5 months into going gray is a perfect time to go ahead and experiment with different ways to style your hair. Good graycious it can’t be the worst thing you try during this journey. Your hair doesn’t look “perfect” yet, so why not give different options a try?
- Try different ways to part the hair
- Curl or straighten
- Strip the color
- Cut if off
What am I doing to shake it up a bit? I headed out for some research on YouTube of course! I stumbled upon this video from The Makeover Guy. I discovered it is a good thing for us people with lopsided eyebrows to pay attention to where the hair parts. What the heck?
For the last few years, I’ve been parting my hair on the right side of my head. Years before that, I parted it on the other side and didn’t know why I just did. Low and behold, I was on to something. I didn’t know that if you have lopsided eyebrows, you can give them the appearance of lift by parting your hair on the side of your head that has the lower eyebrow?
What? Yes, it works! I was surprised too.
And, weird but true, I found out that my left side of my head has less gray (or more dark hairs mixed in the salt and pepper) than the right side of my head. Now I am interested again in the journey. Even more variation in the salt and pepper look will be a great thing. Yay! It is kind of fun now to have some of the gray curls peek through the colored hair on the side of my face, not just at the top of my head.
At 22 weeks post-coloring, aka, five months into the journey, I have a good 3.25 or so inches of outgrowth of my new color. Hair stripping seems like a viable option at this point. Last week I scheduled an appointment for a hair stripping and then canceled it.
Since canceling the appointment, I’ve done research about hair stripping process. I wanted to find proof that it will work. So far no luck. 5 month’s outgrowth isn’t quite 1/3 of the way to the final version of the new gray me. If I stripped the remaining colored hair, 2/3 of my hair would be at risk. For some odd reason, that is way scarier than going gray the slow and methodical way?!
I’m concerned that if stripping didn’t work I’d end up having a yucky and brassy blondish kind of colored hair…Yikes, could I live with that?! I don’t know? Heck yes, I do know. I’d probably cut it off!
While I’m not opposed to cutting it off if stripping didn’t work, 2/3 of my hair gone would be a bit more dramatic of a change than I’m ready for. Yeah, it is a dramatic change from dark hair to gray, but it is gradual letting it just grow out. People slowly notice, or do they?
The going gray slowly changes are gradual to me, but I see them every day. I find focusing on the beauty of the evolution captivating and it keeps me interested. There are moments where I’m reminded of how much it really has changed. For someone who hasn’t seen me in the past 5 months, it is rather shocking, or at least it appears that way by their expression on their faces. Gotta love the shock factor for a bit of entertainment in the process.
My brother stopped by and proved my theory. When I opened the door to let him in, he almost backed up as he took a gasp of breath when our eyes met. He looked down as quick as possible. There’s that Midwestern avoidance factor again!
Sensing his comfort factor being stretched a bit too much on what to say next, I put him at ease by saying, “I’m going gray, ON PURPOSE!”
Being a man of not so many words, sighing in relief, he replied, “Oh…Why?”
I responded, “I was tired of coloring it, so I’m letting it go gray.” Note, I didn’t put him on the spot by asking what he thought of it. Guys don’t like that, so don’t even bother, you may not get their true feelings anyhow.
He said, “Oh…okay.” Silence…brevity…oh my, a real moment to test my confidence.
And then, we just went on with our conversation like nothing happened.
There you have it.
The 5 month stage isn’t dramatic, it isn’t horrible, it isn’t magnificent either.
…it is just, well…long pause…what the heck is it? Let’s just say this stage is evident but not enough to encourage anything more than an, “Oh…” comment from innocent bystanders to your journey.
No worries, I just need to get used to it, the 5-month stage is a tad bit boring. Changes are not moving fast enough to give a thrill like coloring does. Nope, I’m still not going there. So for me, changing up the part is my choice for this phase…that is until I really want to jump into a shock factor option.
What do you do to shake things up a bit? I’d love to hear your ideas!
