10 beauty tips for grey hair

Whether you are aging gracefully and relishing your grey hair or you’re trying the latest hair colour trend, here are my beauty tips to make the most of your grey hair.

More and more I’m seeing women embracing their grey hair, which I kind of love. Personally for me, I think I will always colour my hair, but if you’re thinking of making the most of your natural hair, there’s never been a better time to do it.

In fact grey hair’s become such a trend that young women are dying their hair grey before they’ve even had their first grey hair. Wherever you land in that spectrum, grey hair does need a little bit more care. Most of my tips here are for naturally grey hair, but even if you have embraced the trend and coloured your hair grey, you’ll also love these beauty tips too.

Here are my top 10 beauty tips for grey hair.

10 beauty tips for grey hair

1. Cool it down

Often the hardest thing when transitioning to your natural grey hair or changing your hair colour to grey is that grey is a very cool tone. If your previous hair colour was a warm blonde or brunette, you need to rethink your wardrobe and beauty products to best match your new cooler hair tone. Don’t be afraid of embracing brighter colours to go with your grey hair.

2. Texture changes

It can be a bit of a surprise with grey hair that it’s usually a different texture to your original hair. Perhaps you had fine or straight hair before, and now you may find that your grey hair goes curly or coarse. Switch to a more moisturising shampoo and conditioner, and add in a weekly hair treatment to make sure that your new grey hair blends well with your natural hair.

3. Smooth it down

Again that is why grey hairs can have a life on their own, so a styling cream like a BB cream is fantastic for adding extra moisture and smoothing your hair. If you’ve got any extra flyaways, mist hairspray onto your brush and then smooth it down over your hair to hide them.

4. Hint of pink

Adding in a hint of pink in your blush or lipstick is university flattering no matter your age. It picks up on those cooler tones of the grey but adds in a little flush to your skin and gives you a healthy glow.

5. Ban brassiness

As with blonde hair, grey hair can be more reactive and can pick up yellow tones and look brassy. You want to keep your grey hair looking clean and fresh and so using a blonde toner will knock out any of those brassy tones. I love the Schwarzkopf Blonde Toner which you can use in the shower once a week or once a fortnight to really brighten up your hair.

Alternatively their new colour mousse for blonde hair is absolutely fantastic and only takes three minutes to do. Seriously this is a life saver to make sure that your grey hair always looks sharp.

6. Why not add colour?

If you always had brown or darker hair before, you probably weren’t able to experiment with fun colours as much. Now that your hair is naturally lightened to a grey, why not try pink or other fun fashion colours in your hair with a semi permanent dye? You don’t need to worry about any damage to your hair and the fun colours will wash out really easily so you can experiment every few washes with a different tone.

7. Play with your part

In the beginning, when you start to go grey, you may only have sections that change at a time. It’s quite common for people to go grey around the temples first or just around the front of their hair line. If you are letting your hair change naturally, try playing with your part to see where it sits best so you can make the most of your grey hair.

8. Sculpt and contour

A big change when you go grey if you previously had dark hair is that you can lose that strong contrast between your hair and your skin. Switching up your make-up to have more of a contouring effect will help give you a little bit more contrast to your features.

9. Bright lips

In the same way that you’ve lost that contrast in your hair and face, adding in a bright lipstick brings back that bright accent. If you aren’t 100% comfortable with a truly bright lip or you’re worried about the shape of your lip line, using a lip stain gives a more flattering finish. You can even use your regular lipstick and smudge it around with the tip of your finger to blend it.

10. Fake your way to grey

If your hair isn’t naturally grey yet but you’d love it to be, there’s now a new way to achieve this colour at home. Schwarzkopf Live Pastels now feature a cool grey tone, which allow you to easily colour hair at home. I love these colours because they’re so easy to use and semi-permanent, so it’s a fun way to change up your look. Note, you may have to pre-lighten your hair first to get a really clean grey – these semi-permanent colours won’t show over a dark colour base.

Bonus tip: Curl it up

Even if you’ve never had curly hair, your natural grey hair may have more of a curl to it. The trick to encourage this curl is with moisture, and by using a water based cream, you can control the frizz but keep the curl. Apply it to damp hair and twist a few sections to encourage the curl. You can also smooth a little over dry hair if you’ve got any frizz.

Need some grey hair inspo?

Check out my Grey Hair Romance pinterest board if you’re looking for some grey hair inspiration.

As a side point did you know that redheads don’t go grey? Most redheads will fade out to a naturally white colour and skip grey all together. The rest of us blondes and brunettes will go all shades of grey as our hair ages.

Continuing on to my beauty tips series, you catch up on my previous posts for blondes, brunettes and redheads here.

Are you embracing your natural grey hair? Or have you sped up time and coloured your hair grey? I’d love to hear your story in the comments below.