Growing Out Grey Hair Naturally: I Did It Twice

The day I turned 35, I started growing out my grey hair naturally.

Actually, that's not quite true.

I had stopped using conventional hair dye four years earlier, after 15 years of colouring my hair, and had started using natural henna and indigo instead. “Hendigo”, as I called it, worked brilliantly for me. It brought back the shine and volume that had disappeared after years of hair dye, and it covered my grey beautifully.

There was just one tiny problem.

It was an absolute pain in the arse.

I had to prepare the gloopy mixture the night before, spend an entire day hiding out at home with mud and cling film wrapped around my head, and then wash it out in what can only be described as a bloody, murderous shower scene.

Every month.

After four years of this delightful tradition, I quit.

I knew my natural hair was over 50% grey and, quite honestly, I just didn't care.

I didn't ask anyone's opinion. I didn't make a big announcement. I didn't post a dramatic “I'm embracing my grey!” statement.

I just stopped colouring it and let it grow.

That was in 2014.

Growing out grey hair was not easy

When I say I “didn't care”, I don't mean that I'd given up on myself, my appearance or how I looked.

It was actually the opposite.

Letting my grey hair grow was an experiment.

I wanted to know what I really looked like underneath all that colour. I wanted to know whether I'd still feel confident. Whether I'd still feel like me.

And, frankly, I wanted to know what it would be like to get all those hours back.

It took a lot of guts to start growing out my grey hair in 2014. This was before it was trendy, and I was only 35 years old.

The first year was not great.

Frankly, it sucked.

People looked at my roots. A LOT.

I could see the little calculations happening in their heads.

Was she deliberately ignoring her roots? Could she not afford to have her hair done? Was this some sort of statement?

At 35, I think people simply didn't consider three inches of grey roots to be an appropriate look for someone my age. There was a stigma around visible roots, and an assumption that if you were walking around with a lot of grey showing, you were either unable to afford the hairdresser or had started “letting yourself go”.

My hairdresser seemed equally unsure what to make of it and preferred not to mention it at all. Just.... S I L E N C E

And strangers would sometimes feel the need to comment.

I remember being in a grocery store when a complete stranger walked up to me and said, “Oh, you look so much younger from behind!”

Thanks?

I knew what he meant. From behind, without seeing my face, the dark hair made me look younger. From the front, the grey told a different story.

There were plenty of questions from friends, too. Was I okay?

My mental health was absolutely fine, by the way.

I was just growing out my grey hair.

And in 2014, that was apparently enough to make people wonder what was wrong with me.

Was I secretly vain?

The reactions surprised me.

I'd expected people to notice the grey. I hadn't expected them to have such strong opinions about what it supposedly meant about me.

When I started this experiment, I genuinely didn't care what anyone thought. But around five or six months in, the reality of growing out my grey hair started to hit me.

I was about to start my business, and that made me much more conscious of how I was going to be perceived. I worried that my grey roots would make me look unprofessional, or that people would see me as someone who had stopped taking care of herself. I worried about conferences, meeting people for the first time, being photographed, appearing on video (talking about haircare!). All those situations where I was suddenly very aware of how I looked.

I worried people were judging me. I worried that I was less attractive and might not achieve the same success.

I'm not particularly proud of this, but there were opportunities I said no to because I didn't feel ready to put myself on the public frontlines while my hair was in that awkward in-between stage.

That's quite a thing to admit.

I'd like to say I was completely confident in my decision and didn't care what anyone thought. I wasn't. I'd made the decision to grow out my grey, but I hadn't yet developed the confidence to own it in every room I walked into.

And that made me wonder how much of my confidence was tied up in looking a certain way.

Was I secretly vain?

I needed to know.

So I started keeping an experimental hair journal on Pinterest, taking photographs as my natural grey hair grew in.

At the time, I had no idea that some of those photographs would eventually be seen by thousands of women who were going through exactly the same thing.

Growing out my grey hair took me about 15-18 months, including a few aggressive trims. I eventually had to cut around eight inches of length off my dyed ends.

But when I looked back at the process, I realised something rather extraordinary.

I took 135 hours of my life back

I'd estimated that, had I been having my hair professionally coloured, the break from dyeing could have saved me around £1,800 in salon appointments.

But the money wasn't the interesting part.

The time was.

I estimated that I took around 135 hours back.

One hundred and thirty-five hours that I hadn't spent mixing henna, wrapping my head in cling film, waiting, washing, cleaning the bathroom afterwards, and hiding out in my own home.

That's nearly six full days. Six days I could spend with my family, building my business, reading books, seeing friends, or just... not being trapped in my bathroom with mud on my head.

And I started wondering what else I had been using hair treatments for.

I had been using hair colour as a crutch

This was probably the biggest surprise of the whole experience.

I hadn't realised how much I had been using hair treatments as a little emotional crutch.

When I'd had a bad day, a rough month or just felt a bit rubbish about myself, I'd sometimes think:

I'm going to colour my hair.

That would make me feel better.

I'd feel like I was doing something for myself. I'd have something to look forward to. I'd feel a bit more put together.

But when I stopped colouring my hair, that particular quick fix disappeared.

I had to sit with the actual feeling instead.

Why did I feel rubbish?

What was really bothering me?

What did I actually need?

That sounds like a fairly profound thing to learn from a bunch of grey roots, but that's what happened.

My natural grey hair was making a statement

I didn't realise it at the time, but my grey hair was definitely making a statement about me.

It said I was a bit rebellious.

It said I was willing to stand out a little.

I was becoming much more comfortable with myself.

I knew my own mind.

And I gave considerably fewer f***s about whether other people thought I was hot or not.

That was pure gold.

If growing out my roots, bucking the norm and managing other people's judgement was a test, I had passed.

And remember, this was 2014.

Grey hair wasn't nearly as culturally comfortable as it is now. Today, you'll find women deliberately choosing silver, white and grey hair, as well as people using grey blending techniques to make the roots transition period literally disappear. The conversation has changed considerably since 2014.

But I had already learned the important bit.

I didn't need anyone else to approve.

Eventually, I started seeing me before my grey hair

Something funny happened as the months went by.

The grey became less noticeable.

Not because there was less of it, but because it became my hair.

Eventually, people started seeing me before they saw my grey hair.

I started getting compliments on it, particularly from women.

I didn't feel less attractive.

Sometimes I actually felt a bit special.

Like a unicorn.

A magical unicorn that you might only see once in your life.

And then something even more interesting happened.

I stopped thinking about my hair quite so much.

I decided that hair was just hair.

I'd spent years thinking about it, experimenting with it, colouring it, growing it, worrying about it and learning from it.

And eventually I realised that it didn't define me at all.

It didn't make me a better person.

It didn't make me a happier person.

It didn't have any control over me.

It was mine.

And I was in charge.

Then I dyed it again

Here's where the story gets interesting.

In 2018, I decided to colour my hair again.

Why?

Because I fancied it.

That's it.

I just wanted dark brown hair again.

And, weirdly, I worried that people might judge me for colouring it. Because by now, grey hair was in demand!

I wondered if my silver sisters would think I'd gone back on everything I'd stood for.

But this time, something was different.

The self-doubt arrived and disappeared almost immediately.

I knew that colouring my hair didn't mean I'd failed.

I'd already done the experiment.

I'd already learned what I needed to learn.

So I dyed it.

And then I picked up my kids from school.

I walked in with my fresh, obviously dark brown hair.

And all the other mums cheered and lifted me onto their shoulders.

No.

That didn't happen.

This is what actually happened:

Nothing.

Nobody even said anything.

And that was the point.

I grew out my grey hair again

I'd always said I'd grow out my natural grey hair again at some point.

When I was in the mood.

And then came 2020.

The Big Lockdown.

And, while lockdown itself was obviously not fun, growing out my grey hair for the second time was much easier.

I'd already done it once.

I knew the awkward stage wouldn't last forever.

I knew that my hair wasn't my identity.

And, most importantly, I knew that I could change my mind.

That's the bit I wish I'd understood earlier.

You don't have to make growing out your grey hair into a permanent identity.

You don't have to declare that you'll never dye it again.

You can simply stop colouring your hair and see what happens.

You can grow it out.

You can colour it.

You can grey blend.

You can change your mind.

It's your hair.

So, should you grow out your grey hair?

If you're thinking about growing out your grey hair naturally, don't ask yourself whether you'll look better with grey. Ask yourself:

“What happens if I stop trying to control it?”

You might love it.

You might hate it.

You might discover that your natural colour is completely different from what you imagined.

You might find the transition awkward.

You might find it liberating.

You might grow it out and then dye it again six months later.

All of those things are completely fine.

If you're nervous about the grow-out stage, there are also ways to make the transition less stark, including shorter cuts, strategic trims, highlights or grey blending. You don't have to white-knuckle your way through a year's worth of roots if that's not your idea of fun.

For me, though, the most valuable part wasn't discovering what colour my hair was underneath the dye.

It was discovering that I got to decide what that colour meant to me.

I didn't have to love my grey. I didn't have to hate it. I didn't have to defend it, explain it or make it part of my identity.

It was just hair.

Mine. And I was in charge.

And that turned out to be surprisingly freeing.

Grey hair isn't the end of looking after yourself

One of the biggest misconceptions about embracing natural grey hair is that you're somehow opting out of caring about your appearance.

I don't see it that way at all.

I still love beautiful hair.

I still love healthy skin.

I still enjoy looking after myself.

The difference is that I no longer confuse looking after myself with constantly trying to correct myself.

That's a pretty important distinction.

Today, I'm much more interested in healthy hair and scalp care than I am in making my hair look a particular age.

That's one of the reasons I continued to develop our natural haircare range in the first place.

If you're growing out your grey, or simply trying to get your hair healthier after years of colouring, bleaching or heat styling, you can explore our natural haircare range.

You might also like our guide to growing your hair faster, thicker and healthier.

My biggest lesson from growing out my grey hair

This whole process gave me a completely different perspective on female ageing.

I realised how much energy women are expected to spend trying not to look older.

And I realised that ageing isn't something I need to apologise for.

My grey hair doesn't make me less interesting.

It doesn't make me less feminine.

It doesn't make me less attractive.

It doesn't make me invisible.

And it certainly doesn't make me less me.

If you are currently growing out your grey hair, I hope you know this:

You don't have to be brave every single day.

Some days you'll look in the mirror and think, I LOVE this.

Other days you'll wonder what on earth you've done.

Keep going if you want to.

Stop if you want to.

There are no medals for making it to the finish line.

The whole point is that the decision is yours.

And honestly?

That's the most empowering part of all.

Melissa x

PS. Growing out my natural grey hair taught me just how much bada$$ery is involved in “growing old gracefully”.

I'm still not entirely sure I want to grow old gracefully.

But I'm definitely planning to do it on my own terms.