Hoping for advice from the Renegray Gang...

[KateMcC]

I skimmed through the 1800+omg! pages of the Salt & Pepper thread, and did a general search of the forum, but didn't find what I was looking for. Perhaps some of you lovely ladies with salt & pepper or white wisdom will contribute to a thread on the best practices for the care and upkeep of our silver strands?

It has been one year and three months since I last colored my grey and I am happy with my decision, but rather perplexed to find some of my silver looking yellow and drab. Ideally I would like to use natural and cruelty-free products. Any recommendations? Any changes in habit or handling from brunette to dyed to grey that you might pass along?

Thanks,

[W2]

My hair goes "blond" if I don't use a purple shampoo ... so that's what I do

[Peggy E.]

I love, love, love Klorane's centaury shampoo for shine enhancing and anti-yellowing. It's used on white and/or gray hair and it has the most amazing fragrance - I want to simply pour it all over my body!

Sadly, it is not cheap, but as I wash my hair once a week and a little goes a long way, it lasts me for quite a long time. I don't care, though, as it is such a glorious shampoo I'd use it regardless.

It is not blue. In fact, it is a terrific mother-of-pearl, with that sultry shimmer.

The Klorane line of hair products is manufactured in France, but sold in the U.S. I usually get mine from sellers on eBay, but there are many vendors online, if you are interested in giving it a go.

[KateMcC]

How often do you use the purple/blue shampoos? I've read elsewhere online that they should be used weekly, but for those of us who only wash our hair a few times a week or less is that advice still accurate?

[Stormynights]

You need to only use ut when you need it. If you use it too much you will have blue purple hair.

I remember when I was a child that women use bluing in their rinse water to keep their hair white. I am getting close to 67 and I was surprised to find out that it is still being sold. It was mainly for the laundry to whiten clothes. I think I will get some for my laundry. Who knows maybe I will put a couple of drops in my hair rinse.

[chen bao jun]

Interesting. I have got more grey now near my face and definitely don't want yellowing. I shold be iron gray I think by next year.

[spidermom]

I think yellowing is related to the minerals in your water, so you might want to rinse with distilled or at least filtered water. We don't have that problem around here.

[Sterlyn]

I have struggled with the yellowing/drab hair more than would have thought possible in the last 2 years. I'm pretty sure my water is a big contributing factor because when I went away on vacation for 8 days, my hair was bright/light the whole time I was out there, I wanted to take several gallons home with me. I'll just throw out some things that I've found through personal experience, as with most advice here YMMV. :) I find the longer my hair gets, the older hair seems much more susceptible to getting dull and yellow, not sure if that's because it's older or more fragile but the hair from the jaw up stays brighter without much maintenance.

Through much trial and error, I've discovered that regular use of a chelating shampoo and shampoos with sulfates make a big difference in the amount of yellow/dinginess in my hair. I only use it once a week. (either chelating or sulfates). I had terrible trouble with yellowing when I used only sulfate free shampoos, no idea why.

A list of things I have found that cause yellowing/darkening or a color change for me;

-Products with rosemary; repeated use of shampoo/cond with this will cause my hair to look significantly darker with time.
-Natural oils; all of the them that I tried, I can usually see exactly where I have applied them to my damp hair, because there is yellow tint there.
-Conditioners with lots of natural oils in them; tresseme naturals comes to mind, I loved the way it made my hair feel, but not the way it looked
-Products with coloring added to them; not referring to purple/blue, I had a conditioner that was pink that I really liked but I could swear with time my hair started to look faintly pink
-gels; some cause dinginess for me, I only use them sometimes to tame the frizzies to lay down on my canopy but I have found Biolage rock hard gelee to be the best; herbal essence gel not so much

My hair is very light, others with different levels of silver/white may not have any difficulties with the stuff I did. For myself I just pay attention if I use a new product, and after repeated use if I see that my hair is looking more yellow/drab, it could be the new product (or something in it). The list above was just trial and error for me. Everything was easily corrected with a few uses of a sulfate shampoo and discontinuing the offending product, nothing ever "stained" my hair permanently.

Also I should throw out that the use of hot tools, can singe silver/white hair if used at a heat that's too high and can cause yellowing that is permanent. I can't remember what heat is too high, but after I read this I threw away all my hot tools.

Purple shampoo/conditioner; I have tried many and they did just fine combating yellow but I didn't always like how they performed as a shampoo/cond on my hair, one of them had rosemary in it which caused darkening after a while. Anymore most of the time I use the red/gold color corrector, that sally's carries and add it to whatever products I'm using. I do a scalp only wash usually daily, a full hair wash is once or twice a week. I don't use a purple shampoo for a scalp wash, but anytime I do a full wash I use purple in the shampoo and conditioner. That seems to work best for me, I haven't seen too much tinting with this schedule but if that occurs I'm sure it would be easily corrected with a purple free wash. I think the bottom line is to use these products as often as you need to keep your hair at it's optimal color.

Hope this helps, feel free to pick and choose from it for anything that might work for you. Hopefully most people won't have as many issues with this as I did. :)

[chen bao jun]

thanks for the great post, Sterlyn.
Confirmed one of my fears. I use a lot of natural oils, I have been afraid they will darken white or silver hair.

[KateMcC]

Very helpful response, Sterlyn. Thank you! Regarding oils, does that include coconut oil? Since it's white, I'm hoping it won't cause any trouble. Good to know about the rosemary. Thanks again for the detailed response.

[Sterlyn]

I don't have a problem with coconut oil applied as a pre-poo oil but if I use it after as LI, it causes a faint yellow tint wherever I apply it. Oils, as least for me, seem to leave a film on my hair that can be seen even if they look clear/white. The only oil that doesn't do this for me is Mineral Oil, I have used 2-3 drops as a LI on wet hair with no noticeable yellowing.

[Obsidian]

Sterlyn, have you tried V05 hairdressing for silver/grey hair? Its mineral oil based and has a light bluish tint.

[Crystawni]

I'm no help, as I use the Tresemme Naturals s/poo and condish, natural oils (coconut, macadamia), mineral oil, etc. (see my profile for details), and my whites stay white. I've also gone from rainwater to town water, chlorinated pool water and salt water, with no change. I do remember a discussion about vinegar rinses on the Salt and Pepper thread mentioning white vinegar is better for whites than ACV (which tends to have a darkening effect), but again, those didn't make a difference to my hair. I've always had dye-resistant hair, though, too, so that could also be a factor. :shrug:

[Sterlyn]

Obsidian I heard of the v05 hairdressing but not that they made one for silver/white hair, will have to keep an eye out for this purple and MO might be worth a try.

Crystatawni *sigh I truly wish my hair was way less finicky about product or that I was less finicky about the color staying true. I think my water is a huge factor but have little hard evidence to go on. It's one of the reasons that I was hesitant in the past to post any sort of list, different factors could produce different results for each of us. I didn't want to come off sounding like I was making blanket statements about what was ok or not to use for silver/white hair. I am truly glad you aren't having issues keeping your whites bright :p.

Somewhere on the forum is a thread, which I can't seem to find and didn't bookmark, for blondes natural or bottle keeping their color true, cannot remember the title enough to google it successfully, worth a read for those having problems, if I find it I'll post it. After stumbling across some info here and a few other places and seeing others were having similar issues too, I finally stopped feeling that I was crazy, imagining it or had developed some new and odd obsession regarding my hair. :p

[Crystawni]

Sterlyn, no blanket statements seen by me! Actually, your info. was very helpful, and your hair shows what you're doing is working! It's truly a stunning colour with soft, beautiful waves. More often than not I've also seen that greys are harder to keep "true"--I think I'm one of the rare ones where the only time mine yellow a bit is when I haven't washed in a while. Your experience rings true for most, though, and is helpful to know products that can taint our lighter hair. I'd actually love to try a purple or blue shampoo or rinse to see if it brightens my hair up even more, but then I'd have to "correct" for my golden hues. Gah.

[Teazel]

I think yellowing is related to the minerals in your water, so you might want to rinse with distilled or at least filtered water. We don't have that problem around here.

I second that. We have no problems with mineral build up in our water (the kettle stays clean as a whistle) and I have no problem with yellowing silvers. But like Crystawni my hair has always been resistant to dye, so maybe I'm lucky.

Having said that, I do have a yellowish (or should I say gold?) streak. No amount of stripping or blue shampoo makes any difference to it though, so I think it's just my pigment spluttering out; the last remnants of brown giving a yellow tinge.

In short, I don't do anything special for my silvers other than avoiding rosemary and ACV. I miss the rosemary, but white vinegar is fine.

[sibiryachka]

I haven't yet had trouble with it myself, but my mother has been spectacularly snowy-white for many years. She swears too much sun exposure causes hers to yellow. I can neither prove nor disprove this theory, but she's pretty smart and certainly very experienced at this white-hair thing, so I contribute this for what it's worth.

[Sterlyn]

I read once on Cafe Gray that sun exposure can deplete the blue tones in white hair, since yellow is across from blue on the color wheel that's what you can be left with. I can't say that I've had a problem with sun but then I'm really fair skinned and burn easily so I'm usually wearing a hat when I'm outside.

It's a good point to bring up since OP is from Texas, where there is a whole lot more sun.

[lapushka]

My grandma had blonde hair, light blonde. She went white all over and had a blonde streak still present in her hair in front. It looked odd, but awesome!

[Aspsusa]

This thread seems like it has some people in it that might know a thing or two about something I've been thinking about lately.

I'm blonde, nowadays naturally dark blonde, colouring to light blonde. Seem to skew a bit to the yellowish/goldish, which I don't mind at all. But I love grey hair, and would like to take full advantage of it once I get any.

But how do I make a nice transition, keep my hair the lighter shade I like AND let any new white hairs stay white?
Would it be enough to try to find a (light blonde) box-colour that isn't strong enough to cover greys? (The ones I primarily use right now, L'oreal Preference and Excellence are supposed to cover greys I think.)

Should I be transitioning from box-colour to just some kind of lightening?

All women in my family had naturally dark hair (and the grey looked awesome on them), so I really don't have any RL models for how blonde-to-grey can be done in a stylish way. Please give me your wisdom!

[Charybdis]

Aspsusa, I think it really depends how dye-resistant your greys are. When I dyed my hair red with conventional dyes (the permanent kind, not the deposit kind -- L'Oreal Preference is conventional permanent dye, I think Excellence also deposits on top to help cover resistant strands), the dye basically washed right off my white strands in a week or two. I don't have very many silvers, but they're very determined to keep their color. Once you start noticing a few hairs coming in white at the roots, use dye that doesn't deposit on top of the hair (as those give the most grey coverage), and keep an eye on how quickly those hairs revert back to white after you dye. If they turn white again with a quickness, then you can probably just keep right on dyeing and still get the benefits of seeing your silver hairs.

Blonde-to-grey usually seems to work out pretty gracefully in real life, from the people I've seen go through that transition. Blondes often seem to go grey a bit later in life as well -- although that may not be what you want! :p

[Aspsusa]

Thanks Charybdis, that was really helpful.

I haven't noticed any white hairs yet, but I've been shedding like crazy the last few years (I think more than 1/3 of my hair is now significantly shorter than my lengths), so it might start to happen soon. Or not.

I didn't know Excellence also deposited something on top of hair - that explains why I'm usually most happy with my colour one or two washes post-colouring, I often feel it looks "fake" straight afterwards. Probably because the colour I'm after is what some of my hair does on its own when exposed to sun; very often I don't get around to touching up roots after the summer until October or even November. Should probably look into straight bleaching instead of box colours.

[hanne jensen]

Sorry that I've waited so long to post here, I just now saw this thread. I de-mineralize my hair about every 6-8 weeks using 2 parts ACV and 1 part water. Then I add a good dollop of clarifying poo. I wash my hair from root to ends and put a plastic bag on my head. I get out of the shower and do something else for 5-7 minutes and then rinse very thouroughly. Then I use a good moisturizing conditioner while doing shower stuff. This keeps my gray hairs shiny and a beautiful silver instead of yellowish. I have very hard water. Avoid cassia. I tried cassia once and my grays looked exactly the same color of morning urine. Not nice.

[Sterlyn]

hanne jensen I never thought of using the ACV as part of the shampoo, that's a good idea. I use vinegar as a final rinse but the white since I transitioned to silver because I read that it can stain hair as a rinse, not that I've ever personally experienced it.

I've read so much about the conditioning benefits for hair with cassia and have been tempted to try it but never did because I was afraid of staining.

[Haylz]

I think gray / white hair beautifully , so I'm reading here . What is ACV please ?

Still, I 'm blonde . I hope I get such a nice gray / white, like you have

[Sterlyn]

Haylz ACV is Apple Cider Vinegar:)

[Haylz]

Thank you Sterling. I know the English abbreviations not all . So far, I was more in the German forum

[vpatt]

I usually make my own shampoo....I wonder if I could add a few drops of blueing to it. I also wonder about using mud and if that would pull out yellow. But I don't know how mud would work in longer hair. Would it rinse out easily? My hair is not yet to APL.

[Sterlyn]

I usually make my own shampoo....I wonder if I could add a few drops of blueing to it. I also wonder about using mud and if that would pull out yellow. But I don't know how mud would work in longer hair. Would it rinse out easily? My hair is not yet to APL.

No experience with mud to offer but I have heard of people using blueing, I'm assuming you mean the stuff used to keep whites bright for laundry. I can't remember where I read it, but I think they said the added a few drops to a final rinse for their hair. Maybe a google search would help. I'd be curious to know your results if you do try it.

I use the ardell red gold color corrector from Sally's, which is very purple. I have a preference to the color purple gives me over blue, just seems to work better for my hair, blue gives me a steely tone that I don't care for as much. I add purple to both shampoo and conditioner and I use it every time I wash, which right now is once a week.

[vpatt]

Thank you, Sterlyn. I will check out the product at Sally's, too. I have used the purple shampoo from Sallys, but I don't remember much about it. It was a good while back. I see that Amazon has bluing, but I want to check out the ingredients before buying it. Since it is a liquid I'm sure it has other things in it. I will report back after I've given it a try. My hair still has a lot of brown in it and I doubt it will ever be the color of yours. I think you have beautiful hair.

[roseomalley]

I wash my hair two times a week. I use a blue shampoo and conditioner one of those times and a regular shampoo and conditioner. the other. I do use the purple Alberto VO5 hair dressing that comes in a tube, to tame some of the sticky-up hairs that I have. I wanted to say that a vinegar rinse is good, but have found the clear, white vinegar works better than ACV on my greys. The ACV tends to yellow my hair and the white vinegar brightens them. I had read this previously here, and it proved true for me. I also oil the ends of my wet hair with Camelia oil after shampooing, with no yellowing problem.

[Dragon Faery]

This thread has given me some things to think about. My whites are coming in fast in the front right section of my hair at the moment, and I have very dark brown hair. The problem is, I'm a curly and I almost always CO wash. Is there a way for me to keep my whites yellow-free with just conditioner? We also have very hard water. The tub turns orange within a few showers. I haven't noticed a significant yellowing of my whites yet, but I don't have very many long ones. I've tried ACV rinses before (for reasons other than whites), and the smell lingered in my hair even when it was dry, so I'm hoping I don't have to resort to that to keep my whites nice and bright.

[vpatt]

Sterlyn, the more I research the bluing the less sure I am about it. Mrs Stewerts site says it is blue iron powder....but their MSDS says it is ethandioxic acid and when i look that up it leads to oxalic acid....so. now I am wondering about a very light application of indigo.....an old recipe for bluing included indigo. I happen to have some for dyeing wool. Maybe I can try a tiny sample on my hair. I sent an email to a company that sells indigo and henna for hair dye asking them about using it for whitening rather than dyeing. I'm not sure, yet if i will try it. I don't want blue or green hair.

I think I got that MSDS chemical name wrong.....it is ethanesomething.

[trolleypup]

I've tried ACV rinses before (for reasons other than whites), and the smell lingered in my hair even when it was dry, so I'm hoping I don't have to resort to that to keep my whites nice and bright.
ACV is too stinky for me, so I just use distilled white vinegar...it keeps my scalp just as happy as ACV. At the moment, I am working my way through a bottle of rice vinegar...which smells briefly like I rinsed with sake...not a bad odor in MY book, but the scent doesn't linger.

[lapushka]

Sterlyn, the more I research the bluing the less sure I am about it. Mrs Stewerts site says it is blue iron powder....but their MSDS says it is ethandioxic acid and when i look that up it leads to oxalic acid....so. now I am wondering about a very light application of indigo.....an old recipe for bluing included indigo. I happen to have some for dyeing wool. Maybe I can try a tiny sample on my hair. I sent an email to a company that sells indigo and henna for hair dye asking them about using it for whitening rather than dyeing. I'm not sure, yet if i will try it. I don't want blue or green hair.

I think I got that MSDS chemical name wrong.....it is ethanesomething.

OMG no, not indigo for rinsing whites! It will most likely turn blue/green. Strand test. Just strand test first, please!

[vpatt]

OMG no, not indigo for rinsing whites! It will most likely turn blue/green. Strand test. Just strand test first, please!

Lol....that's what I was afraid of...thanks for the warning. But I found that old recipe that used indigo for laundry bluing. So I wondered if a tiny amount might work on hair. I don't understand how it works with henna. Thanks, lapushka!

[Dragon Faery]

ACV is too stinky for me, so I just use distilled white vinegar...it keeps my scalp just as happy as ACV. At the moment, I am working my way through a bottle of rice vinegar...which smells briefly like I rinsed with sake...not a bad odor in MY book, but the scent doesn't linger.

Haha, thanks! I'll try white vinegar sometime to see if there's any difference. My hair is determined to hang onto smells sometimes. Maybe I wouldn't mind the odor of rice vinegar, though ... the ACV rinse gave me a headache and I ended up having to wash my hair over again the next day just to live with myself.