How to go grey and still look like you've made an effort

Telegraph

30-03-2025

My dad had shoe polish-black hair with silver at his temples. I remember being fascinated by his streaks when I was a kid, wondering how they got there. To me, his greys were both dramatic and distinguished, and entirely him.
Maybe that's why I didn't mind when grey strands began to appear around my temples in my mid-20s. There was something comforting in this hereditary legacy, an aesthetic nod from generation to generation. It helped that I liked how they looked: a slash of silver added an appealing sense of drama to my brown curly hair. That only increased as they grew more prominent. Which was lucky, because I couldn't be bothered to take action against them. I hesitated to embark on a futile campaign against signs of ageing or commit to yet another expensive, high-maintenance beauty regime.
Over time, they became part of my look. So much so that when my kids asked why I had grey streaks, they knew I'd answer, 'That's where I keep my memories.'
Lately though, the greys have sent out scouts, claimed territory. They're still clustered around my temples, but when I pull my hair back into a ponytail, I see more grey than brown. It's less Bride of Frankenstein, more granny. And the texture! My greys are somehow frizzier and more wiry than the rest of my hair.
It's enough to make a gal feel unkempt.
'Grey hair by nature is coarse due to the lack of melanin,' says Jessie Renyard, senior colourist at Nicola Clarke at John Frieda. 'Imagine that the hair shaft is a clear drinking straw filled up with little balls of pigment, representing your natural colour. When that pigment goes, you're left with just a hollow straw, which is a lot drier and coarser.'
Integrating the greys doesn't have to mean covering them completely, she says. Her suggestion is to emphasise the contrast by adding in more of my base colour. This would only take a few foils and would last four to six weeks. 'If you've got that lovely white streak there and we can get a bit of depth back next to it – chef's kiss.'
But what if I don't want to commit to colouring my hair? After all, my main complaint isn't the colour, or lack thereof – it's the textural difference between the flyaway greys and the hair on the rest of my head.
'Once hair grows through white, the texture changes completely. A lot of clients come to me because although they actually love their white hair, they don't like its texture, or the frizz that comes with it,' says Ondine Cowley, artistic director at Gielly Green. 'They'll say, 'Hang on, my hair has been smooth my whole life, but it's not smooth anymore. What am I meant to do?''
She prescribes Hyrolox, a smoothing treatment (free from formaldehyde or keratin) that conditions and straightens hair for three to six months. 'But all smoothing treatments will relax the curl,' she warns.
For someone with straight hair, Hyrolox and similar treatments can be godsends. I'm not interested in straightening my hair or even risking change to the naturally curly texture, so it isn't right for me.
'The most important thing is understanding that grey hair is porous. Hydration has to be your number one priority,' says Charlotte Mensah (when it comes to curly and Afro hair textures, she's a UK expert). She recommends exfoliating the scalp with her Manketti Oil Salt Scrub ('it loosens product-build-up on the scalp and helps bring the moisture and hydration to a much higher level'), steaming and drenching the hair with hydration-boosting products.
A few days later at the Hair Lounge, Mensah's warm, lively salon on London's Portobello Road, a stylist sprays my hair with diluted conditioner to detangle it before the salt scrub, a high-friction head massage over the backwash. My scalp tingles as she slathers on a hair mask and tucks me under a steamer, a slice of Mensah's signature pound cake and a cup of ginger tea within reach. Twenty minutes later, my hair feels softer than ever.
Scrubbing and steaming are effective but temporary. Ultimately Renyard's idea – emphasising the grey by heightening the contrast with a touch of colour – proves too intriguing to resist. So on no less auspicious a day than my 41st birthday, I sit in her salon chair and watch as she paints small sections from the front of my hair with colour before folding them into foils. 'I'm just putting some of your natural depth back in, but in a way that looks natural rather than like I've taken a Sharpie to your hair,' she says. 'There will still be greys, but let's knock it back a couple years.'
How did it look? Natural, but better. The greys appeared brighter against the darker brown strands (she also used a toner to take down the brassiness of the sun-damaged ends of my hair, which made a difference), but the overall effect was subtle enough that no one's asked if I've changed my hair. And it's a minimal enough intervention that even if I don't go back for another session, the colour Renyard added will fade in an undetectable way.
It's ideal given that I didn't set out to dramatically alter or repudiate the way I look – all I wanted was to make the greys look like a more deliberate choice, a little sleeker, a little less random. In fact, I'm not thinking of this intervention as a makeover. Let's call it an upgrade instead.