Hairdresser Ana Escudero, better known as Any__k, has accumulated thousands of followers on her social networks thanks to her work in her StyloXXI salon in Granada and, as a good professional, she has told us the best tips to start a good integration of gray hair and show off your hair after the summer.
The most important step is to let it grow several centimeters without applying color since, in this way, we can see clearly what gray hair pattern we have and thus be able to wear off the artificial color. The ideal thing to do with a good technique is to do a previous strand test (a test with a small strand of your hair in a place that is not very visible) with the aim of knowing the lightening options we have and not finding any surprises. Of course, when executing it, Ana always recommends following the “salt and pepper” pattern that we find as much as possible and this is done by interspersing each gray hair with gray highlights to achieve a finish with volume and depth.
Not all hairs are good candidates for gray integration since, for example, hair dyed black or brown, colored with henna or derivatives may have poor quality that does not allow us to achieve the desired finish. “If we start with hair dyed with very dark tones, we do not usually reach the lightening phase necessary to integrate gray hair,” commented the expert in an interview with Professional Beauty. This is confirmed by the wick test that we mentioned above and from there, we resort to plan B: negative wicks. These are simply dark-colored hair that highlight the lightness of the gray hair even more and help us in the process by visually breaking the growth line, making the change not so abrupt.
Cuts are also great allies for integration, especially the front area with bangs, since they can be supported by trendy styles such as shaggy or shullet. The more movement the final hairstyle has, including creating curly texture and shape, the more integrated the gray will be. On the contrary, very straight hair or hair with a lot of hair loss visually enhances the growth line, which is undoubtedly the most frustrating thing in the first months of the process.
It is important to seek advice from specialists like Ana or other profiles in the sector, since there are times when just making color corrections and some strategic highlights can achieve incredible effects.
