Growing out gray hair can feel overwhelming. Will you look good? What if you don’t like it? And more importantly, how do you naturally grow out gray hair? If you’re interested in learning how to let your hair go gray gradually, then you’re not alone. Many women are switching out dyeing their roots for natural silver tones.
In this article, we’ll share how to naturally let your hair go gray. We’ll cover the best haircuts, styling methods, and tips for transitioning to gray hair.
How to Know if You Should Let Your Hair Go Gray
If you’re hesitating about unlocking the silver vixen in you, here are a few pointers to know if you’re ready:
- You have gray roots – If your roots grow in dove gray tones, it might be time to embrace your new hair color.
- You have silvery streaks – Gray streaks are a sign your hair is transitioning, and you might prefer your hair to be a cohesive color.
- You’re tired of dyeing your hair – Silver hair involves much touching up. So, if you’re bored of dyeing your hair, going gray is for you.
- You want to age gracefully – Aging is natural, and you don’t have to hide it. Instead, welcome your gray hair with open arms to feel the best version of yourself.
How to Know What You’ll Look Like with Gray Hair
Everyone looks great with gray hair. But silver looks best with an updated haircut, wardrobe, and makeup to complement your locks. Read on to discover how to let your hair go gray naturally and embrace the new you.
How to Let Your Hair Go Gray
1. Talk With Your Stylist
If you want to go gray, the first thing to do is talk to your stylist. They’ll know how to style your gray hair to suit your face shape and personality. They can also suggest the best haircuts to complement your silver hair. We’ll cover some of our favorite haircuts for gray hair next.2. Find the Right Haircut
Your haircut can make or break any hair color, especially natural gray locks. There isn’t just one haircut for everyone, but a wide array depending on your hair type, face shape, and personal preference.Best Haircuts for Gray Hair
Choosing a new haircut can be tricky, so here are our top haircuts for gorgeous gray hair.
- Sleek Gray Bob
Silver bobs are timeless, easy to style, and are a perfect low-maintenance look. You can go for a blunt cut, add choppy bangs, or keep it feathery soft. Ask your stylist to help you with the details, and finish with Viviscal Thickening Serum.
- Stylish Pixie Cut
A pixie cut is a great option if you’re growing out your grays and want to start fresh with shorter hair. A big chop cuts down on transition time! Plus, pixie cuts are ideal if your hair is thinning. Adding layers will give it dimension, as will pairing the style with Viviscal Thickening Shampoo, which promotes fuller, thicker, healthy-looking hair±.
- Swooping Silver Layers
If your gray hair is falling a little flat, then layers will create fullness and movement. They can complement your face and stop your silver hair from looking dull and lifeless.
- Long and Luscious Gray
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to have short hair if it’s turning gray. Long gray hair looks stunning and is an unusual option to stand out. Whether you want your hair length below your shoulders, armpits, or down your back is up to you. Work on growing your silver locks and showing them off to the world.
- Salt and Pepper Merwaves
Soft waves are perfect for a natural but sophisticated look. You can ask for subtle long layers or make the waves messy and tousled with short, choppy layers. Finish with Viviscal Thickening Serum, a lightweight leave-in treatment that coats each strand without frizz, leading to thicker, fuller-looking hair^^.
- Gentle Layered Bangs
Adding bangs is ideal to give your gray hair volume and depth, and there are so many options. Sweeping, layered side bangs create a soft look. But you can also opt for wispy bangs or a heavy fringe to frame your face.
- Blunt Cut
Whether you have long hair, a bob, waves, or straight stands, a blunt cut is a great way to look edgy without going overboard. If you don’t want all of your hair cut straight across, then ask for blunt bangs and feathered layers.
3. Frequent Trims
When hair loses its pigment, it dries out and becomes brittle, snapping off easily. Therefore, trimming your silver strands regularly is essential for great-looking gray hair.
Your hair stylist can also advise you on how to go gray naturally. They may suggest blending the gray with the rest of your hair color or cutting dyed hair for a seamless transition. If you have silver streaks, a stylist might recommend tidying them up to frame your face. Alternatively, they could accentuate them with highlights until the rest of your gray hair catches up.
4. Be Patient – It Takes Time to Transition
After dyeing your gray hair, returning to its natural color will take a while. And if you’ve just started going silver, you must wait for the rest of your locks to catch up. This can be a frustrating and challenging time. But the transition is easier if you know how to let your hair go gray and still look good.
How to Let Your Hair Go Gray GracefullyFiguring out how to gradually let your hair go gray is tricky but not impossible. Follow the advice below to nurture your gray hair and allow it to grow naturally.
- Get a transitional haircut – A short haircut with soft layers will blend hair colors, making it the perfect option to transition to your gray hair. Ask your stylist what type of short haircut would complement your face, and don’t be afraid to tell them what you like!
- Get the big chop – Understanding how to let your hair go gray after coloring is challenging. But getting your hair cut short means you don’t have to wait too long for your roots to grow. If you don’t want to get rid of all of your length, get regular trims to remove colored hair gradually.
- Dye your hair gray – Ask your stylist to dye your hair a soft gray or get silver highlights until your natural color shines through. It’s also the ideal choice if you have strands of gray hair that need blending.
5. Update Your Shampoo and Conditioner
Gray hair is prone to dryness and breakage, so you need gentle products that moisturize fragile hair strands. Salt and pepper hair is also finer. Therefore, opting for hair-loving products that boost thickness and volume will help you embrace your new and natural color.
Formulated with biotin, keratin, and marine collagen, Viviscal Thickening Shampoo gently cleanses hair, and Viviscal Strengthening Conditioner lightly conditions hair. When used together, they leave hair looking thicker and fuller.
6. Feel Confident
Embracing silver locks empowers you to become unapologetically yourself. But choosing to go natural after years of dyeing your hair may feel challenging. That’s why we recommend checking out these great tips to feel confident when growing out gray hair.
Discover Makeup for Gray Hair
If you want sultry gray tones, ensure your makeup suits your hair color. The wrong makeup can make you look orangy, washed out, or ashy. So, select products that complement your shade of gray hair.
How to choose makeup for gray hair
You can discover what makeup looks best by identifying your undertone. There are three types of undertones: warm, cool, and neutral. Undertones usually refer to your skin but are also present in gray hair. Your natural skin and hair undertones are the same. White, silver, and ash-gray hair are on the cooler spectrum. Blonde-gray, soft dove gray, and salt and pepper are warm tones.
The easiest way to decipher your undertone is to look at the underside of your wrist. If you have purply blue veins, then you are likely cool. If they lean toward green, you have a warm undertone. You're neutral if it’s a mix (or hard to decipher).
- Warm tones look incredible with honey, cream, gold, reds, corals, and teal. For example, you might choose a foundation with a honey hue, a coral blusher, and red lipstick.
- Cooler undertones are beautiful with bright and highly pigmented colors, such as purples, deep greens, silver, and pinks. Your foundation may have a pink undertone, which you can pair with emerald eyeshadow.
- Neutral tones are the lucky ones and suit almost any color, including peach, lilacs, blues, and white. An excellent makeup option is a foundation with a peachy undertone and any other color you choose.
Define your brows to elevate gray hair
Eyebrows highlight your bone structure, but these features can disappear when your hair loses pigment, making you appear older. You can counterbalance the problem by darkening your gray brows to add vibrancy and youth.
Refer back to your undertone and decide what brow color looks best. A deep golden shade is excellent for warm tones, while darker browns suit cooler shades. If you're neutral, you can go for either.
Make your eyes stand out against your silver strands
Gray hair can wash out your natural features, so accentuating your eyes is a must. Coat your eyelashes in mascara to make your eyes appear larger. Black mascara creates a dramatic dynamic against cool-toned gray hair, whereas brown creates a softer look.
Apply soft eyeliner in charcoal gray, nighttime black, or chocolate brown. Then, finish with an eyeshadow that suits your undertone to make your eyes pop against your gray hair.
Revamp Your Wardrobe to Suit Your Shade of Gray
If you’re ready to start growing out gray hair, you may need to update your wardrobe. Although your clothes may look flattering against your current hair, sticking to the same fashion choices can drain you of color when you switch to silver.
Fashion for gray hair
The critical thing to remember when selecting a new wardrobe is you need colors that complement your silver shades. You don’t want anything that makes you appear dull or washed out. Here are our top fashion tips for gray hair:
- Try black and white – Black and white clothing looks bold and striking against silver locks. Wear these shades if your gray hair has cool or neutral undertones.
- Choose pastel shades – Calming pastel colors, like dusky rose, lilac, and sage green, give a youthful and playful look. They work well with neutral or warm shades in your soft gray locks.
- Create vibrancy with color – Silver strands don’t mean you have to cut out color. In fact, gray makes an incredible backdrop for dramatic shades. Scarlet looks fantastic with dove gray hues, and ruby red is beautiful for cooler undertones.
- Add deep hues for depth – Gray hair sometimes loses depth and dimension, but you can bring it back with highly pigmented clothing. Try shades of burgundy, mustard yellow, royal blue, and plum.
- Avoid colors that wash you out – Gray hair is a muted shade, so it’s best to steer clear of beiges, creams, or browns too close to your skin tone. If you don’t, your clothes could make your skin and gray hair appear lifeless and dull.
If styled correctly, silver tones look luscious and full of life. Here are a few pointers on how to style naturally gray hair.
- Get natural gray highlights –- Gray hair can lose depth, so adding subtle silver and smokey gray tones gives your hair dimension.
- Low heat on a hairdryer –- When your hair loses pigment, it becomes dry and can break more easily. Use a low temperature when blowdrying to reduce breakage.
- Minimize heat tools and use heatless styles –- Heat styling looks fantastic on gray hair, but overusing it can damage your hair strands. Opt for rollers or a silk heatless curling set for damage-free waves.
- Protect it from heat –- If you choose heat tools, shield your strands from breakage and dryness with a heat protectant.
- Add volume –- Silvery hair isn’t as thick as other hair colors. Use Viviscal Hair Thickening Serum with Viviscal Thickening Shampoo and Viviscal Strengthening Conditioner to achieve fuller, thicker-looking hair.
7. Take Hair Supplements
Stress, menopause, a lack of nutritious foods, or aging may affect the condition of your hair. At times like this, it may be helpful to supplement your silvery locks to help support your hair.
Healthy hair starts from the inside, and Viviscal Hair Growth Supplements are clinically proven to promote existing hair growth.* In a clinical study, women saw a 32% increase in the number of terminal hairs and a 39% decrease in hair shedding in just three months.◊◊◊*
Go Gray With Viviscal
Knowing how to let your hair go naturally gray is tricky. But with these handy tips, growing out gray hair is simple. Dare to embrace your natural silver tones with stunning confidence and be the best version of yourself.
±Use in conjunction with Viviscal Strengthening Conditioner
^^ Use in conjunction with Viviscal Thickening Shampoo and Strengthening Conditioner
◊◊◊ Clinical-assessment results on 60 women.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.