Blending Gray Hair with Highlights and Lowlights

Embracing gray hair may be truly empowering. How can you go gray with style? By blending gray hair with highlights and lowlights. This is exactly what we will focus on in this article – read it to learn how to embrace your gray hair to the fullest!

How to Blend Gray Hair with Highlights and Lowlights?

Gray blending can be done in a range of ways. Either using semi or demi-permanent colors that give you a sheer tint of color all over, or by getting highlights and lowlights to blend in with your natural gray hair. By doing highlights and highlights this means that you are not covering your whole hair with a dye, but rather embracing the gray strands by mixing them with lighter and/or darker highlights.

Blending gray hair with highlights and lowlights is the ideal solution if you do not want to cover the gray all over but rather embrace your gray, and enhance your natural dimension. This also leads to a much more low maintenance regrowth with less commitment for upkeep. 

The amount of lowlights and highlights you apply will really depend on what percentage of dark gray and white you have scattered throughout your hair. You want an even balance by applying just the right mix of highs and lows to be equally dispersed across the dark gray and white hair. Typically, less is more to start with.

Selecting the Right Colors for Blending Gray Hair with Highlights and Lowlights

The choice of colors that you will use to blend your gray hair with highlights and lowlights is the most important element of the puzzle.

When it comes to the highlights, you should opt for shades such as cool blonde, ash blonde, or platinum – they will ideally match the silver lining of your gray hair. A good practice to stick to cooler tones rather than warm golden tones. You want it to compliment the natural silver or white in your hair.

With lowlights, the case is similar – opt for lowlights that are cool, ash, or neutral in tone. Steer away from warm, golden, or mahogany tones. You want the color to compliment your natural gray hair which is typically cooler and ash in tone.

Why Is Blending Gray Hair with Highlights and Lowlights a Good Option?

There are several reasons why you should consider this way of blending your grays. What are they exactly? Here’s a list!

• Maintenance – It can be challenging for people to visit a hair salon on a monthly basis to touch up color. But, you won’t have to worry about that after blending your gray hair with highlights and lowlights. This is a low-maintenance technique with which you will keep a sophisticated, blended look for a longer period of time before seeing noticeable regrowth.

• Natural looks – When properly done, such a hairstyle looks completely natural. The three colors blend in with each other making an impression of seamless color, mimicking the color change that occurs naturally.

• Confidence – Covering your gray hair fully with a dye comes with many disadvantages. The main one is – the constant fear that your hair will start regrowing and people will see the difference. By blending your gray hair with highlights and lowlights, you may forget about that aspect – you’ll know that your hair looks perfect and thus have more confidence.

Should You Consult a Hair Colorist Before Blending Your Gray Hair with Highlights and Lowlights?

In our opinion, the answer is: yes. Even if you are fully capable of highlighting and lowlighting your hair at home, the issue in this case is not the technique, but rather the plan. You need to maintain the appropriate proportions between lowlights and highlights while finding the ideal placement and process. A professional hair colorist will be capable of doing that, thus ensuring that your hair will truly look gorgeous after the process.

Where to find an experienced hair colorist that you can trust with your gray hair? In Madison Reed Hair Color Bars! Our team will eagerly help you cover your gray hair or map out a plan on how to transition to gray blending – all you have to do is find one of our locations near you.

The Takeaway

Blending gray hair with highlights and lowlights is an excellent way to maintain your silver strands while maintaining a modern look. However, to do that properly, you need to balance the lowlights and the highlights. You want to take into account how much gray and white hair you have, and evenly disperse the highlights and lowlights to balance the overall color result.