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Go gray

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Allowing hair to go gray naturally is the healthiest approach for the hair, and the right hair care can make even gray hair very attractive and healthy. Fine, straight, hair often makes prettier gray hair because it is less coarse and can remain shiny more than coarser hair does. This works out well, though, because while fine, straight, hair is more likely to show damage from coloring more dramatically and sooner, coarser hair can tolerate coloring better.

Coloring hair too young and for too long can cause serious damage (including extreme thinning, breaking, and even balding). I've known women with thick, luxurious, hair who began coloring their gray as early as their fifties or before. By the time they've gotten into their eighties they are nearly bald.

When and whether to color gray, though, isn't a question that has completely simple answers sometimes. If a woman has a very young face in, say, her late forties or early fifties but her hair makes her look older then it may make sense to do a little coloring for a few years until her face more matches gray hair. The same applies to people with prematurely gray hair. The woman who is fortunate enough to have only a few gray hairs in her mid-fifties, however, may prefer to let the hair be natural for as long as possible and then color it for, say, the first five years of her sixties. This would let her her own hair color (for the most part) during her fifties and then for a few years past that. By the time someone is in the mid-sixties gray hair she may be more comfortable with her gray hair.

The decades in which the issue of coloring gray seems to require attention are generally the fifties and sixties. In general, people in their forties don't get a whole lot of gray (although anyone can have gray hair at any age). It is generally the fifties and early sixties when gray hair makes itself more known, when some people may actually look ten years younger than they really are, and when the general transition from original hair color to gray occurs. There are, of course, those fortunate people who actually have reasonably little gray hair even into their seventies.

There is also the question of how hair turns gray. Some gray hair begins with graying temples. Some begins with a few strands that come from the top of the head. Graying temples can sometimes be camouflaged with a certain haircut. A few silver strands that grow from the top of the head/hair can be turned into blond highlights on some shades of brown hair.

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