Aaaaah- going GREY! page 4

[AuroraB]

I'm at that stage where I don't have enough salt in the pepper to look elegantly silvery or snowy white. There is just enough grey hairs to look dishwatery. So, I color with henna. It doesn't trash your hair the way the chemical dyes do.

Same here! Question -- does the henna smooth the hair?

Mine are coming in wirey and course, slightly silver. I've had a box of henna coloring in my closet for over a year and just haven't pulled the trigger yet for fear of really messing it all up. I did try just getting highlights to try to disguise/blend the gray that was coming in but I've been told never to use henna before or after salon coloring (ex-husband was a cosmotologist). It's been well over a year since the highlights so I think it'll be fine to use the henna.

I'm just wondering if it smooths long, poofy locks.

[JayGee]

I get my hair professionally colored every 6 weeks. I am 44 and have been graying since about 20. My hairstylist estimates me to be about 80% gray. My mom has gorgeous white hair. When I turn 60, I will stop coloring, but for now, I'll be vain! Plus, my husband said he would rather I keep coloring it than let it revert to my natural gray. Since he's paying, I will keep coloring for now.

[Colloid]

I started graying around 40, mostly gray and thinning rapidly at 48, now (at 49) hair color coming back with a vengeance and not clogging the shower drain with hair after going Primal and adding iodine supplement.

[namelesswonder]

Same here! Question -- does the henna smooth the hair?

Mine are coming in wirey and course, slightly silver. I've had a box of henna coloring in my closet for over a year and just haven't pulled the trigger yet for fear of really messing it all up. I did try just getting highlights to try to disguise/blend the gray that was coming in but I've been told never to use henna before or after salon coloring (ex-husband was a cosmotologist). It's been well over a year since the highlights so I think it'll be fine to use the henna.

I'm just wondering if it smooths long, poofy locks.

It depends on the henna. You want to get good quality stuff without metallic additives. I've used Lush's henna bars a couple of times and my hair felt amazing afterwards. I have fine, straight hair, and the henna made it very soft (hydrated feeling) and thick.

[Graycat]

I am happy to be noticing that so far I only have a few grey hairs. I've thought about the salt and pepper and grey hair that I'll eventually get and I'm inclined to just leave it as is.

[Crabbcakes]

First three grays at 16, salt and pepper at 26, almost totally white at 30 except for the little darkness at the nape, now I am 45. It is familial with me. I have white hair, not gray or silver. I colored blond for a little while while the transition was at its fastest, but the color tore up my scalp (I bled from the scalp no matter what my salon lady did), and it was planned to be temporary anyway while I figured out my new skin-hair tone thing.

Now this is my little activist thing, not to color at all. Why shouldn't white or gray be an acceptable hair color on any head it comes in on??

Mine is trimmed in a cute style, and clean and healthy, and that should be good enough for anybody. For you gals who have men who want you to color, I just don't understand you or them if you do color long term. So many of us have this, it borders on absurd to have all of us hide this.

[seaweed]

i still just have some around my temples which i dye out. my hair is very long and always has been so i have no plans to cut it either. it is a sorta auburny blonde so i dont know how good it would look partially grey and i hated it when it got real blonde by accident after a bad trip to the hairdressers many years ago. so yeah, denial and hairdressing for now.

[Paleobird]

White would be gorgeous, even silvery grey would be fine, but dishwatery brunette-ISH while in the transitional stage doesn't look cute. As soon as I really have enough grey, then, I'm all for all natural. This is an intermediary stage.

About the henna, for my hair, which tends to be very thick and standing up at all angles unmanageably, it makes it wonderfully smooth and sleek.

[geostump]

My hair is fine, soft, curly on top, light waves underneath. My greys are soft as well. My greys are white, dishwater, grey, stubborn as all get out and don't take any color whatsoever. If any other blondes or people with hair like mine have any advice on how to deal with the greys, let me know.

[AuroraB]

Good to know, Paloebird & namelesswonder, thanks!