How to Grow out Grey Hair: Three Ways to Go Grey

One of the hottest trends that’s been on the rise recently is grey hair, and letting our natural shades of silver shine through. Whilst growing out grey hair was something that we used to avoid in the past, it’s now a look we love – making it one of the most popular hair colour trends at the moment.

A recent Instagram hashtag – #grombe – celebrates the natural phenomenon of grey hair, featuring a global movement of women who are letting their dyed hair gradually grow out and transition into natural silver locks.

Embracing grey is a trendy style that’s contemporary, glamorous and timeless. Many are choosing to no longer fight the natural ageing process, letting their natural silver locks take centre stage.

Whether you’ve embraced your silver side in lockdown, you’ve only recently noticed your first grey strands coming through or you’re just fed up of hiding your grey roots, a gradual grey hair transition may just be what you need. Below are our top tips for growing out grey hair!

Glamorous older woman with short curly grey hair looking at the camera and wearing a white shirt

Temporary solutions for how to cover grey hair

If you are still hesitant in going all out and embracing your grey straight away, yet don’t want to continue dyeing or plucking your hair on a regular basis, it’s time to try a temporary alternative until you’re confident to go natural.

Whilst we live in this ‘salon-at-home’ era, blending out your salt and pepper tones with pigment depositing shampoos or simply using a grey root touch up are great examples of how to cover grey hair at home.

How to cover grey hair if you’re brunette…

Our Defy Grey Shampoo and Conditioner are specifically designed to infuse brunette tones to blend unwanted grey hairs into natural looking brown hues. The Defy Grey Brunette Blending Blow-dry Foam is the perfect answer to reduce grey from 1st use, great for those looking for a last minute fix.

How to cover grey hair if you’re blonde…

For brassy greys, use our Violet Crush range to help keep your blonde cool and ashy. Purple shampoo is a great option when it comes to brassy grey hairs as it has no natural pigment – this means it neutralises any brassiness for a more silver tone whilst cleansing your locks at the same time.

Photo of a woman with long wavy brown hair and fringe sat on a bed smiling wearing a white shirt

How to disguise grey hair with highlights

If you are looking for a more natural-looking blend of multi-dimensional colours, transitioning to grey with highlights and lowlights can both help embrace your colour in a more authentic and stylish form.

Babylights and Balayage are great examples of how to camouflage and disguise grey hair in a gradual form with low maintenance, using a combined mix of both highlights and lowlights to create suitability.

If you’re tempted to blend your colour from home using our Precision Foam Colour range or are wondering how to disguise grey hair with highlights or lowlights, see below for the best colours to hide grey hair for your shade.

Highlights for blondes with grey hair...

A variation of tones will look great with your grey. Combining highlights and lowlights ranging from icy to cool blondes will help create a blend of ashy hues that will let people question whether it is grey hair or platinum highlights.

Highlights for brunettes with grey hair…

Using richer and deeper chocolate browns for lowlights when blending with sandy highlights ensures you don’t put too much emphasis on light greys for the best all round colour.

Highlights for red heads with grey hair…

Integrating a mix of both blonde and brunette lowlights and highlights will help you keep an array of warm hues within your hair. For more advice on blending grey roots with highlights and lowlights, visit our article on how to enhance natural grey hair.

Photo of a woman with grey and blonde wavy hair laughing standing in a street with palm trees

Going grey naturally

Lastly, the best way to immerse yourself into this grey revolution is to simply embrace those silver streaks! Own your greys and let them steal the show.

Try experimenting with different hairstyles and haircuts to find what works best for you. Adjusting your parting is an effortless way of immediately transforming your hair, shining a completely new light on your look when going grey naturally. Changing from a side parting to a middle parting and vice versa may seem like a simple change, but it can alter how much emphasis is put on your roots and can evolve your entire ‘do!

One thing to consider when growing out grey hair is that the lack of pigment will also impact the texture. Grey hair can often become very dry and wiry, so spending some time giving your silver locks some TLC with conditioning treatments and moisturising hair masks will help keep them looking their best.

For hair with a lot of grey coverage, we recommend using our Shimmering Silver range formulated with SilverGloss technology. It locks in the moisture and polishes dry silver hair while neutralising brassy tones for a radiant shine. For those at the start of their natural grey hair transition we recommend using our Frizz Ease Deep conditioner and Miracle Drops Hair Masks on a weekly basis.

From caring for grey to styling your silver, visit the John Frieda Blog for more hair inspiration!