those that ever grew out natural color-what avaits me?

[juliaxena]

I have decided to try and grow out my natural color for one simple reason. While it is perfectly possible to have gorgeous dyed hair, it is taking a lot of time for me to care for it. This does not mean I think any less of any person who would not do the same. I adore results people get with hair dye. I adore it on myself too. But strange as it may be, I do not have time for two deep treatments a week, and this is what my hair asks of me, nothing less. So, if I manage to go through with this, what am I in for? I estimate it will take me 4 yers to be at my goal with natural hair. What else do I need to brace myself for?

[Roseate]

IME, growing out your natural color is a lot like growing out long hair. At first, you think about it a lot, you worry about what it looks like, you fidget and wish you could 'do something' to your hair... but after a while you settle in. Your hair gets longer, stays the same color, gets healthier, life is good. Natural hair becomes the new normal.

I can't think of any big surprises you need to "brace" for. It's pretty smooth sailing once you get used to it.

ETA: Oh, I thought of one! I see that your hair is on the lighter side: be aware that as it grows, your ends may become lighter than your roots over time. This became quite pronounced on my hair as it passed waist length last time. It didn't really bother me, but I've heard other people complain about it on LHC. So if you think lighter ends on your long hair will bug you, be aware and start protecting your hair from the sun now.

I just did a temporary color on my hair after being natural for years, and though I'm enjoying the change, I'm looking forward to getting back to my old boring hair.

[juliaxena]

My hair is not really on the lighter side, it's actually light ash brown. The color you see in my signature is lightened hair and ash blonde temporary color over it. It's my way of coping with darker roots. The nautral lightening of my hair would be a blessing for me butI'm not sure it will happen for me.

[Roseate]

My hair is not really on the lighter side, it's actually light ash brown. The color you see in my signature is lightened hair and ash blonde temporary color over it. It's my way of coping with darker roots. The nautral lightening of my hair would be a blessing for me butI'm not sure it will happen for me.

Light ash brown is still probably light enough to get some difference between ends/roots at longer lengths; my roots are light brown but my ends became pretty much all blonde.

But, I just noticed that your goal is BSL: it probably wouldn't happen to an annoying degree at that length unless you spend a ton of time in the sun. And, sounds like you wouldn't mind it anyway so you are all good. I can't think of any other major drawbacks to natural haircolor.

[Aurantia]

Hi juliaxena,

I permanently colored my hair for the first time two years ago, and have been growing it out since January of this year. My personal experience included these hitches:

1. Your roots/natural hair may look drab and unhealthy next to your colored hair even if it's in better condition. My ends have not lightened at all, but my color has faded from a brilliant red to a sort of drab reddish brown -- thankfully, this has helped to blend in with my natural ashy color. ;)

The greatest frustration was when roots first started showing to about an inch of growth, and then again when my natural color passed my crown and I had what I felt looked like a skunk stripe. Now I don't even notice where one ends and the other begins.

2. It may take several months before your hair responds to different treatment. Meaning those two deep treatments per week you're doing now may be necessary for quite a while after you stop coloring. My hair was a protein disaster in January and wasn't diagnosed correctly until June so my troubles were of a different sort, but the dry ends and strange nature of my hair remained for 3 months after I started repair.

In fact, my hair still behaves differently from when it's in its natural state. It is, however, no longer dying of thirst and doesn't require the intensity/frequency of moisture treatments that it did.

I hope this helps! Good luck in your journey! :)

[Addy]

Be prepared to feel very soft and shiney hair with no real need to deep condition 2x's a week!

Oh the brutality! :D

[pepperminttea]

<snip> 1. Your roots/natural hair may look drab and unhealthy next to your colored hair even if it's in better condition. <snip>

This. My natural hair colour looked so dull compared to my permed, fried, reddish/faded-to-pink hair, even though it was healthier - I was so tempted to dye, but glad I didn't. The thing is to keep going - the shine will come later with the length and a bit of love. :)

[spidermom]

You can look forward to the line of demarcation blurring as your hair grows until it becomes difficult to tell where the dye ends and the natural color begins.

[christine1989]

It really depends how different your natural color is from your dye job. I grew my dark brown hair out from black dye and no one really noticed. I did not have the hideous line separating natural from dyed color however the dyed portion was obviously dryer than the natural part so I ended up with half healthy, shiny hair and half black poof. Nonetheless, the growing out process was pretty quick.

[mellie89]

Count on your canopy hairs having damaged ends for a loooong time. You might be suprised how quickly the underlayer grows out, since those hairs are so much shorter.

Also, you may have to rethink your routine as your natural hair grows in. For example, cones did not work on my dyed hair, but they do work on my natural hair. So, I have ended up switching from cone-free products to cone-y ones.

[Xandergrammy]

My best advice for you is to be patient. I have a photo album that shows my growing out journey.

[Tatybird]

Last January I stopped dyeing my hair because I wanted to grow out my natural color. So far the most difficult period was at the beginning when I would spend hours looking at my roots trying to imagine how my natural hair would look like. Then, little by little you get used to your growing roots and you feel more comfortable with your hair.
Speaking about treatment, I would say that your colored ends will be with you for quite some time, so they'll need the care they like. In my case, the part of my hair which is not dyed likes natural treatments a lot, while the colored ends cannot stand anything but for silicones. That is why for my roots I use one treatment (mostly, home-made shampoos and oil treatments) while I'll usually use normal silicone based conditioners and treatments for my (still colored) ends.
I wish you luck and patience!:)

[nowxisxforever]

You can look forward to the line of demarcation blurring as your hair grows until it becomes difficult to tell where the dye ends and the natural color begins.

This. I henna now, but when I stopped chemically dying my hair, after a year or two I couldn't even tell where one began and the other ended. I have to guess, now, where that was, but I can usually estimate based on where most of my damage starts.

[juliaxena]

This. My natural hair colour looked so dull compared to my permed, fried, reddish/faded-to-pink hair, even though it was healthier - I was so tempted to dye, but glad I didn't. The thing is to keep going - the shine will come later with the length and a bit of love. :)


This is almost the reason for my stocking up on ash blonde temporary dye and putting it over my lightened gold blonde lenght. While my roots do seem to shine already, I don't know how I would cope with obvious two toned hair (I'm an enemy of unevenness lol) or even worse, how I could handle looking at perfect blonde shade I had (in my eyes) while still dying my hair.

I'm sort of afraid this won't mean any less work till I'm done, I will still have to DC the lenght and put temporary dye over it and by the time I'm done I may go gray and feel compeled to dye again (while I love the renegrays, I'm just too young for gray and my mother grayed very early hence the fear).

[Tiina]

1. Depending on what kind of dye you used, the colour of the coloured hair may change a lot. It can also lose all shine and niceness especially if there was bleaching involved in the dying process.

2. The area where roots and dye mix may look dirty for no reason.

[juliaxena]

1. Depending on what kind of dye you used, the colour of the coloured hair may change a lot. It can also lose all shine and niceness especially if there was bleaching involved in the dying process.

2. The area where roots and dye mix may look dirty for no reason.



Dirty? Ok, that's new (scary).

I don't think it can lose shine and niceness that easy if you DC it twice a week. I really really take care of it, I go out of my way actually. I can't relax a little and be dealing with imperfections, that's why it's taking so much time to care for it. If I wasn't so busy in my life at the moment, I'd probably just keep doing it. I'm crazy I know.

[juliaxena]

OMG, I can't believe it, I almost went ahead and lighten my roots again. I was nervous the whole day and my hair almost payed the price. I guess this is also a thing to brace for?


Thanks all for your input.