It wasn't that long ago that sporting natural hair with gray hair wasn't very well regarded for women. It seemed that the moment you started to grow the first white hairs you had to camouflage them at all costs, as if it were an offense. But little by little we have been understanding that gray hair can also look beautiful and cared for.
Now, like everything in life there are gray hairs and gray hairs, and to get it right it is essential to trust the experts. For the result to be perfect, you have to follow a strategy and ensure that this change does not age or add years.
The artistic director of Salón Cheska and hairdresser María Baras knows well what is the best way to grow gray hair, since if we do it naturally, simply letting the hair grow can be very tedious and aesthetically unflattering. Those who decide to take this step are because, as Baras says, “many clients arrive tired of the slavery of dyeing every three or four weeks.”
The first thing to take into account is the type of hair you have: length, thickness, base color and even the type of gray hair. It is also important to take into account the health of the hair at that time, since it could be very damaged by dyes or the use of heat tools. In any case, the expert advises stopping dyeing for a few months, between three or four months to be able to observe “what type of gray hair you have: whether it is white, silver, salted… This determines the technique that we are going to follow,” says María.
How to start growing gray hair
In this process, as the expert points out, we can follow two paths to let the gray hair grow. On the one hand, you can gradually lighten the hair, which will gradually turn a chocolate brown to honey or golden tones. According to María, “it is a period of adaptation to see yourself with lighter tones before reaching total white.”
The other way is controlled bleaching, this method is faster but is also more aggressive with the hair. It is a technique that can take hours and is not the best option for very fine hair or hair with delicate fibers. This method consists of “bleaching and toning to neutralize the golden tones until achieving a gray effect or very light reflections,” adds Baras.
The strategic haircut
As for the appropriate haircut for this process, the expert is clear. The best cut is a pixie or a medium-length bob, this way the transition will be shorter and in a few months the hair will match the roots.
These cuts are perfect precisely because they help reduce time and are also great for cleansing the hair, eliminating old dyes and achieving a fresher image. Precisely for this reason we must keep in mind that “the cut is key for the gray hair to look good from the beginning,” he says.
Furthermore, according to María, it is not so much having white hair but a bad cut that makes you look older. Hence the importance of knowing how to adapt the cut to the face so that the result is not careless hair, but quite the opposite, elegant and cared for.
