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...and why a gray transformation should only be an option as a last resort.
My educational web pages and Gray Hair Journey Consultations are designed to empower you. My intent is to give you the knowledge you need to decide whether a transformative service and any stylist you consider doing business with is right for you. While meeting face to face takes less time to deliver all of this information, I find that a lot of it gets lost. If you have a few extra minutes, I encourage you to keep reading to see what real-life transformations look like, beyond what you'll see on social media.
WHAT IS GRAY BLENDING?
Gray blending IS:
Softening the line of demarcation between your new growth and your previous color, by means of coloring, highlighting, or toning. It can also be achieved by creative haircutting, or utilizing extensions and hairpieces. It can also be a color service performed to slightly tint, not cover, existing gray-so that the hair still looks gray, just *less* gray.
Gray blending is NOT:
Bleaching out years of dark, artificial color into a perfectly matched-to-your-roots gray in a one-time color or color correction service. This would technically be a gray hair transformation or more appropriately, an intensive color correction.
These days, for all intents and purposes, gray blending and gray transformations have become synonymous. With more people wanting to go natural, gray hair becoming a trendy look, and the rise of celebrity and influencer hairstylists showcasing amazing transformations, these terms started to be used more frequently, and then interchangeably. They do both get you to the same ending- gray hair- but there IS still a difference between the two!
So, now that you know that Gray Blending and Gray Transformation are two different sides of the same coin, please be aware that I do not offer certain transformation/corrective color services.
I do think it's important that you understand why...
Many new guests show me an inspiration picture like one of these:
Gorgeous, right? I would love to make this dream come true for anyone who dreams it... However, there are a few issues with having a goal based on a photo like these:
1. These photos, like many of the ones I'm shown nowadays, are AI generated.
2. Most people don't have a natural gray outgrowth pattern like this.
3. Most artificial hair color will not lift cleanly enough to achieve this level of brightness for the silver areas- at least not without damage.
4. One of the main reasons behind going natural is to have less maintenance- but transforming previously colored hair into the above look creates a new level of VERY high maintenance.
5. Even if you leave the salon with your hair looking exactly like the inspiration photo, it won't be long before it just... doesn't.
REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS FOR GRAY BLENDING/TRANSFORMATION
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It will be a long appointment- expect anywhere from 6-12 hours in the salon, and it's usually best to expect the longer time, and possibly more.
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It will probably take more than one session to reach your goal.
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It will cost hundreds to thousands of dollars in total, and possibly more with after care product and maintenance added.
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It will require that you re-tone any hair that has been lightened to gray, usually about every 4 weeks if you shampoo once per week. Plan on more frequent toning if you shampoo more often.
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Any hair that has been lightened, lifted, or had color removed from it WILL turn yellow after shampooing 1-4 times. If your hair has actually been lifted to white, it's highly likely it will turn into mush and won't be attached to your head for much longer...
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Depending on your color and care history, it can be damaging even just lifting your hair to a medium blonde, despite best efforts made to maintain the integrity of your hair.
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A "chemical haircut" should never be your goal.
Even though I share this information in every consultation regarding transformative color, clients still want to get it done. I understand completely. I did it myself, as you'll soon see, despite knowing what I know as a professional!
However, it's a different story when the head of hair belongs to someone else- someone who is investing money in addition to time. Expectations run high, and the warnings are heard but often misunderstood or dismissed. In the end, reality will always rule and disappointment, even resentment, ensues. Even if a client is ok having hair that looks like straw just to have it white or gray... I'm not! Clients are a walking advertisement for my work, and I prefer to showcase only high-quality work and healthy hair.
I decided that if I want to enjoy a long career as a hairstylist and avoid burnout and exhaustion, intensive Color Corrections, dark-to-light Gray Transformations, Platinum Blonde and Pastel Vivid color services had to be retired from my menu.
Even though I don't offer some of the more intense transformation services anymore, I still want to help.
I added this page to my website in the hopes that more clients understand what to expect if they decide to seek out transformative color elsewhere. There are so many talented hairstylists who specialize in transformative color that can make your hair dreams come true.
However, there are also hairstylists who are less talented, but will offer to perform a service even when they can't deliver results. There are also hairstylists all over the talent spectrum who will perform a service even when they shouldn't (like when your hair is already damaged), and it can end up being a nightmare. It is not my place to judge these hairstylists, as they might have families to feed or bosses that don't let them refuse services... but a salon service should always be a mutually beneficial transaction for both stylist and client, period.
SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT
Take a quick glance at this before-and-after gray blend, then zoom in closer:
This is an unfiltered photo. At a glance, the color is much more blended, but up close (and with shifts in angles and lighting), you can still see warmth coming through. This is one of the better outcomes of a single session, and this client was very pleased. Much of what you see online will have some adjustments made to enhance or hide the actual outcome of a service. I swear, in person her hair didn't look as warm as this photo, but the warmth was there, of course. If your previous artificial color is darker than the color in the before photo above, you can expect a more brassy (orange) outcome, and the need for multiple sessions.
beyond the "after photo"
Now, most will never see what happens beyond the "after photo", because no one really wants to share pictures of themselves in this state, and no one who provides this service wants to advertise it. I want you to have the advantage of going in with your eyes wide open, so I'm sharing the reality of MY gray hair transformation (which is common).
I started my gray hair journey in 2018, and did it myself:
Photo 1. My last artificial color was a vivid in green. Here it has faded significantly, as I stopped refreshing the green in preparation for my transformation and stopped covering my new growth to see how much gray I had. It was rough.
Photo 2. The lovely raw lift blonde after color removal (eww).
Photo 3. My gray transformation. I opted for a darker semi-permanent color melt. I was very happy with the outcome, but after using a color remover to take out the green, there was still a slight green cast as my gray toner faded. I lightened it again a month or two after my initial transformation, to achieve a pale yellow. It was still a little green...
Photo 4. What my hair looked like after a few shampoos. There was still a slightly green cast to it from my previous color, despite using a color-depositing shampoo and conditioner in silver. I alternated between that and a deep conditioning shampoo/conditioner, because my hair was damaged in the process, despite using a bond builder.
Photo 5. With my hair pulled back, you can see the areas where my lightener (bleach) application touched my natural dark brown, leaving brassy (orange) spots.
Photo 6. What my hair looked like after using the color-depositing shampoo and conditioner to try and tone out the yellow and orange. It would leave my hair with a purple/blue cast (ok by me, but not for everyone), which would fade back to the color in photo 4 with the next wash using a non-color-depositing product. The color-depositing products did NOT tone out the orange areas. My hair was dry, frizzy, and dull, and would tangle very easily.
Photo 7. See? I wasn't exaggerating! This was letting my hair down from a bun and shaking it out just a little, and minutes before re-toning to a pastel purple and cutting it to above my shoulders.
Photo 8. Ahhh... much better... for a week or two, at least. You can still see the fuzziness! (I need whatever lighting this was to be in my life all of the time...)
I could only take so much of how horrible my hair looked and felt, and how often I'd have to color it STILL... so as soon as it was long enough to cut the damaged yellow-green hair off without going too short for my taste, I did just that.
2018-2019
2019
2020
2022
2023
Once the damaged hair was gone, my hair felt amazing! It was about a year and a half between my gray transformation and chopping off the last of the damaged hair by cutting it short with shorter layers, and I wore clip-on ponytails and gray hair scrunchies (first picture) during that time to hide the brassy and yellow parts. The scrunchie was also used as a quick and easy style aid while my hair grew out. It took a total of 4 years to get to the length in the last photo, which was down to my waist.
The irony of it all...
At the time, it felt like it took forever to grow my hair out... but when I look back, those years went by in a flash. When I was scrolling through my photo library for these photos, I didn't have a single picture of myself in 2021 (with my hair down) and only 1-2 from the rest of the years. I realized that I wear my hair up in a bun MOST of the time, because it's too hot, or too humid, or because my hair is too long and takes an hour to straighten. Many of my clients are in shock when I wear it down, because it is so rare. I have been contemplating getting a shoulder-length or bob cut again, simply because it's lower maintenance in washing and styling, plus the fact that as my hair gets grayer it gets more dry and frizzy naturally.
Here's where I'm at in 2025, going shorter with each cut:
If you're thinking, "It doesn't look like it was that bad", and you still want to go forward with a color correction gray transformation, there's a couple of things I'd like you to consider:
1. The darker your hair is (or the darker the color you've been applying is), the harder it's going to be to lift it out enough to get it to silver, gray, platinum, or white. My hair had already been bleached a few times by the time I started my journey, but no matter how many times hair is bleached, at least a little bit of color is going to remain. It bears repeating- once your hair is lifted to the point of white, you may as well kiss it goodbye.
2. If you're set on keeping your long hair long during this process, it's going to be much, much harder (and much more expensive). In addition to feeling and looking pretty rough, it will inevitably need to be cut off at some point...
So what do I recommend?
Even though I love doing color, I lean towards the non-chemical when it comes to gray transitions. There is usually a long color history of covering gray attached to someone looking to stop, and this history creates complications. I used a couple of different hairpieces after I had cut off my yellow, damaged hair, and I highly recommend them to several new guests. If I had thought of hairpieces back in 2018, that might have been the route I took instead. They are the most affordable, least damaging option, other than quitting color cold turkey or getting one really short Makeover Haircut, and they are a lot of fun! No one could tell it wasn't my real hair, and I actually got a lot of compliments, despite the fact that my pieces were made of synthetic hair. Hindsight, they say...
When you book an in-person Gray Hair Journey Consultation- Visual & Tactile, I can show you what pieces like these can do for you! Of course, this isn't going to be the first choice for a lot of people, but I feel it's definitely worth considering. Just FYI, I am not "anti-color" at all, and if this is the path you have your heart set on, I am happy to help- as long as it's a healthy, realistic option.
I actually offer three different options for Gray Hair Journey consultations to get you started on the perfect path for your personal journey, and you can see these options by tapping the button:
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