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View Full Version : What the *beep* color is my hair?



leilani
August 29th, 2014, 11:15 AM
I know this is so uninteresting to other people, probably on this forum too but certainly I can't ask anyone in person and expect more than a blank stare. So please glance at these pics and tell me what on earth is my actual hair color that is coming in after my henna that I did for the last time about six weeks ago. I took about a hundred pics of my head outside in daylight and more than half of them appeared as if I had no "roots/regrowth" to speak of. Out of the few dozen that did show varying degrees of new growth that wasn't the same color as the henna'd hair, these are the ones that show the most stark/obvious difference, cropped to zoom in.

In sunlight top, centre part:
http://i61.tinypic.com/2f0afdt.jpg

behind:
http://i62.tinypic.com/2llik8z.jpg

Now overcast, top centre part:

http://i60.tinypic.com/35ism6r.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/2la4v1h.jpg

behind the ear, sunny http://i57.tinypic.com/im2ioi.jpg
and other sideburn/behind ear, sun behind clouds: http://i58.tinypic.com/2mxmyvl.jpg

back of my head, under canopy, overcast:
http://i60.tinypic.com/347xwcx.jpg

closeup of front hairline, sun behind clouds:
http://i59.tinypic.com/24zkt8g.jpg

and finally, the one shot out of the hundred that makes me look like I have a ton of silvers coming in! aack!! Please tell me this could be an anomaly and I'm not 34 with tons of gray hair growing in?? Please! Surely if 99% of the pics didn't look silver-ridden, this can't be true, but anwyays here it is: http://i57.tinypic.com/28u0obn.jpg

Or am I blind and do all the pics show silver hairs amongst the ....mystery coloured hair?

But anyways what color hair is coming in, what can I expect if i let this grow out natural? I really would like to do that but is this ash brown growing in? Something darker? Something lighter? Something with....gulp....gray interspersed?

I'm making myself a little insane since I haven't seen it without bleach highlights my entire adult life, and against platinum bleach highlights my natural hair just always looked "dark", nothing more nuanced than that…

Johannah
August 29th, 2014, 11:29 AM
To me, it looks like ash brown. But again, I'm not a pro in these things so a second opinion is needed. :p

ErinLeigh
August 29th, 2014, 11:36 AM
It looks ashy brown to me with a few greys :)

One thing to note..once the natural hair gets longer the color will alter a bit usually. The sun will give it some variances. It may not even be ash then.
To my eye most roots look dark and ashy when first growing out against color.

martyna_22
August 29th, 2014, 11:37 AM
Your hair looks medium ashy brown to me, but it's hard to judge from so little regrowth. I don't think these are silver hairs - with my blondette I had lighter looking strands as well, but they were rather golden and were just randomly scattered across my scalp, so I think that's the case here as well!

Anje
August 29th, 2014, 11:37 AM
I'd probably call it a light ashy brown. (Then again, everything looks ashy next to henna. My naturally red-brown roots look ashy next to henna.) Some might call it "blondette", though I like the term "tawny" that gets used around here.

It hasn't surfaced for a while, but we've got a thread for the tawny-haired crowd, most of whom have suffered the "what color is my hair?!?" problems. (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=6685) Lots of pics in there, which might give you a better idea of what it'd look like long and grown out.

Alaska98
August 29th, 2014, 11:41 AM
Yes, ash brown seems a good fit. Maybe they're not Grey. I have a lot of dark blonde near my temples that sometimes look grey because of the contrast. Maybe just natural highlights?

Anje
August 29th, 2014, 11:45 AM
Let me guess -- You're blond in your baby pictures but it got darker in childhood?

Freija
August 29th, 2014, 11:52 AM
I think it's going to be a medium brown, maybe even a lightish brown, as it grows out. Not sure about it being ash; I think maybe that's just against the henna. It's possibly going to be a very soft, neutral or even slightly golden brown as it grows. Look at pictures 1,3 and 6!

Also - it might just be me, but I think of 'tawny' as describing warm-toned hair, with soft hints of blonde, gold-brown and rust, not ash. I'd describe my hair as tawny, or auburn. : )

ETA: Your roots do look quite a bit like mine did, when I used to use henna. This is how mine grew out, if you're interested at all?

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=12081&d=1406419373

Nesoi
August 29th, 2014, 11:59 AM
Anje, that made me laugh. That's so on the money for people (including me) with roots that colour!

Leilani, it looks ash brown to me (come join our thread!) but I don't see any greys.

captaincrunch
August 29th, 2014, 12:02 PM
Looks like medium brown to me.

memeow
August 29th, 2014, 12:16 PM
I think it's close to impossible to tell from just the roots. My hair grows in quite dark but lightens to blonde by the time it's ear length, where other people with the same root color grow out to a light or medium brown. I'm not sure that it's ashy--just about any natural hair color will look ashy next to henna, but you could have golden or reddish tones that are just overwhelmed by it. If you really want to know, I think you'll need to spend at least a year growing it out. Even then, if you look at pictures of people with long natural hair, you'll see the color can vary a lot throughout the length. I think you'll have to wait and see!

Anje
August 29th, 2014, 12:19 PM
Anje, that made me laugh. That's so on the money for people (including me) with roots that colour!

Well, it's hardly a long shot bet! :lol:

brickworld13
August 29th, 2014, 12:24 PM
My roots are about the same color, but they look very ashy next to the henna. When I leave it alone and grow virgin hair, it's more a medium brown.

leilani
August 29th, 2014, 12:33 PM
I had white blonde hair until age 7, then golden blonde until 12, then it turned gold only in summers and grew in dark mousy blonde in winter, and somewhere before age 20 it stopped even bleaching out in the summertime and I switched to chemical highlights....

So relieved if they aren't gray. My blonde mom didn't get them until way older than me, my dad either, so I never anticipated any silvers before age 35....

Ingrid
August 29th, 2014, 06:28 PM
Hmm, it's so hard to say when the roots are short... Non-chemically treated hair also reflects light (and surrounding colours) differently to dyed hair so it's very difficult to tell what the actual colour is. I think you'd probably need to give it at least a year of growth and at least one summer, then it might be a bit easier to determine what the colour will look like. But even so, I agree with memeow - the longer hair gets, the more the colour changes.

Loviatar
August 29th, 2014, 07:02 PM
Definitely too hard to tell from short roots. I was convinced I had ash brown hair while I was growing out reddish colour, and ditto with my 1" pixie. Now I'm almost at shoulder, I'm what I call chestnut-mouse! I have a ton of red. In summer, it's red-mouse!

Also, I don't see any silvers yet in your roots. :flower:

leilani
August 30th, 2014, 04:39 AM
You guys are right, six weeks of regrowth is hardly much to judge by. I am soooo impatient to just wait and see! On the other hand, the sun is leaving my part of the world for the next 9-10 months, so since my root line is so subtle, no one will possibly notice that I am growing out coloured hair until next summer at the earliest, so i'll just try my best to forget about it.

But I examine in the bathroom mirror every day! The light there is impossible, it's such a waste of time. And outside I examine the ends of my hair for damage! Gah, I want to forget about the roots and the ends..... I need something else to take my mind off it. I did start a new hobby, making handbags/diaper bags out of recycled old leather coats from the second hand markets, and designing/planning/gathering notions for that has been a good place to redirect obsessing about my hair thoughts.... plus my ten month old allows me to sew while she plays in the floor, god bless her.

Thanks for entertaining my swirling angst about my hair color, even though there really are no answers!

jacqueline101
August 30th, 2014, 08:30 AM
It's medium brown in my opinion.

lapushka
August 30th, 2014, 08:54 AM
Kind of looks blonette, possibly light ash brown. It is hard to see, though with so little roots to go on. Normally true color becomes apparent at an inch to a few inches.

leilani
August 30th, 2014, 11:45 AM
I'm relieved the consensus seems to be that I don't yet have silver hairs coming in. I'm not ready to consider growing out natural with graying hair, it's hard enough to kick colouring my hair, and bleaching it......

mcgg417
September 30th, 2015, 11:29 PM
light brown with red and blond highlights is what i predict your hair will be :D

Alex Lou
October 1st, 2015, 12:49 AM
I don't think it's possible to tell from the roots. Roots are often darker than the rest of the hair. You'll just have to grow it in and see. :)

AutobotsAttack
October 1st, 2015, 01:35 AM
Kind of a subtle gradient of ash brown, and light tree trunk brown lol sorry for that weird reference

Winterwitch
October 1st, 2015, 01:57 AM
It seems that most people think it's medium brown, but I'd say it's light brown. Level 5. It's just very ashy which makes it look a little darker.

Deborah
October 1st, 2015, 02:48 PM
Medium brown