Grey hair transition – was it worth it?
Two and a half years ago like many women I started on my grey hair transition. Today I thought I’d share about my reasons for starting my journey, what my strategy for transition was, what you can expect if you decide to embark on a similar journey and talk about if I think it was worth it.
This is a photo of me just before I started my journey.
At the time I didn’t think about my hair too much of the time. Over the years I’d learn to work with it as best I could.
For me that meant getting a cut and colour every 8 weeks and washing and drying it every day. In terms of styling, I would do a quick blast with the hair drier and then use my trusty straighteners to try to control the frizz.
My hair is naturally curly so very occasionally I would let it dry naturally but I got very mixed results so that was mostly left to holidays.
So why did I start my journey in the first place?
For me I think things kind of crept up on me, so it wasn’t quite as deliberate as perhaps others that have gone before me but this how things unfolded for me.
1) I had started to notice the silver sister’s revolution online and like what these women were doing. However, a lot of them initially had quite dark hair and were very grey so their transition made clear sense to me. When I looked online, I didn’t see that many blondes going grey or sharing their journey, so I wasn’t sure if this was something that I was really thinking about doing.
2) Covid hit the UK in March 2020 just a day before I was supposed to go in for my next cut and colour. I’ve always highlighted my hair so I didn’t think I had the skill to attempt this at home so I was stuck for a couple of months before I could visit the hairdresser
3) I was going through a period of change in my life, and I was looking at myself and was feeling that my bob was feeling less like me. It was feeling a bit too rigid and structured, and I was feeling my hair wasn’t really keeping up with how I wanted to show up on the outside. I was coming up to my fiftieth and I wanted to show up a bit softer and feeling more carefree.
The Journey starts…
This is me about 6 months in. We were still in lockdown and although not a great photo I wasn’t hating my hair at this point and so I was starting to think if this might be a good time as ever to make the change.
In the photo I’ve let my hair dry naturally and you can see that it looks really dry. I wondered if transitioning might improve the quality of my hair as it had for many of those silver sisters.
So, lockdown initiated my journey and after having got a few months under the belt and being ready for a change I just didn’t go back to my hairdresser when things opened up.
My transition strategy…
When I had finally decided that this was the time for me to make the change, I looked into many of the options on how best to make the change. I had really short hair for a short period of time in my twenties and absolutely hated my hair at that time so whilst many women decide to go down that route, I didn’t feel it was the right one for me.
Instead, I opted to let my hair grow out as much as I could and then to cut it as short as I felt comfortable with.
For me this was a really short, choppy bob. The picture below on the right-hand side shows me about 18 months into my journey and from this point things got easier. The picture on the left is about 12 months into my journey and you can see a line where my new growth is coming in.
The long-term plan is to grow the hair out and three years in I have about another year to reach my goal!
What to expect if you decide to make the transition?
1) It’s going to be long and hard and you are not going to like your hair much during the process. The photo on the left above shows my hair about a year in and there isn’t much you can do to cover up that line. I can tell you I nearly booked in a million times to the hairdresser but somehow I just kept on with the programme. I think watching other women go through the process certainly gave me hope that i’d make it through.
2) You may not be as grey as you think! This was certainly the case for me. In fact, I was really surprised to see that for now I’m really only grey at the front. These days when I wear my hair down my hair looks more ash brown / blonde with a few greys. It’s really only when I wear my hair up or push it off my face, that you can see more grey.
3) You should expect a lot of comments from friends and family and many of these were not always helpful. However, my close family supported me, and my husband never said a bad word which I really appreciated. You will be pleased to hear that I do get nice comments again and this is always nice to hear but you need to really know that you are doing this for yourself and so I just kept explaining my reasons for making the transition and asked people for their support. Afterall, it’s only hair and you can always change your mind later on if you want.
4) I was a summer not a spring! I know some women start dyeing their hair as they are going grey and therefore select a colour similar to their own hair, but I started dying my hair from a really young age. As a baby I was really fair and growing up heard a lot of messages that being blonde was beautiful so as my hair turned a mousey brown in my teens the peroxide came out. So, when I actually started to see what colour my hair was I found it was easier to see what colours actually suited my complexion and i’ve made better decisions buying clothes.
So, was it all worth it?
Absolutely yes!
I still have another year to go to grow my hair to length I want but there were so many positives that I didn’t think about before my journey
I’m no longer a colour junkie waiting for my next hit and haven’t thought about roots for well over a year.
The quality of my hair is so much better. I don’t need to wash it every day anymore and I’ve banished my straighteners.
I’ve saved myself around £800 a year at the hairdresser which although wasn’t a main goal it’s always nice to have. And, I actually have my own highlights. They are grey rather than blonde but are much softer on my skin and suit me much better.
I can’t say you will never have a bad hair day, but I certainly have less of them and I’m happy to let my hair dry naturally as the quality is so much better these days.
I know i’m going to get greyer over time and I don’t need to worry about the transition later on as I have finally done it.
The best thing is that I feel much more like the person I am today, and my outer and inner self feel in harmony.
I hope you enjoyed my post and hearing about my journey. Do let me know if you have also taken the plunge or are thinking about it and share your stories with me.
