Grey hair was once deemed purely a sign of aging. However, silver has today become a fashion
statement in its own right, with celebrities from Robbie Williams to Jamie Lee
Curtis deciding to embrace or enhance their natural grey.
Surprisingly, for those who not naturally grey – the path to
achieving the shade is perhaps the hardest feat a colourist has to contend
with. Natural grey and silver hair is formed by the interspersing of pure white
hair amongst the original (natural) shade. Initially observed as ‘salt
and pepper’, the more the previous pigmented hair turns white, the stronger the
silver shade becomes – as those white hairs increase in number on the
head. It’s actually the interspersion and mixing of the individual
white hairs amongst the original base which creates a grey look, therefore
achieving an artificial grey can be intricate.
Creating artificial grey hair
When hair is lightened it will take on a pale yellow shade
which needs to be toned with a violet pigment to achieve white. In many
instances (where an artificial grey shade is desired) the hair will end up
looking blonde as opposed to silver. Whilst it’s more simplistic to
obtain a block silver - via lightening the whole head to platinum and using
higher amounts of silver toners - when a natural grey is sought the application
method has to be more delicate, introducing very fine bleach highlights which
are subsequently toned to silver, whilst leaving the surrounding natural hair
intact to create the salt and pepper effect. Applying any peroxide
based colourant or lightener onto the surrounding (non highlighted) natural
hair, will cause a warm hue to be displayed effectively reducing the overall
silver effect down to blonde. It must be understood, warm tones cannot
co-exist with silver tones – the two shades will battle it out for supremacy
and at best you will find the hair becomes a natural ash blonde.
If you are wishing to achieve a natural silver grey (at
home) on a previously dark base, the best approach is to use a highlighting
cap, pull a scattering of hair through this cap and then apply a bleach or
lightener before developing the hair to pale yellow. The
bleach or lightener must then be rinsed off the hair (with the cap still on)
and dried (again with the cap still). You then have to check the hair and
be 100% certain it appears as a pale yellow, if the shade looks deep yellow or
copper it will not tone to silver. In
this instance, re-apply the lightener (to the hair still pulled through the
cap) and lift the shade up to the required level. If you remove the cap -
when the hair is still very warm toned - this warmth will intermix with your
natural base and be impossible to retrieve for re-lightening. Once
you are satisfied the hair is a pale yellow, apply (again with the cap still
on) your platinum toner. This toning
stage will turn the lightened hair to white. At the point you notice the
hair clearly toning and the warmth vanishing, you can remove the
cap. Once this process is complete, you should find your (overall)
hair appears to have cold highlights running throughout. However, moving
forward you must only cleanse with blue and violet based shampoos and alternate
your toning conditioner between a platinum and a product such as Cool Restore
Cool Ash – which has a silver base. This specific hair care regime will
continually keep introducing more platinum and silver tones into the lightened
hair, very soon the tone levels will exceed a pure white and begin appearing
silver. When achieving this method via a salon, the
toning stage can be made easier as a specific permanent colourant exists that
compromise of two cool tones, when this specific permanent colour is applied (to
newly lightened hair) it produces a metallic white that requires no subsequent
re-toning. Sadly – this particular shade is not featured in any of the current
retail colourant brands available in the UK.
Creating a transitional grey
shade (for those who have natural grey hair and want to stop colouring)
For those who are naturally grey but have spent many years
covering the silver with permanent dark colour, the long term options for you
to sport a flattering grey are ultimately more simplistic. However, (and with
most) it’s the initial hurdle of transitioning from a permanent darker shade to
their natural silver that terrifies them. Whilst grey hair is
fashionable and acceptable – grey roots are not! Many women recognise
that transitioning to their natural grey is going to require months (if not a
year or more) to achieve. During this time they feel horrified at the
prospect of walking around with inches of grey roots against artificially
coloured ends. In addition, whilst I myself have become
known for home hair colour removal I have to explain why hair colour removers
will not reveal natural grey.
I would love to be able to assure all you grey haired people
(longing to stop the colouring process) that simply applying a hair colour
remover will reveal your underlying grey – but it just won’t. When
grey hair is coloured with a peroxide based shade, two points occur.
Firstly, the peroxide in the colourant (developer) causes the white (grey)
hairs to take on a yellow tone.
Secondly, many of the colourants on sale in today’s retail market will
also lift the natural (non grey) hair - exposing underlying warmth.
Therefore, when you remove the artificial colour you will not see your natural
grey, but instead a warm blonde. In fact, the process to transition to a
natural grey shade has to be undertaken similarly to the creation of silver in
non grey natural bases (and as outlined previously).
For anyone who has a high percentage of natural grey and
wants to transition out of using artificial colour - without simply growing it
out and suffering the obvious root strap – I would suggest you undertake the
exercise via a salon. In general, you will need to accommodate around
three salon appointments over a period of several months. The key is to
introduce silver threads into the hair gradually as your old colour grows out;
these silver threads (when built up in the hair), will break up the grey root
strap, intermix with your previous dark and eventually take over the overall
shade. Whilst many salons (today) will only work with foils for
highlighting, I would still recommend (on occasions of transitioning grey) a
salon uses a highlighting cap. My reasoning for this suggestion is
exactly the same as outlined for the creation of artificial grey – you need to
be able to segregate the lightened threads and check they have lifted
sufficiently. With foils, it’s very difficult to weave out the same hair
again if the lightener did not lift this hair to pale yellow upon the first
application. However, if your salon uses a highlighting cap – they can
lift the hair, check it has taken to a pale blonde and if they feel the hair
(pulled through the cap) is demonstrating too much depth or warmth,
re-lighten. In addition, once the bleach is rinsed off and if the
hair pulled through the cap is pale yellow, the colourist can emulsify a silver
based tone on tone colourant directly into the segregated hair and it will immediately produce a
grey tone. The cap can then be removed and the new silver threads
intermix within the previous dark base.
As I previously stated, UK salons (generally) do not like using highlighting
caps, however it’s crucial the threads being lighted are segregated during this
process, so subsequent lightening and toning can be applied to this
regionalised hair without risk of it effecting the surrounding dark base (which
is needed to produce the final grey effect).
I would then suggest every 6 to 8 weeks the above exercise is repeated in the
salon, introducing more silver threads into the hair via the cap and tone
method. Overtime, the hair will slowly begin to turn silver or grey
and you will eventually be able to stop having the grey highlights added and
just allow your natural silver shade to take over.
A word of caution!
Sadly not every person- who allows their grey hair to grow
in - discovers a shimmering head of bright silver. Most of us tend to go
grey (initially) around the front hairline. Therefore, the misconception
with many people is they have turned fully white (throughout) – because they
only observe the grey roots at the front of their head when looking in the
mirror. However, some of us are unfortunate enough to go (what I refer to
as) ‘badger grey’. Here you experience clumps of grey hair throughout an
otherwise dark base, usually with the front sections very grey, but the top and
the sides remaining dark. Intermixed with this (overall) dark base you
find thick wiry white hairs that are not particularly slightly. In
the past, I’ve had several clients who asked me to help them to transition to
grey (believing their whole head was white). However, as the months went
on I began to observe more and more dark in the new hair growing through. In
these instances you have two options. Option A: - you can begin the highlighting
method (as outlined above) whereby you continually keep adding bleach threads
which are then toned to silver. The negative to this method can be found
if you only have grey at the front areas – because you then flip the issue of
the white roots and begin discovering very dark roots start appearing in other
areas of the head. Option B: - is to work with what you have.
Therefore, if the hair at the front of the head is grey – you allow this to
grow through (with the outlined highlight method), but ‘dab out’ the white patches in the other
areas of your head with a dark permanent colour. Via this method, you
will achieve a rather dramatic and effective Mallon Streak. You will
actually find the upkeep of the patchy white hair fairly minimal but you will still
achieve the silver effect via the front (hairline) sections.
Should anyone not
go grey?
Yes – there is one category who should really avoid allowing
themselves to grey. A deep true redhead will never achieve a silver shade
naturally. When the white hairs begin to appear, the redhead will have
too much warmth (in the remaining surrounding hair) to showcase a silver.
Instead, the hair initially becomes a quite flattering golden blonde, but will
eventually start to turn nicotine yellow (as more white hair
appears). In addition, natural redheads have a very warm skin tone
that tends to clash with silver and grey hair – causing the individual to
appear washed out. Therefore, if they are able to
artificially achieve silver or grey hair – it will look quite harsh on this
specific skin tone. As a general rule, redheads (as they age)
should allow the hair to become a softer (lighter) warm blonde, introducing
gold toned highlights. Lulu is an excellent example of this particular
colour approach.
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