11 weeks since my last coloring: a photo-update

It's now been 11 weeks since my last coloring (which I guesstimated to be around January 15th of 2013), and pretty much everybody in my entourage now knows I'm going gray.

The positive response I'm getting from everyone is absolutely mind-blowing and even a little overwhelming. But in a good way! 

Now, every single time I meet people, they do look at the top of my head still; not in this awkward embarrassed-for-me kinda way, but in a truly eager way to see progress and how my voyage into grayhairdom is evolving.

Some would say that I have now achieved a somewhat inelegant skunk-stripy state, but I beg to differ. Yes, I have about an inch and a half of gray roots, showing through a fairly contrasted warm dark chestnut canopy, but I have decided that it is not a problem at all. I embrace it! I even showcase it by purposefully parting my hair straight through the now completely white patch on the left side of my forehead. Might as well! I think it's best to take this in-your-face approach so that people don't imagine for one second I don't realize what's going on on top of my own head. This way, they know and don't have to wonder if I forgot to go to the hair dresser :)

I'm also starting to play with different hair styles that emphasize the color contrasts I have going on. To tell you the truth, I cannot wait for my white stripes to grow to full length!

This journey is turning into a lot of fun, which is something that even a couple of weeks ago I would not have thought possible :) I'm beginning to realize that even though my hair is graying, it is emphasizing the youthfulness of my face! Go figure...

Anyway, enough rambling! I leave you with a few pictures from the past two weeks :)

----------

10 weeks since last coloring (jan 15th 2013)

11 Weeks since my last coloring (Jan 15th 2013)

two weeks into it

It's been two weeks since I decided to go gray and not dye my hair anymore. Eight weeks since my last coloring.

Here are some pictures so you can get an idea what it looks like now.

-------------

Week 1 of Project Going Gray:

  

  

Week 2 of Project Going Gray:

a little color history

The decision to go gray has not been an easy one, and was certainly not made overnight.

As I was saying in my introductory post, I've been dying my hair since I was 16 years old and I'm 33 now. You can do th emath and realize that there is a long history there. Complex too... 

I've always had long hair (longest: buttocks, shortest: shoulder-length long bob, which for me is the equivalent of a buzz cut). Most of my adult life, my hair has been mid-back length; that's where it's most comfortable for me. 

Here's a quick (?) history of my hair, so you can get an idea where I'm coming from.

My natural color is a dark brown, not exactly very warm, but not mousy either. At the age of 15, I did the unthinkable and cut my long buttocks-length natural hair into a long bob. Oh, did I mention I also went blonde on that occasion? Worst mistake of my life. I've always regretted this decision. but oh, well. Not much could be done after that but wait it out! At least, it wasn't drugs or cigarettes, right?

I then started to dye my hair brown again for a few years. It was a very long time ago, and I can't say for sure if it was semi-permanent or permanent, but I did this in a salon for years.

At the age of 23, I moved in another country for graduate school. My financial conjuncture made it impossible for me to keep up with the demands of a monthly salon visit, which had become necessary as my first grays were showing up early to the party. So I switched to drugstore semi-permanent dye for a few years. 

In 2008, I started using Lush's Caca Brun henna bars, as I was looking for a more natural solution. I was tired of the drugstore coloring kits, and kept up with the henna routine for about a year and a half. In late 2009, my sister once told me that my hair was starting to look green from the continuous use of henna. I will admit that because my hair was showing a lot of grays, and growing fairly fast, I had to reapply every month. Perhaps that particular brand is not adapted to frequent use? Anyway, no need to say that it scared me, and I immediately stopped using henna. I must say that my hair at that point was extremely healthy and that the grays were showing like very subtle copper highlights in a mane of deep rich mahogany hair. Beautiful, but greenish too.

So in late 2009, I started to go to the salon again, as I had moved back home after graduation and while I was waiting to start a new job in yet another country a few months later. For a few months, I used Inoa color. I was super happy with it; it was a permanent color, covering the grays really well, and almost my natural color. Very natural result, very happy customer.

Until 2010... When I moved to a new country, new city, new hair dresser... Finding a new hair dresser can be a lengthy process, and unfortunately for me, there were only two salons here that carried the Inoa products. I chose one of them, and started to go there for a few months. I think their colorist was probably not the best, and she was adding too much "warmth" in the mix. After a few months, I saw a picture of my hair on a social media site, and realized that holy crap my hair was very red! I had not seen that coming! You know, this violet-pinkish undertone that hair dressers for a reason unbeknownst to me find attractive. I decided right then and there to stop with this salon and switch back to home-coloring.

It was the summer of 2011, I started on a Garnier Herbashine regimen. I opted for a semi-permanent dye, because it lets gray hairs shine through the color (even though it does cover them, they still show as very natural highlights, in my case a lovely golden blonde on a canopy of dark brown -I used the color 500, virtually my exact natural color). I also figured that should I ever decide to go gray, it would be easier to do so from a semi-permanent dye than from a permanent one.

in March 2013, I made the decision not to dye my hair anymore. It's been almost 17 years of coloring, and I'm kind of tired... It's expensive, and the more I do it, the harder it's going to be to come off of it. I still have enough pigmented hair around my face and on the top of my head that I can hide unpleasant roots by playing with my part until the semi-permanent dye fades away.

I hope this blog will help you make the decision to go gray. 

I'm doing it!

That's it! I've had it! I'm stopping dying my hair.

While it may not seem like such a big deal to a lot of people, it really is for me. I've been dying my hair since I was 16 years old. I've seen it all: dark brown, light brown, henna. You name it, I've done it.

I've also had gray hairs since my (very) early 20s. I've really hit the genetic jackpot in the follicular pigmentation department... It definitely runs in both sides of my family. Everybody's been gray very young, and I'm no exception. 

While it is widely known that the transition into gray hairdom is easier for light and short haired people, I simply refuse to cut my cherished dark brunette mid-back canopy to allow for a slightly less awkward change. 

I'm not only talking about the esthetic part of that transition, but also the emotional wave that is sure to overcome me once I find myself with a head full of gray hair. I'm 33 years old, and I must say that I am very afraid that going gray will make me look (and feel?)... old. And while I've made peace with a more targeted skin care routine years ago, I'm still scared of the gray mane...

The idea of going gray has been titillating me for about three years. I've considered stopping dying my hair cold turkey, but then I crumbled under the (social?) pressure of hiding my aging process. I did try to stop about 6 months ago, but after 6 weeks of not dying, the inch of silver got to me and I resumed with the chemical beauty-treatments.

About two weeks ago, on March 1st 2013, I decided to go gray. For good. It was a very strange day. At first I thought: "oh, what the heck! It's not that bad just yet... I still have a lot of dark pigmented hair... It'll be like silver highlights. If I don't like it, I can just go back to dying my hair." 

I knew it was a very probable thing that I would cave at the first signs of unease from my interlocutors. You know what I'm talking about. The unease of people who while they talk to you (and I'm sure they do not mean anything by it; their eyes are just attracted to the sparkling silver on your head) let their eyes wander to the top of your scalp. "Does she know her roots are showing?" "Wow, she really needs to go to the hair dresser"... Yes, we can tell those thoughts are going through your head.

So I took to my social media site, and posted this status: "Attention friends and family: I'm going to try to go gray. I ask you to please not make too much fun of me (at least not to my face) during the sure-to-be-very-awkward growth phase and not judge me if I cave and dye my hair again (which is likely to happen)! Thanks in advance ;)" 
The response I got from this post was simply amazing! So much support, it was overwhelming. It definitely helped ease my mind about doing this, and I knew this time was a good one, because I'd come out and asked people for support.

I decided to document this process in this blog because after lengthy research on the internet, I found very little information on people who did this without cutting or bleaching their hair. Every single site I've come across preaches going blond or pixie. How about us who do not want any of those radical options?!

I will be posting photos of my progress and I look forward to having interesting discussions with you!

Please feel free to ask me questions, post comments, tips and tricks if you've gone this way before :)