Thoughts on hair colour and aging - YouLookFab Forum

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Thoughts on hair colour and aging

Aziraphale

Veteran

First off: orange hair fiasco from two weeks ago has mostly resolved itself, without any extra visits to the stylist. I washed it a lot and it quickly faded to an acceptable warm blond, although when I see the new stylist next month I'll get her to tweak the colour a bit. But the key point is that I no longer look like I'm trying and failing to be a redhead.

One thing I'm noticing is that with substantially lighter hair, I look both younger and healthier. This is interesting because I have never been a natural blond. (In early childhood it was a very light brown and it darkened to medium/light brown by adulthood). I used to think that nature gives you what you should have. Now I'm not so sure! I used to colour my hair blond in my twenties, and always liked how it looked, but I never though it was more flattering to my face than brown. Now that my face is showing signs of aging, I am surprised to see that the blond is actually better than brown.

I wonder if this would also be true if I had a lot of grey. At the moment I don't -- just a sprinkle at the temples, really -- but I wonder if it was 50% white, if it would have the same effect. There are a number of women on this forum (e.g. Suz, Una) who are doing the grey and it looks phenomenal. Does lighter = better as we move past, oh, say 40?

(The other thing I've noticed is that my dark brunette friends who have a LOT of grey are no longer having great results dyeing over it. The grey hairs seem to absorb brown dye funny, so the whole mane ends up looking dull and wiry).

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37 replies

Latest reply was from Aziraphale

Anonymous

I have dark brown hair (less than 25 percent grey). I color mine. So far so good, but I'll watch for absorption issues. Hopefully, it won't be an issue.

JAileen

Veteran

I read somewhere that Nancy Reagan said your hair should go lighter as you age. I think she was right. I think you do need to change your hair color because your personal coloring changes. If you stay with the same color as in your 20s, you are going to look very harsh. I'm sure you've seen elderly ladies with jet black hair.

Anonymous

Maybe you have summer colouring, az?
I have summer colouring, and in my teens, dyed blond streaks into my hair. It looked good (I cam safely say this looking at old photos of myself and not just relying on my teen memory). Like you, I had light brown hair which has become darker, but I wouldn't consider myself to have dark brown hair. Just on the darker side of medium brown.

My mum has summer colouring too and dark brown hair like mine and started colouring the grey with blonde and caramel. It's to the point where she's mostly blonde now (she's 73). I think it looks really good on her. Plus, you the grey roots dont show up against the blonde. I doubt a dark brown match would look better.

Suz

(website)

Veteran

I don't know the answer to this. I do know hairdressers often counsel dark-haired women to go lighter as they age, but do those women truly look better with the lighter hair? Or does the lighter dye adhere better? I don't know. I suppose the root grow-in is less obvious with lighter hair, so that could be one reason.

I have an older friend who in her youth was probably a warm dark brunette. (I didn't know her then, so I can't say.) For years, she dyed her hair dark brown, but it seemed harsh on her, and, yes, aging. Her hairdresser suggested she go lighter. She's now a frankly weird shade of reddish brownish blonde.

It looks in no way natural...and yet...here's the thing...it does look about 300% better than her former dark brown dye!! I can't tell you why. It just lightens her up and strange though the colour is, it flatters her! Maybe in the same way that blue or pink or cranberry hair can flatter certain people?

Re the absorption, I have heard that, yes, especially from those who are trying to go much darker. Eventually the grey doesn't want to hold dye and fights it.

Anyway, I'm glad your own colour fiasco is over and your hair is looking good again.

Ledonna N.

Veteran

I think that you have to have the right colorist and the right hair. I hope you find both that will make you feel more like you.

I dyed my formerly jet black hair one time. I wanted purple I still do. It went horribly wrong and came out 3 colors making me look like a peacock. I shaved my head bald a week later. It was this time last year so next time I'm just going to weave purple into my hair.

Sal

Veteran

I have found the same thing Aziraphale. There are exceptions to the rule of course - my sister in law, for example, who continues to looks stunning with her dark brunette curls.

I think for me, I have always had thick dark lashes and brows, but they are thinning a little. Lighter hair gives them more boldness which suits me.

However I cannot rememeber the last time my hair was completely a natural colour....I have been colouring it from mouse a very very long time!!

Anonymous

I am not convinced that lighting as you age is always a good thing. Or rather, some women still look fine with their dark brown colour if the hair itself is healthy and well cut . In fact, one of my best friends has started colouring her hair blonde, and she had the most gorgeous head of thick shiny straight brown hair you'd ever seen. I miss it every time I look at her. It's funny you bring this up , because your hair colour sounds much like mine, and I've been toying with the idea of going darker again. My mother never lightened her hair until she let it grey. It went from brown - to greying. And she was beautiful as a brunette. Hmm now that I'm typing this, maybe I WILL darken my hair

Ginger

Veteran

Ledonna, I must say that if anyone can rock peacock hair, you can. It must have been really bad! Looking forward to the purple weave, though.

I can't speak much for experience on this; I've never colored my hair and my only gray (so far) is a white lock I found in college. But I've noticed that women's coloring tends to go more muted/less striking with aging. So for many women, maybe going lighter reduces contrast with the face. (Or at least is an analogous "softer" look overall.) I've definitely noticed how gray reacts to dye; my mother's covered up her gray for years. The overall effect is as much reddish as brown.

Aziraphale

Veteran

Sterling, I think if your hair is still much more brown than grey, colouring over it works. The women I know whose dark brown hair now looks strange are the ones who have a LOT of grey. You can always tell because their white roots show very quickly.

JAileen, yes! I have indeed seen elderly ladies with jet black hair. Jet black beehives, even. Not a good look.

smittie, I've always wondered what my colouring is. I honestly can't tell. My veins look greenish and my arms look very very light gold, so I've always assumed I was warm (which means spring or fall, right?), but I've got tons of pink in my face. Medium brown hair, but blond eyebrows and lashes, blond peach fuzz everywhere, and pale green eyes. I do tan, but will burn if not careful. All of this adds up to not fitting easily in any box. *shrug*

Suz -- "She's now a frankly weird shade of reddish brownish blonde" LOL. Sounds like my hair! OK, it's not really that weird anymore, but that pretty much describes what it looked like a couple of weeks ago. But yes, it does make my skin look healthier, somehow. And I do know that going any darker than my natural brown is always a disaster -- even when I was young, that was true.

Ledonna, a purple weave does sound a little safer, lol. I think hair texture affects how the dye "takes" in hair. Purple hair is way cool, though -- I hope it works out for you!

Sally, I've had lots of colours over the years, too. But I've had totally au naturel in the recent past, too, so I know what the baseline is!

LisaP, I'm sure there are some women who can pull off the dark for longer. Maybe it helps if you were really dark to begin with. Nobody would ever have described me as "dark brown", though, so maybe that's why mine looks better lightened up. I've never really felt like a "brunette", especially since my facial hair and body hair is visibly blond. (Like I said to Suz, even when I was young, going darker than natural was always disastrous, although going redder than natural often seemed to work).

Ginger, maybe that's it; I just need "softer" now that my features are fading!

Lyn D.

Veteran

I firmly believe that lighter is better as our hair and skin ages!

Peri

Veteran

I'm not sure. I know this is the common advice, but surely there are always exceptions to common advice. My hair color was turning out lighter and a bit reddish and I didn't like it at all. I thought it brought out red tones in my skin and made me look tired, and I also thought it made any frizz look more obvious.

Last time I got it colored she went back darker again...dark brunette and we both thought it looked so much better. I am super pale, and naturally a dark brunette, and the darker color that was closer to my own color took the redness right out of my skin and made it look glowing. I think the contrast helps my paleness and the medium brown was just washing me out. Or, I could be wrong!

Anyway, I don't think common advice is true for everyone...just that it is a generalization, with exceptions. I have hardly any grey, so I color for fullness and shine.

Elle

Veteran

Skin color does seem to change as we age (or at least mine has). So I think going lighter works for many people (not all, obviously.) It's great that you've found a flattering color - even if you had to suffer through the orange phase.

rabbit

Veteran

I think one of the barriers is that it's very hard to go from a saturated (and dyed over time) deep brown to either a significantly lighter color or gray. My dyed brown hair is lighter in that it is now brown, no longer dyed straight black as I did in my 20s. It can look okay with highlights, but only so far in summer and if my skin has a little more freckles and tanning, otherwise highlights tend to eventually look too warm toned, even if originally more ash. Gray roots growing in with saturated brown are a pain though and need cosmetic covering between dye touch ups, not ideal at all.

In general I think it can be true that lighter works better for many women as they age, and I'd experiment more with lighter colors if it wasn't such a 'you can't get there without cutting it all off' situation. In general my coloring is high contrast (very dark eyes and hair, very pale skin, blue veins, etc), so my tendency would be to go for a high contrast light color -- either salt and pepper gray (my natural now at the top of my head) or closer to platinum. But I don't know.

Suz

(website)

Veteran

I also think it may depend on the type of dye we are talking about. A semi-permanent or gloss is so different than a permanent colour both in how it leaves the hair and in the impression it gives on the head...so if a person is dying it dark with a semi-permanent, not to cover grey, then maybe that looks great -- but once it is a permanent dye to cover grey it starts looking less good? I don't know...

Jenava

(website)

Veteran

I think it might. I recently went lighter. The reason was that I stopped wearing as much makeup on a regular basis due to life style changes and my old dark color was making me look washed out. I did color my hair, but it was the same shade as my natural color (which is now salt and pepper, likely). The blond is an identity adjustment for me, as I loved my darker color, but I get SO many compliments on it, it makes me wonder how washed out I really was starting to look!

Echo

Veteran

I wonder about the advice to go lighter as one ages. Traditionally, the advice was given to go lighter or to highlight hair because it hides grey better, but I've seen too many people with naturally dark hair begin with highlights and end up some version of light brown or dark blonde, which isn't "them" at all. My mum did this for a while. I finally talked to her and told her that I thought her hair would look beautiful if she let it go salt and pepper, and indeed, when she went back to her natural colour, it was amazing. Now it is almost purely silver, and no colourist could have made a better colour.

So jet black hair like she had in her youth wouldn't have looked right, but a completely different colour did not look at all natural, either. She looked "right" with her natural hair, which I think is often the best solution.

Aziraphale

Veteran

Rabbit, I agree that people with dark eyes and cool-toned skin usually look good with dark hair, and also with salt-and-pepper hair. You might be one of those classic "winters". Peri, maybe this is true for you too -- which is why both of you still look good with dark hair.

Suz, that's a good point. When colouring over brown, I've never had anything but a semi-permanent gloss. It tends to add shine. When going blond, the stylist has to leach out some colour first, and then she puts a toner over that to get the right shade of blond. I've never done a permanent brown dye, but maybe those inherently turn out dull?

Jenava, I've had a lot of positive comments on the blond this week too. I'm wondering if the brown hair was making me look a bit washed out because my brows and lashes have so little colour, and my cheeks don't have the fullness they once did.

Aziraphale

Veteran

Elle -- Really? I didn't know skin colour could change. I thought it was the one thing that didn't change -- but hey, I could be totally wrong! I don't know where I read that. Mine doesn't seem to have changed, except that it's more weathered, lol. But my whole face is more angular than it was.

Echo, I've always thought that dark-haired beauties luck out when it comes to greying, because their hair turns an enviable salt-and-pepper colour, even in the early stages. Medium or light brown hair doesn't. If I was dark, I'd absolutely let it go grey without messing with it. With lighter shades of brown, highlights do hide the grey really well, and look more natural, I think.

Gaylene

Veteran

I totally agree with Suz. Dyed hair on an older woman can look really good, but I think it's a stretch to call it "natural". Some woman rock dark hair because it suits their personality, even if they are in their seventies.

I'd like to think older women who choose to dye their hair do so because they like the look, not because they are under the illusion dyed hair makes them look younger. To my eye, what makes a person look younger is the skip in their step when they are happy with their appearance--brown, blonde, grey, red, purple, green--it's the confidence, not the hair color, that takes off years.

MsMaven

Veteran

I just wrote three paragraphs on this and touched the wrong spot on my laptop and it all disappeared! Anyway, for me, lighter was wrong. I didn't feel like myself for several years after my hairdresser couldn't get my hair back anywhere near its original color. I let the gray grow out--unfortunately a long process because my hairdresser told me blonde highlights were the way to blend in old and new color. Wrong! My natural hair color is much darker than I ever imagined.

I now have a degree of contrast between skin, hair and eyes. Not dramatic, more medium contrast, but I am returning to colors that used to make me fee washed out. I spent too many years unhappy with the blonde. I'm planning on doing a gray hair update. Life has been hectic lately.

Anonymous

I recently colored my hair a shade lighter. It did look good, but now I have darker roots showing. Lesson learned. Stick with a color as close to what's actually there as possible. Yes I cover some white hair, but it's still predominantly brown.

Jaime

(website)

Veteran

Agree with the general sentiment here. The conventional wisdom is lighter with age, but there are many exceptions. My hair was nearly black from the day I was born. When it started to grey in my late 20s I easily covered it with dark brown drugstore color. As I got older it got more complicated, and the red toned brown that I had before I stopped dying my hair was not really right for my coloring. Black was too harsh. I do think the white around my face is flattering, although I would not call it youthening even if that were a word.

Helena

Veteran

Well, I have to admit I will be keep dying my hair dark brown for as long as I can! I do think you have to go easy with it though; I have to go lighter than I think to get the right color, because as I get older my hair gets little dryer and soaks up the color crazy fast. I think Lisa is fight, a lot has to do with how healthy the hair is.

Anna

I have been dying my hair for years. I never went grey, it went right to white. I have pale skin and my hair is a medium reddish brown. I have tried lighter and even with brighter makeup I looked older and washed out. I tried blonde once and as soon as it was dried and styled my styllist offered to dye it back for me! I declined, lived with it the rest of Saturday, Sunday and Monday (holiday weekend) and called in sick Tuesday morning. Flew down the street to the stylist and dyed it back. She said not everyone can pull off blonde. To be fair, she did try to talk me out of changing to blonde. Learned my lesson big time.

rachylou

Veteran

Heh. I don't know. It struck me not so long ago I see a fair number of elderly people with blonde hair, tan pants, white top. Of course, I am talking elderly here, not simply older. But I don't know if I think it looks good, because I find it...misleading. It makes me feel like they're all Nancy Reagan. I feel it's a bit fading in terms of personality maybe. Maybe the thing is so many follow this rule, it makes the look generic and messes with my head...

Style Fan

Veteran

I would think it depends on the woman's skin tone, features and her personality. And probably lots of other factors. My hair has gradually gotten lighter with age. When I was a child my hair was a strawberry blonde, as a teenager my hair was a rich red with blonde highlights and then when I hit my twenties it went back to strawberry blonde. Then my hair started to go golden blonde. Not sure what you would call my hair now. I have grey going through it but the blonde masks it unless you get real close.
Sometimes I get the urge to colour my hair red (because I love red hair) but I don't think my skin is the same as when I was a teenager. Okay I know it isn't. And my eyes are not as green. More teal.
The lighter, faded version of my hair is probably better. Plus I am extremely low maintenance.

lyn67

Veteran

I am naturally ashy dark blonde and have had always put in some highlights for dept. Now, at 48 I have baby fine and very thinning hair but I've noticed going lighter all over doesn't do me any favor. It is much better to have some contrast on my face and I can achieve that with various tools. Dark (or colored frames) dark brows (but not black!) and some eye makeup can do all the difference meanwhile now that I have a short asymmetric cut, too- I really need to have my roots dark brown and the ends light blonde. Would you call it ombré?

Anonymous

Actually, I'm not sure if my roots are darker or just more ashy. Either way, I need to go with that color. I want to make an appointment for this weekend because it's been bothering me.

Lisa

Veteran

I have a fair amount of white hair and indeed I have had to go lighter as I've gotten older. I've also had to add more red to the color, because for some reason my hair is going lighter and redder before it turns to white, alas I seem to be skipping the grey stage.

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