It’s easy to watch a gray blending transformation online and think, “Why can’t we just do that to my hair?”
You see the before picture. Years of dark color, gray roots growing in, maybe some warmth or brassiness through the ends. Then you see the after, and somehow everything works together.
If you’ve been covering your gray every six weeks, you may be ready for something different. So it makes sense to look at a transformation like that and wonder how long it would take with your hair.
But there’s a lot those before-and-after pictures don’t tell you.
Your Hair Has a History
When someone comes to me for gray blending, I’m not just looking at the gray growing out of her head. I also need to know what’s been done to the rest of her hair.
Have you been coloring it at a salon or doing it yourself at home? How dark have you been coloring it? How long have you been doing it? What kind of shape is your hair in now?
All of that matters because we’re working with the hair you already have.
Home hair color can be especially tricky to remove. Sometimes I need to start with a color remover before we even get to the highlights. I use gentle Malibu products for this rather than bleach. That helps remove some of the artificial color so the highlights can lift more evenly.
That’s an extra step before we even get to the gray blending part.
Sometimes getting rid of old color can also involve a conversation about length. Cutting is one of the quickest ways to get rid of old color. If you’re ready to lose some length, that’s simply less old color we have to work through.
If you’re not, that’s okay too. It just becomes part of figuring out what it’s going to take to get from where your hair is now to where you want it to be.
There’s More Going On Than Just Making Your Hair Lighter
Gray blending can involve a lot of very fine highlight work.
I’m not just putting in traditional highlights to make your hair lighter. I’m looking at the gray pattern that’s naturally growing in and trying to create something that works with it.
Sometimes I need to pull those highlights pretty light before I can tone them back to work with your natural gray.
Even lowlights aren’t always as simple as putting darker color into the hair. Sometimes I have to lighten old color first and then put the darker color back in.
So when you see that finished photo, you may not realize how many different things we had to do to get there.
And that’s where the starting point really matters.
Someone who’s already fairly light is starting in a very different place than someone with years of dark artificial color. One person’s hair may lift beautifully. Someone else’s may need more work before we can even get to the color we’re trying to create.
I Also Need to See How Your Hair Is Holding Up
There’s another part of this that matters when we’re deciding how quickly to move.
We’re using lightener and working with hair that may have already been colored for years. Even when we’re doing lowlights, there are times when I need to lighten the hair first and then put the darker color back in.
That’s a lot to ask of the hair.
I can use good products, bond builders, masks, and other things to help minimize damage. But we’re still chemically processing your hair. Colored and highlighted hair can be drier than hair that hasn’t been processed, and it needs to be treated that way.
That’s why I’m paying attention to your hair throughout the process, not just thinking about the color I want to see at the end.
There may be more we want to accomplish, but I also want to see how your hair responds to what we’ve already done. Sometimes we can keep going. Sometimes giving the hair more time makes more sense.
I’ve found that the slower we go, the better the hair tends to hold up.
That doesn’t tell me by itself how many appointments you’ll need. It’s one of the things I’m considering as we go.
That Social Media Transformation May Have Taken All Day
This is where I think social media can give people a very different idea of what a gray blending appointment should look like.
We’ve all seen those amazing transformations online. Someone flies across the country to see a stylist and comes out with completely different hair.
But some of those clients are spending the entire day with that stylist. The appointment may cost $5,000 or $10,000 because the stylist is doing an enormous amount of work in one sitting.
Then all we see is the video.
We see the before, a little bit of the process, and the finished hair. We don’t see all the hours in the chair. We don’t know what was already on her hair or what kind of shape it was in when she arrived. And we don’t see everything that happened between the before and the after.
That doesn’t mean those transformations aren’t real. It means there may be a lot more behind them than you can see in a short video.
So when someone shows me a picture or video and says, “I want this,” I’m not just looking at the finished hair.
I’m looking at her hair and thinking about what it will take to get there.
Where Are You Starting and Where Do You Want to Go?
Someone with fairly light hair and very little artificial color is starting in a very different place than someone with long, dark hair that’s been colored at home for years.
But the starting point is only half of it.
I also need to know where you want to end up.
Maybe you want to eventually stop coloring your hair and transition all the way to your natural gray. Or maybe you still want color in your hair and just want your gray to blend better as it grows in.
Those goals can take us in different directions.
Your first appointment may involve removing old color before we start highlighting. Or we may be able to get right into creating the blend. We may accomplish a lot during that first appointment, but still have more we want to do the next time.
That’s why I talk about gray blending as a journey. We’re working from the hair you have now toward the hair you want, and every person’s path can look a little different.
So Does Gray Blending Really Take More Than One Appointment?
A lot of the time, yes.
But that doesn’t mean every gray blending client needs the same number of appointments. There are people whose hair allows us to accomplish a lot in that first visit.
How many appointments you’ll need depends on your hair. Where are we starting? What’s already been done to it? Where do you want to end up? And as we go, I need to see how your hair responds.
That’s why I think there’s a better question than, “How many appointments is this going to take?”
What does my hair need to get from where it is now to where I want it to be?
For some people, that’s a shorter trip. For others, there are more steps along the way. And sometimes taking a little more time means the hair holds up better as we get there.
Because when we’re finished, I don’t just want you to love the gray blending.
I want you to love your hair.