It’s time to go au natural, whatever that may be. There’s a big move out there to return to natural hair color, and let’s say that you love the idea of fewer chemicals, less fuss, and less expense, so you’re on board. 

Preserving color from home isn't impossible, but how do you grow out your natural hair color without looking like you simply gave up?

We’re not going to judge you while you make this transition. We embrace all colors and that includes natural hair colors, even if they’re gray. We also know it’s healthier for your hair to skip the color, but the rest of the world might wonder what’s happening on your head. 

With making the transition as easy as possible in mind, we’ve come up with some tips to help you keep your look up to your regular standards while you grow out your hair.

Highs and lows

Connect with your favorite hairstylist and explain what you’re doing. They can give you high and low lights that play with your natural color, allowing it to grow slowly.

Dive right in

If you’re brave enough, let your roots grow out a bit longer than usual and then have a professional stylist use that as a guide to approximate your natural color. Then you just need to let it grow out.

Work with ombre

Ombre color is on-trend right now, so why not use it to your advantage. You can let it all grow out and see if it’s looking nice and ombre naturally. If it’s not quite there, a stylist can help you add some depth to your colors and make the transition more aesthetically pleasing.

The slow-go

In this situation, you’ll want to let your color grow a bit longer than normal before seeing your colorist. Explain that you’d like to tint back to your natural color over time. This means you’ll go a shade closer to your natural one this time you color, next time you’ll move another tint over. Eventually, you’ll get there.

DIY

This is for people who color their hair lighter than the natural shade. People who darken their hair will need a professional to lift out the dark dye to get the lightness back.

If you color your hair on your own and have always done it, you’ve probably developed a bit of skill along the way. If you’re confident in your abilities, you can slowly change the shade by picking colors that are closer to your natural color. 

A word of caution here. In the store, the color boxes are lined up by shade, so it seems easy to just pick the next one and go. But they’re not always so logical. Many commercial hair colors also divide the colors by cool or warm. If you’re used to using a cool color, don’t try to switch to a warm one and vice versa.

Going gray

While gray is as hot as it’s ever been these days, it’s going to be a long process for you to return to it. Dying hair gray to match is virtually impossible, and the trendy grays tend to fade very quickly, which isn’t good for your long-term goal.

You’re just going to have to wait until it grows out. You can make that process less painful and lengthy by cutting your hair short and having it trimmed often. Then you can re-grow it once your color has taken over.

You can also opt for a demi-permanent color, it doesn’t cover your grays, but it will cover the rest, so your natural hair will eventually shine through.

Final thoughts

Yay, you for making the decision to embrace the hair color Mother Nature gave you! You’ll actually have much better-looking hair in the long run because it will be healthy and glorious.

The only problem is, growing it out can take a very long time and it definitely will have some awkward stages. Our advice is to stick to all-natural haircare products during the entire process to keep your hair healthy and speed up growth. 

Seeing a professional hairstylist or colorist can help you take months off the grow-out time and make the transition easier. There are a number of different techniques they can try to give you the look you want. And now is the perfect time to make a change because, believe it or not, transitional hair color is trending.