Gray Hair

Gray Hair

Sort through Your Color Options

If you're like a lot of women, when you notice more than a few gray hairs, you head for the nearest drugstore to check out the seemingly endless aisle of hair-coloring products. You pick up one box after another, look at the color chart--and leave the store more confused than when you arrived.

Everyone's hair turns gray eventually. When you turn gray is determined by genes passed on to you by your parents, explains Patricia Farris Walters, M.D., clinical assistant professor of dermatology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology. The timing is different for everyone.

"I began graying in my early twenties," says Dr. Walters. "Although both of my parents were significantly gray in their sixties, no one in our family grayed as prematurely as I did."

Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but somewhere around two-thirds of women stay au naturel when their hair turns gray and one-third reach for a coloring product, says Ellie Steuer, vice-president of Revlon in New York City.

Many women who turn gray don't do anything radical, adds Steuer. They seem to prefer products a shade or two different than their natural color, designed to color only the gray. The result is a natural two-tone effect in which the gray appears to simply be a lighter shade of the natural hair color. Others decide that this is a good opportunity to find out what they'd look like with a completely different hair color and go from brown to blond, red or black.

TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT?

Experts say that your choice depends on how much of your hair has turned gray and how often you're willing to recolor your hair, among other factors.

Try a two-week product. If you're just beginning to gray, and you're not sure whether you want to keep your gray or get rid of it, try a semipermanent rinse, suggests Clancey Callaway, the Atlanta-based head of hair technology at Vidal Sassoon North America. A semipermanent product designed for home use is Clairol's Loving Care.

Callaway calls semipermanent rinses no-commitment colors. Unlike more permanent coloring products, semipermanent rinses deposit color on the hair's outer cuticle only. It never penetrates to the cortex of the hair shaft itself, says Callaway. The color is gradually washed away in 6 to 12 shampoos. If, like most women, you wash your hair every day or two, semipermanent color will last anywhere from one to three weeks.

Semipermanent rinses can't lighten your hair--they can either match your natural color or darken it. Nevertheless, semipermanent rinses give you just enough color to help you decide whether or not you like yourself with--or without--gray hair.

Study the instructions. Home coloring products are tested so well that they're just about foolproof--provided that you follow the directions, says Steuer. Also, always do a patch test to make sure that the dye won't irritate your skin. Follow the instructions included with the colorant. Patch-testing usually requires that a small amount of color be applied to an area of tender inner-arm skin for 48 hours to check for irritation prior to coloring.

Brave it with a harmonizer. If your hair is up to 50 percent gray, and you're pretty sure that you want to ditch the gray, you may want to try what the industry calls a longer-lasting semipermanent product, suggests Steuer. Also called tone-on-tone products or harmonizers, Revlon's Shadings, Clairol's Natural Instincts and L'Oreal's Casting are all longer-lasting semipermanent hair-color products marketed for home use. They don't begin to fade until after four to six weeks, and they leave no hard, telltale demarcation at the root line.

For the most natural-looking results, Steuer suggests that you choose a harmonizer one shade lighter than your own natural hair color.

Tint your hair. If you're more than 50 percent gray, and your mind is made up to ditch the gray for good, Steuer suggests that you color your hair with a permanent hair color. One advantage to permanent color is that if you wish, you can go lighter or darker or change your color completely, while covering 100 percent of your gray. Keep in mind, however, that this type of color won't wash out--your hair will remain the new color until it grows out, and the roots will be more obvious.

Play it safe--or go wild. When you find a hair color that you like, look at the swatches on the back of the boxes or read the instructions to see what results you can expect for your original hair color. "Remember that all hair color results are determined by a user's own natural color," says Steuer.