It’s fair to say that by the time we’ve reached a certain age, we’ve all earned our fair share of grays. However, these signs of aging aren’t something we all embrace. When you are not yet ready to embrace white hair, gray coverage becomes an important part of your hair routine.
Whether you want to camouflage those random gray strands or cover gray roots between colorings, we have all the solutions to help.
Gray Coverage: Know Your Options
Going gray is a natural process that our hair goes through. However, despite the growing support of the gray hair community, not all women are ready to transition. Eventually, this means committing to regular permanent coloring.
It is not an easy solution, though.
In fact, it poses a number of further challenges like finding the right color for stubborn gray hair and dealing with gray roots between color appointments. Even if you choose to transition to white locks, the long and awkward process of growing out gray hair can make you want to camouflage or tone your silver strands. Here are all the best options to try.
1. Low Maintenance Color to Cover Gray Hair
Dyeing gray hair is a serious commitment, especially if you deal with early graying. Root concealers and toners (more on them later) can help you camouflage random gray hairs and postpone all-over dyeing. After you have started regular coloring, think of the ways to make color appointments less frequent and root regrowth – less noticeable.
The common belief is that it’s most difficult to conceal gray roots on dark brunette hair. However, dyeing your hair any other shade and having the regrowth of black hair mixed with gray locks might be even more embarrassing. Temporary sprays and powders can do wonders helping to cover up the regrowth before the next color session. However, if you are not ready to extend your hair routine, it might be sound to choose a more low-maintenance color.
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For example, you can make the regrowth less noticeable by disguising gray hair with highlights. A smart blend of ashy highlights and lowlights can give you a stunning look, without the need for frequent touch-ups. Ash blonde is another low-maintenance color to cover gray hair.
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2. Touching Up the Roots with Permanent Color at Home
You might have been warned not to color your hair at home thousands of times. Still, the box dye market is flourishing, so many of us do succeed with the option. The frequent color oops is ending up with the roots that differ from the rest of your hair color. To prevent this from happening, apply the box dye to the gray roots for 20 minutes, then apply the dye at the hair length and wait for another 10 minutes to get a seamless blend.
Popular box dye brands now provide handy touch-up kits too. Clairol Nice’n Easy Root Touch-Up and L’Oreal Magic Root Rescue guarantee even coloring of root regrowth and stubborn gray coverage. You can choose between a variety of shades to match your base color or imitate natural shadow roots.
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3. Shampoo to Cover Gray Hair
Another way to color gray hair is using color depositing shampoo that pigments your hair while cleansing it. A purple shampoo used to remove the brassy tones and a blue shampoo used to enhance brown hues are the best-known examples. Color depositing shampoos are temporary toners and do not have the intensity of a hair dye. However, these may give you a soft balayage effect, where the white strands will look like highlighted hair.
If you like the purple hue, you may tone your gray hair with a purple shampoo that will gradually fade to gray and silver. If you don’t, there are many other shades you can try, too. For example, Pure Blends has shampoos with sassy red, copper, and marigold pigments, so you may expect to see these tones in place of the white strands. An excellent option if your hair goes gray evenly and there is no harsh demarcation line in your hair.
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4. Root Powder
Hair powder and other options listed further offer temporary gray hair coverage, which you need to reapply each day or at least after each wash day. Root powder is easy to apply and doubles as a thinning hair solution and eyebrows filler. To get good results, take enough powder on the brush and push the powder right onto the gray. Clairol Concealing Powder has gained much popularity recently due to the variety of shades and a competitive pricing.
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5. Root Spray
Root spray is another popular type of root concealer. Its main benefit is that you can cover up larger areas really fast, with no effort at all. However, it is less precise than a powder or a mascara and you do need to cover your face and clothes when applying it. L’Oreal Magic Root Cover Up is our favorite and a sure bet to recommend.
6. Hair Mascara
A hair mascara or a brush-in hair color is another way to cover gray hair without a dye, which is perfect if you have small areas of white hair. Or, you may use it in combination with a spray to gently cover gray hair along the hairline and at temples. This will make sure you do not stain your scalp and your hair looks as natural as possible. Also, it is the best among root concealers if you want to enhance your eyebrows color, too.
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7. Touch-Up Sticks and Pencils
Yet another temporary touch-up solution is a color stick or pencil. The one from Everpro is a good option to try, especially if you use their touch-up spray, too. The sticks are very compact, create a natural wax-free look, and allow high precision application. They do not last very long, though, and can start to flake towards the evening. Experiment to know if this works for you.
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To get the best results with temporary touch-ups, be sure to experiment with shades. You’ll often find that choosing a lighter hair color will make it look more natural. For instance, for medium browns, light brown shades can be a much better match. Also, do not apply any type of root concealer to the wet hair, it just wastes the product.
We shouldn’t be embarrassed about a few grays – we’ve earned them from experience. However, if you do feel the need to cover up, there are so many options to choose from that you are sure to find the one that works best for you.
Featured Image via Instagram
