Growing Out Gray Hair, How To #3 – Dying Only Your Part, For Awhile

With my mom and brother in September 2016. You can see the streak of
silver I let grow in while I continued to dye the rest of it. The streak was
mostly hidden but would peek out in a nice, unexpected way. I've gotten a
million compliments on my streak!

A hair stylist friend of mine, Teresa Mockler of Zindagi Salon in San Francisco, told me about a method for growing out gray hair that seemed downright ingenious. She told me “Start dying your part and along your face and let the gray start coming in underneath. Then when a few inches have grown in, one day you flip your part to expose the gray and get a short haircut.” Quite a clever way to go! 

My hair grows quickly and I was dying the roots myself every 2 weeks. I could push it to 3 weeks if I used a masking powder on my part. After Teresa told me about this new method I went 4-6 weeks dying just my part and letting my gray come in underneath everywhere else. This was very much an experiment to see if I was ready to let the gray come in. I didn’t know how white it had become since I started dying in in 2006, and I also didn’t know if I were bold enough to go for it and let it all come in gray. I would flip the hair to look at the inch or two of gray coming in and try to envision my head almost all silver. Was I ready? 

I tried this method twice, but after several weeks dyed it again.  That is, all but one section close to my face on the right side.  I let that bit of gray come in, little by little, a hidden streak just under the top hair. That bit of silver became a secret that would be exposed when I brushed my hand through my hair, flashing unexpectedly bright.  And that streak has served me well during this transition.  More on that in a later post.

These videos show a version of dying just a section while letting the rest grow in underneath:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rl7VP3By2M

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnYW8G5UbeY

For a more fun and uplifting (and not exactly related) video, I find this gal, Susan Paget, delightful.  She has a series of videos about middle age and this one is two years into her gray hair project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdVWlf23sGY.