Seeing your first gray hair can make some people panic. After all, most associate graying hair with getting older unless you purposely color it to rock a new look. However, finding those first silver strands can occur as early as your teen years. More often though, the first signs of premature gray hair are more common in between ages 30 and 40. Before you start plucking out those offending strands or run to the drug store or beauty salon for hair coloring, here is what you may want to do when spotting those first signs of graying hair.
You have more freedom in how you can cover the hair since this isn’t that much of a problem yet. One suggestion is concealing those few random strands with a root concealer before considering whole head hair coloring. Some of those products are like makeup that you brush on like a wand to touch up the graying hair. Root concealers also come in tinted powders, color sprays or a wax crayon. The only fault with using a root concealer is that it is only a temporary measure that you use like makeup.
Another thought that can help hide those first signs of graying while subtly changing your color is adding highlights. Brunettes have a wide range of colors to experiment within the brown family from caramel, toffee, honey, etc. You can weave those highlights along with slightly darker tones in that color family with lowlights and can give the face beautiful life to freshen up beauty. Blondes can have sensational results mixing shades with palatinum, gold, caramel, honey, and sandy tones just to give you an idea. Now is the time you may want to visit a salon for a hair coloring technique like balayage for the most natural sun-kissed effect with those highlights and lowlights.
These temporary methods discussed for covering graying hair seems too much of a bother for some people. If so, then you’ll find yourself debating over temporary, semipermanent and permanent hair color. With temporary hair color rinses or hair color mousse, you can expect to hide those grays for about one or two shampoos. The reason is because this form of color doesn’t penetrate the hair shaft as a semipermanent or permanent hair color.
Using the semipermanent hair color is typically kinder on the hair without ammonia as many permanent hair coloring products contain. This type of hair dye will usually last about four weeks, depending on how often you shampoo your hair. If you wash your hair every day, you may have less time keeping that hair color intact.
Permanent hair color lasts a bit longer about six to eight weeks before you’ll want to recolor. The only thing that I want to point out is the stronger chemicals in this type tend to also make the hair brassy or faded looking toward the end with less of a shine. Also, the hair is harder despite daily conditioning so you’ll fall into this trap to keep recoloring your hair.
As discouraging as that thought may be, here’s something that can give you longer time covering those gray strands without using permanent hair color to dye the whole head. Applying only the permanent hair color close to your natural color or slightly lighter to where the gray hair is showing can be a great alternative. In fact, it is easier to do going to the beauty supply store and picking up a tint brush to brush it on. You’ll find this a great gray hair solution without subjecting the rest of your hair to a slew of chemicals to keep you and your hair as healthy as possible.
By the way, if you start using a semipermanent hair color and then decide the very next time that you want to switch to permanent hair or vice versa can damage your hair. I had a friend that thought it would be fine to do just that and lost a lot of her hair. I don’t want to frighten you, but keep this in mind to possibly prevent your own hair disaster.
These few gray pointers should help you feel more confident because seeing those first wiry strands can be upsetting.
