Pastel hair is without a doubt, my favorite hair trend of the last few years. In the last year, silver grey hair has been making waves in the fashion world - so if you want to take the plunge, let me show you how to get the look without a ton of damage.
Y'all have obviously seen an ombre hairstyle before now, right? Right? Well, over the last few years, even though fashion mags have been saying that ombre is long out of style, I've been seeing it gracing the heads of fashionistas and rich and famous ladies alike.
But a new trend has also emerged: gorgeous pastel locks in all sorts of beautiful hues: baby pink, pale lilac, baby blue, mermaid turquoise and even a my little pony-esque lemon yellow. Pastel locks are no longer relegated to dip dyed tips — they look stunning as a root blended out into a blond tip, or as a full head of blended pastel colors. Another gorgeous look that is super popular right now is silver locks — steely grays, or pale grays - often referred to as granny hair.
My hair, at the minute, is a deep dark steel gray at the root, blending into a silvery gray and into a baby blue on the tips. It looks gorgeous, if I do say so myself, and because my roots are so dark and so close to my natural color, it's a lot easier to maintain than my "blonder" ombre, which faded to brass within no time no matter how much silver shampoo I used on it.
Go To A Hairdresser
I'd always advocate for going to the cheaper option — of course. But my younger sister bleached her hair six months ago and left it on for too long in an effort to get her hair lighter and it ended up snapping off right next to the root. She didn't lose all of her hair, of course, but she lost a fair bit right next to the root line, and now she has to be careful to style her hair in the right way to hide the broken bits. I've also dyed my hair blond at home from brown, and ended up with a yellow, dry mess, despite following the instructions to a tee and being super gentle with my hair afterwards in terms of heat use.
So. I went to a hairdresser, asked for a grey ombre, and came out with a blond ombre. That's fine. It's all well and good, because my hair was light enough to take color, but it absolutely wasn't what I'd asked for, was it?
To get my hair to be the color that I actually wanted it to be, I found a local hairdresser who had just started her own salon, and found her work on Facebook. She has done some AWESOME stuff. Completely brilliant color corrections, lovely colorful ombres, lovely silvery ombres, loads of really gorgeous stuff, and just flicking through her pictures, I wanted everything. Her prices are also half of what my current salon was charging. My advice? Find someone like her.
Turns out that my salon was too afraid to use bleach on my hair because it had been bleached before — because they were just using standard bleach. But the girl with her own salon used a really weak bleach with a solution of bleach and conditioner, and like magic, it bleached my hair in just 15 minutes. Other bleaches seem to take like an hour on my hair. Find your magic hairdresser and treasure her forever.
Want Pastel Or Silver Hair? Bleach First
Unless you're already blond, unfortunately, you're going to have to deal with some bleaching. A gentle way to do this is with a "bleach bath", which is where you mix bleach up with two parts clarifying shampoo, then apply it to the hair starting at the tips of the hair, working your way up to the roots, then rubbing gently as though you are massaging shampoo into your scalp. Rub off every five minutes or so to check the color and leave on for an hour — maximum.
Wash out, then condition with a purple toning conditioner. If you're not blond enough, that's unfortunate, but you're going to have to leave it for AT LEAST A MONTH before you dye it again. Do not, under any circumstances, bleach it again within the same day. Your hair will hate you for it and it may just fall out, like my sister's did.
Don't bleach it within the same week, even. Give it a month. Keep doing that, until you get the palest of pale blonds. Like, the palest. It needs to be practically white for you to get a silvery gray hue or a pastel color to stick over the top.
Note: Only bleach the areas of hair that you want to be pastel/silver. No need to bleach your roots if you're keeping them dark — it'll just cause more damage!
Time For The Color
Depending on the color you want to go, you might need to mix a little bit of conditioner into the pot to get the perfect hue for your. But the great thing about this is that the color in the pot is pretty much the exact color your hair will turn out. If you want to go gray, get a tube of dark stormy steely gray, and if you're going ombre gray, apply it at the roots first. Leave it on here for the longest — about an hour. It won't hurt, and it won't damage your hair — in fact, it'll probably make it feel better.
To get the pale gray, mix the color in a pot with conditioner (a really good nourishing conditioner — although a lot of people say you should use a super cheap conditioner, I think it's worth getting extra nourishment in at this stage) to reach the desired hue. Apply this to the mid lengths. Finally, mix up a lighter color and apply this to the tips, making sure to blend, blend and blend some more so that there aren't any noticeable rings or lines around your head — the color needs to blend naturally.
If you're going for a pastel, mix the color or colors into a conditioner, then apply to the areas that you want to color. If you're blending from the roots down, again, make sure you blend out so that there isn't a noticeable line. Same goes for if you're blending from the tips up to the roots. If you're looking for an all over pastel shade, it can be nice to mix a few different shades of the same color through your locks in a highlight fashion — so maybe try different shades of berry pink and pastel pink for a cool take on the look.
Finally, LOOK AFTER YOUR HAIR. Use oil, conditioner and ultra-nourishing shampoo each and every time you dye or bleach your hair, and avoiding washing your hair if you can. To maintain your color, wash just once or twice a week. I know, I know... but that's what dry shampoos are for, right? Plus, your hair will feel strengthened, more nourished and far less dry, because you're not washing the natural oils out of it.
- Photo by Laura Francis/SteadyHealth
- Photo by Laura Francis/SteadyHealth
- Photo by Laura Francis/SteadyHealth