Over the last few days I’ve pulled maybe 100 grey hairs out of my head. It’s becoming an obsession — I can’t stop. Remember back in high school when you laughed at old people and swore you’d never do something so silly as have plastic surgery, or wear control top panty hose, or dye your hair to cover your grey? How you’d age gracefully and elegantly and without resistance? Yeah, I don’t remember saying that either.
So the time has come to reach for the dye bottle, I think, but sadly, I have to wait until George Foreman Jatania II is born, due to some crazy old wives’ tale that says that you shouldn’t dye your hair while pregnant, and although I’m sure that’s totally bogus, you don’t want to mess around with that kind of thing. I guess I’ll be stuck pulling for a couple more months, but I’m already scoping out the right product and colour. I’m leaning towards Nice ‘N’ Easy in Natural Light Brown.
Any tips for brands/application/colour, gals?
TurtleHead 
Hell, I never said I’d grow old gracefully. Having known I’d be grey in my 30s, I’ve always planned to dye my hair once it started to be noticeablly grey. Sadly, grey hair adds years to your life. But fortunately, there is a relatively easy fix. My master plan was to start dying it a shade lighter than normal and then get highlights. Then, I’d eventually move lighter and lighter, with more and more highlights so I could eventually move to grey when I wanted. Now, I’m not sure this will work for me since I’m so dark, but it could work for you. This was all to avoid having grey roots against dark hair. Grey roots against blonde hair is far less noticeable.
As for application, it’s easy to do the first time, but touching up roots is a bitch. I usually had Jill do it, who’s great at it. But I’m hoping that by the time I have to do all of this crap, I’ll be able to afford having it done professionally.
I’ve been graying since grade 8, slowly but surely! I decided to dye my hair with permanent colour in my first year of University. I find that I rarely get the colour I’m looking for when I use dye from a box, so I’ve been getting it professionally done for years now. I always get highlights though, never full colour. The highlights blend with the grey pretty well. I have very dark brown hair, and unfortunately I have very light highlights which necessitates frequent visits to the salon 😛 Now, there are highlighting kits out there, but I don’t know if I trust them…I could see myself glopping a bunch of colour all on one spot and then having to turn around and get it fixed anyway!
I tried to make it to 30 without having to resort to colour, but I broke down at 29 1/2 …
My sister-in-law used this stuff that advertised how soft it left your hair, and it seemed that it did. Sorry, but don’t remember the name of it — it’s one of the big ones, like L’Oreal.
I’m too worried about getting dye all over my clothes or the carpet or the walls, so I’ve always gotten it down by a pro. I’d highly recommend this. She uses some semi-permanent stuff and I’ve had many comments about how natural it looks. Also, when you’re at the hairdresser’s for that long, and with all those women gossiping and sniping, you feel like you’re in a Robert Altman movie (or a bad soap opera, at the very least).
I used to go every 6 weeks, but now I’m down to 5 and I’m afraid I’ll be going even sooner! It’s like a drug :-)!
Btw, I was watching the CBS Early Show one morning and they debunked that “no hair-dye when you’re pregnant” myth, but I would do the same as you and take no chances with GFJII.
Okay, back to work!
ST
Do you find that highlights are enough to cover the grey? My greys come in chunks — especially around my face and at my crown — so I’m worried the highlights wouldn’t be enough. It’s definitely a nicer solution if it works, though!
So since your dye is semi-permanent, do you have it dyed all over every time, or do you just have a roots touch up? Sounds like a pro is the way to go for the roots, at least, but I’m so nervous about the colour. How do you know they’ll do a good job and not dye your hair pink because “it’d be fun”?? I guess I need to trust my hairdresser more :).
How long does it take to have it professionally done? Since The Captain was born, I’ve managed to make it out for a haircut exactly twice in 16 months, so my record is not that great. Although I do suspect I could make a really, really big mess doing it at home myself…
I was flipping channels the other night looking for something good to watch in the dearth of summer programming that is summer television and there was this story on 20/20 or 60 minutes (or some other show like that) and they were showing this girl who’d had her hair dyed professionally and she totally went into anaphylactic shock. She was in the hospital for 4 days and it took weeks for her swelling to completely subside.
Something to think about …
You could always get chunky highlights! 🙂 I wouldn’t say that the highlights necessarily cover the grey…I find that it hides it more than anything. I have the same greying pattern as you, although mine isn’t very chunky. What you could do is go to a salon and get some sort of hair consultation, see what they recommend and what would work best for you maintenance and lifestyle wise.
Yeah, it gets totally dyed every time. She starts with the roots and then, near the end, she does the rest. I think it takes about 1 1/2 hours.
I was very nervous the first time, but I got a recommendation from a lady I knew (who I’d never guess had dyed her hair) and that’s how I found Lily. My advice is to ask around (discreetly, of course).
Regarding your pink hair phobia, the first couple of times she made my hair a litter redder than I prefer it, but I just told her I preferred something closer to my natural colour and she toned it down. Of course, Lily is a sweet, middle-aged lady, so I don’t think she’s inclined to pink hair dye jobs (more likely blue hair jobs!).
The great thing is that she cuts my hair, too! I actually get my hair cut at the “recommended” six week intervals now!!
Sometimes I do wish I could do it myself, to save money, but I’m sure that the saved money would go straight into buying new clothes, new bath mats, new towels, wigs …
The other day I was downloading the song “Our House” by Madness (for mom’s mix). When you convert a song to an MP3, you can give it a genre category like “Rock” or “Country”.
Well, after I downloaded the song, I saw that the person who created the file had categorized the song as “Oldies”.
Yikes…