing. Hair grows out to 1.5 cm per month, thus, after a few months, you will have a complete gray hairstyle and a new exciting look. The bold and sexy feathered hairstyle looks so natural and relaxed. Add shaggy wavy bangs. You’ll love this feminine, flirty look.

33. Brown and Gray Curly Hair. For some women, removing hair color to go gray is a challenge. However, others make the transition from dyed hair look beautiful. Curls are your best friends in showing off a gorgeous blend of colors.

34. Creamy Balayage for Platinum Hair. This soft color palette is made by blending warm and cool tones to land a gray-friendly hairstyle illuminating the face with lighter and glossier money pieces.

Transition to Gray with Warm and Cool Balayage
By Lisa

35. Sandy Blonde Hair Color. If you want to stick to the blonde side of balayage, opt for a sandy shade like this, as it consists of creamy blonde and beige shades merciful to graying.

36. Lob with Chunky Highlights. If you can’t stand waiting and worrying about how your grown-out roots look, you can ask your hairstylist to blend your gray hair with such stylish chunky highlights. This way, you will be able to make this transformation little by little. And no one will notice any striking changes in your appearance.

37. Chin-Length Hair with Highlights. Mixing highlights and lowlights is a concept that has already proven its efficacy. If you opt for it, your new hair color will vary depending on your natural color, taking that obvious grayness away and bringing a sophisticated look.

38. Silver-Brown Hair Color. The contrasting combination of brown and silver is an extremely beautiful way to show the world your new hair style. Visit a beauty salon to achieve this gorgeous ribbon effect.

39. Bright Silver with Lowlights. Incorporating lowlights into your locks is always a fun ride. As your natural silver hair grows, you will see it blend in. Besides, you can easily freshen up your look by adjusting the proportion of darker and lighter tones.

40. Long Brunette Ashy Hair. This girl smartly enhances her first gray hair and embraces a gorgeous multi-tonal color scheme that lands a current look and fills her brunette mane with smoke.

41. Subtle Platinum Ash Gray. This incredible balayage hair color is achieved by mixing ash gray, silver, and platinum hues. Not only is it unusual and eye-catching, but it also adds this smooth sheen to the brown hair underneath.

42. Layered Lob with Blonde Highlights. We all know that less is more, and this layered lob is a great case in point, showing that delicate blonde highlights can safely hide graying while creating a dreamy look.

43. Salt and Pepper Neck-Length Hair. While the salt and pepper color scheme is a favorite among older ladies, there is always a chance to upgrade the look even more, for example, by adding some purple tones to the formula.

44. Bottom Lowlights with Silver Top. Lowlights will help to soften your gray hair journey. They require little maintenance in the future – the only trick is to add lowlights that would pair well with your natural hair color.

45. Soft Platinum-Silver Balayage. Growing out your natural hair may be annoying, especially if it has a strong contrast with your dyed hair. Luckily, current comfy medium hairstyles can help you to fall in love with your reflection in the mirror.

46. Shimmering Greige Balayage. Swap your gray hair dye for this stunning mix of beige, ash, and silver shades, which infuses the hair with a play of light and shadow and lets you embrace your newly grown white strands breezily.

47. Dimensional Multi-Tone Balayage. Ladies growing out their hair should steal this striped look full of silver, hazel, and charcoal shades that lets them incorporate any amount of gray seamlessly.

48. Ash-Toned Hair Blend. Instead of spreading one color all over the head, this artistic job delivers depth and achieves a more seamless effect by including barely-there lowlights into the blonde hair.

49. Brown to Champaign Blonde Melt. Babylights allow you to enjoy smoother transitions, which is perfectly illustrated by this iridescent hair with peach and ashy undertones popping here and there.

50. Contrasting Curly Hair. Check a new salt-and-pepper option. It boasts dimension and an amazing metallic sheen. Mix silver with dark hair. This beautiful combination really has the power to make people stop and stare.

If you’ve been considering embracing your natural hair for a while, now’s the time to let go of any uncertainty and celebrate it!

Comments
  • Barbara
    Reply

    Hello. I have decided to no longer color my hair. I was wondering if the treatment known as balayage would be useful technique to help make this transition a little less “painful”.

    • Rachel
      Reply

      I would go with lowlights as they are much less damaging because they only deposit color instead of stripping your hair of it. It is also way, way less maintenance. Plus the darker base of lowlights easily blends with your natural gray and allows for a smoother transition.

      • Lori Simpson
        Reply

        I have long hair 2 inches below shoulder and the top is now white and the bottom 8 inches dark brown I would like to color it grey what and how do i do it without spending a lotof money

        • Esther Laks
          Reply

          I am going gray, but I would like some curls. Should I take a perm?

          • Vernie
            Reply

            My hair is naturally ethnic type hair.I have been growing an afro now but feel its too young for me.What style should I wear with my hairtype

        • fred
          Reply

          own it and call it an ombre effect !

          • deej
            Reply

            I call it OM-Gray 😉

          • Lisa
            Reply

            Yes! I Love That!!

          • Tammy
            Reply

            😁… Love this!

        • Cat Watson
          Reply

          I am in the same boat🤔
          I was reading about highlights. I’m trying to figure it out.

        • Margaret
          Reply

          Going grey on top of dyed dark blonde wish grey all over

  • Mae Locantore
    Reply

    I have short hair and about 1 & 1/2 inch grey but the rest of hair is dark brown I would like a salt & pepper look

    • Pat
      Reply

      Short hair want to go to a salt and pepper

      • JOAN
        Reply

        go grey

  • Sherry
    Reply

    I want short pixie cut. W salt and pepper color, I have some blonde highlights now

  • Jaygee
    Reply

    Have your beautiful hair styled! Seek out a specialist(not average) salon who will treat your crowning glory with the love and respect it deserves.

  • Karen
    Reply

    I’ve decided not to colour my hair and go grey 5 months now whats the best highlight to blend in my colour is already a light brown

  • Lory
    Reply

    I’m letting my gray win after many years of coloring. it’s very hard to just let go, and I’m having my hair dresser help. Does it defeat the purpose when you add dark gray for dimensions?

  • Lin
    Reply

    Been dyeing my hair dark forever. Want to go gray gradually. BUT my problem is ….my hair is very fine and thin on top. So how can I do that and hide my skin on top. To make it look like I have some hair on top???

  • Carmen Rivera
    Reply

    I want to go grey hair but my hair is thinning and can see the scalp do you think it be okay

    • Deb
      Reply

      I’ve got the same issue, but I feel like the dye is making my hair thinner, so if anything, it will help to not do it every month. Maybe with some hair growth supplements, more will grow in. Good luck to you!