Gray Hair Journey Update: How Gray Is My Hair And Current Favorites Heat Protectants!

Hey guys, it's melanie happy wednesday. I hope your day is off to a good start, so today's video is a little bit of a two-parter. The first part i'm gon na. Let you guys in on how my gray hair journey is coming along because believe it or not. My hair has actually not fully transitioned yet and i'll. Show you what i mean here in a minute um, but i'm also going to be sharing some product suggestions. For my personal favorite leave-in products for my naturally gray hair, that being said, i think that the products that i'm going to be showing you guys today are really going to be perfect for any hair color to be totally honest, um i uh. I am a big believer in if you are going to let your hair grow out to its natural color, that you do everything you can to make sure that the hair is protected, especially when you're styling it. So today i'm going to be sharing some of my favorite leave-in products and that are going to protect the hair while you're styling it and also um, just a couple of extras, like a shine product that i think works really well on gray hair as well as Kind of an overnight treatment that i found that works really great on my gray hair as well, so whether you are a blonde either natural blonde or bleach blonde, or whether you're a brunette who's coloring, her hair every four to six weeks to cover up the gray. No matter what your hair color is, i think that the product suggestions, i'm going to give you guys today, are going to be great across the board, especially if you um use heat to style your hair, the only heat that i honestly use on a daily basis Is to blow dry my hair, and i didn't even do that today. So today you guys are getting a very natural makeup and hair. Look for me um. I wanted to show you what my hair looked like when i just put some leave-in into it and didn't blow dry, my hair. So that's what you guys are seeing today um. So i like to do this typically on at least i try to do it saturday and sunday, where i just don't blow dry my hair on those days to give it a little bit of a break. But if we do have an activity or somewhere that we're going i'll blow dry, my hair on the weekends for the most part, i just stick to it during the week, however, and um i find that blow drying. My hair is helpful for me to get a more voluminous look to my hair. I am certainly a big fan of using mousse and volumizing sprays in my hair, um being someone that has very fine and thin hair and, having had that, my entire life, i am envious of all the women with the gorgeous like big, huge, massive manes of hair. That'S not something that i will ever experience in my life. Unless i go get a wig, my hair, i will say i got pretty lucky with the texture of my gray hair, because it's the exact same texture of my formerly dishwater blonde hair, and that is it's very fine. It'S very thin and kind of silky, and in this light, especially, i feel like right here. You can tell that the dishwater blonde is still very much running through my gray hair. You can kind of see it right there um, so i would say that the bulk of my hair has now transitioned to gray. I do notice that each year that goes by that um there more and more of the hair growing in is coming in gray. Instead of being that, like 50 50 gray and dishwater blonde combo, by the way, if you want to know how i initially transitioned um to gray hair, i i have several videos about that. I do have a gray hair things playlist. I call it on my channel. You can find it on my main page in that series. You see everything from product suggestions to help you care for your gray hair to how to transition, if you're interested to what to do with your makeup or your eyebrows after you transition to gray, because some of that stuff does have to change so check out that Playlist there might be some things that you're interested in there that might help you um, but yeah. So my hair at this point. How long has it been since i've stopped coloring it? I want to say i stopped coloring at. Was it 34 or 35? I think it was probably 35 and i'm 42 now so it's this has been several years of me growing my hair out um, it's not a fast process um. I did initially have a stylist help me with just putting in some what we called gray highlights at the time. It was essentially bleaching my hair out in kind of a highlight pattern on the top, so that, as the gray was growing in, i wasn't tempted to try to make it blonde again, which is what i was doing for years, is trying to cover up those grays Right, which is what most people tend to want to do with them, but i decided in my mid-30s that i was done coloring my hair um. It wasn't something that i was gon na do anymore. It got to be really expensive. It was time consuming. Obviously, you know there is waste that is created when you color your hair and as frivolous as i am with a lot of my skincare makeup, hair care and stuff. Like that. I do try to be mindful of the fact that if there's anything that i can do that, i can cut back on to potentially help the environment in some kind of way, i'm very like adamant about recycling and things like that. So all of my different containers, if they can be recycled after i'm, done i'm very conscious to do that. But you know coloring. Your hair does create waste, especially if you're doing it every three to four weeks, which is what i had to do, because the amount of gray that was coming in was pretty substantial at the time. So i just finally got to a point where i was like enough of this. I saw what the gray hair in my family looked like, because my mom went gray very early. My oma had beautiful white silver hair from the time that i can remember. I mean i remember, being very small in like the late 70s and early 80s and my oma had white hair at the time and it just continued to get more white and beautiful. And so i'm not afraid of the gray hair. I realize a lot of women are, if you're not ready for this step. Definitely you know, wait until you're ready, but here's the thing, those of you that are on the journey right now, um keep going with it. If this is something that you want to do push through, i know it's hard when you're transitioning, but just keep going with it and don't don't care what people think i think that's my biggest piece of advice is you're, going to have a lot of people that Are going to tell you that you look older, that it makes you look sickly that it's just not pretty on you, gray, hair, isn't beautiful, and you would look so much nicer if you just covered up those grays you're going to hear all sorts of stuff from People ignore them um, there's this filter that i've just turned on, and i mean i've had like women in in grocery stores. Tell me like, oh my gosh, you don't color your hair, like you would look so much younger if you colored your hair and i'm just like. Why would you say that to someone like, why would you go out of your way to like insult someone when i'm clearly doing this on purpose right, like this, isn't some accident, where i just all of a sudden, woke up one day and was like? Oh, my hair's gray, totally on purpose, especially by the time that it gets to this length right so anyway, let me show you guys um my transition here, because i've got lots of different things going on in my hair um. So my temples really are the most white part of my hair. This grew in very quickly and instead of coming in as salt and pepper, it just immediately came in as like kind of a nice silvery white same on the other side. You can see that on the top here there is still that mix of the dishwater blonde mixing in with the gray. But let me turn around and show you guys the back. I sit on an exercise ball, so uh spare with me here, but so i'm gon na lift my hair up and you guys can see that the back like the underside here, is still that um kind of dishwater blonde shade. It'S like a very, very dark dirty blonde, and that is that's my natural hair color. When i was younger, it was um the same color as stella's hair, which was like this really nice, pretty like honey blonde. When i see stella's hair, sometimes i'm like. Oh, i kind of miss that blonde, but then i'm like no, i don't miss the maintenance of that because by the time that i got to my 20s, the the pretty blonde hand turned more of like that dark dishwater, shade of blonde, which you know not ideal. So you can definitely see it like. When i put my hair up, which i do a lot, you can see the blonde in the back. I don't really care, i don't. I'Ve never gone to my hairdresser to have her like blended in i'm just gon na. Let it transition, and it is what it is, which has kind of always been my attitude about the gray hair growing in is it is what it is right like um. This is what nature is intending for me right now and i'm just going with the flow. I would really encourage you to do the same thing. Um, i'm always a huge proponent of telling people like just if you want to do it. Do it. If you don't don't, if you don't like the texture of your gray hair, then i'm probably not going to love it once it all grows in. It might be a little bit more wiry. Some of that may have to do with maybe changing up products or maybe doing something like a brazilian blowout may help smooth that out. I don't know. I obviously have this pencil straight fine, thin hair, which is a nightmare for me, because i can never have you know big gorgeous hair that like holds a curl or even a wave. My hair will hold nothing it immediately like i will use a curling iron it'll. My hair still comes out straight out of a curling iron like that is how straight my hair is it just it won't do it but um. You know if you're ready for it go for it. Don'T let anyone tell you not to do it, but if you're not ready for it, because you don't like the texture of your hair or you just feel like it's gon na make you feel older, then don't do it, but don't let other people stop you from Doing it like just because someone says to you: oh that doesn't look pretty on you or i mean whatever they're gon na say: please don't let that be a deterrent. Okay, all right guys, let's get into the product suggestions here, um i have a bucket full and these are all leave-in treatments that are fantastic for the following reasons: they are hydrating. They are detangling um moisturizing, which i guess could go with hydrating. They um keep my hair from getting like that fly away like you know how sometimes fine hair like it can, i guess, catch a lot of static in the air and get like those flyaways that just kind of like hang out in the air over here. So this kind of takes away that staticky fly away stuff that can happen to a fine, thinner, hair type. These just leave my hair looking shiny and, most importantly, they all protect my hair from the heat very nicely. Now i don't use high heat on my hair at all when i blow dry, i always just do the medium setting, but i do it on like the highest blowing option. I don't know how to work that, basically, i use like the most air with like the medium amount of heat there. We go um so uh, but these are fantastic. When i, when i do it that way, um sometimes i will use the higher heat setting. If i'm in a rush, but only for the first couple of minutes and then i switch it over to the medium heat, so if you're, someone who just blasts your hair on high heat and doesn't move the blow dryer around think about doing that disperse that heat, A little bit, don't just don't fry your hair, all right, let's get going i'll put links for all of these down below. So all of the things that i mentioned, um are going to be um characteristics of every single one of these. If there's any like extra special things to mention, i will do that. Okay, first off the lonza healing, moisture, muay, muy, moisturizing mist, this um has a moisture retain complex in it. So this one really is probably one of the most hydrating leave-ins. This is the one that i actually use today, so you can see it's not weighing my hair down at all. This is all i have sprayed in my hair. By the way, i do take a um hair vitamin which has helped my hair grow significantly faster in the last eight nine months, i'll link what it is down below um i swear by it. I will never be without it. It is the best hair supplement that i've ever taken um anyway. This one here is fantastic. It also smells really good. I am going to talk about the smell of these products because that matters to me i know for most people they prefer for things to be unscented um or to have a very light scent. I like scented products, it's important to me anyway. This one smells really good. It'S more of a. I think. It'S like a little bit of a floral yeah. It'S like a fresh floral, but it's pretty light. So not anything! That'S going to stay in your hair, so um next is the yisu heat me treat me completely. This is a propolis, infused heat protecting spray, so this has a propolis and honey in it. This was something that i picked up at the last sephora vip sale that they were having last november and um. I actually bought several things from this line and have really enjoyed them. I will say i don't love the smell of these products as much, but in terms of it protecting my hair and really making it feel soft and hydrated. This is a really good one. Any one of these i will repurchase like that. Several of them are actually have been repurchased multiple times already, but this one is a great option. It'S a newer brand to sephora, so i thought i'd go ahead and mention it also the verb leave in mist. This is probably one of the like higher end um. How do i like maybe more affordable options? I i do. I don't mind, blowing money on hair care um. So let me just say that up front i am someone who will splurge on hair care and there's not really any drugstore suggestions here. So i apologize for that, but one of the things that's really important to me is that a hair care brand and skincare and makeup and body care are cruelty free. So all of these are cruelty. Free options here um, so it does limit me a little bit, especially on the drugstore side, but i've just also personally found that, from my own experience that higher end hair care products give me better results. Um, i think, there's a difference in the formulation. I know some people say: there's not, i notice a difference in the formulation and how the products work in my hair uh from drugstore brands, because i used to use those exclusively in the past to now using pretty much mostly higher end hair care. Anyway, this leave-in mist from um verb is fantastic again, it detangles it strengthens. It adds shine, it repairs, split ends. It smooths, it hydrates helps with elasticity nourishes the hair prevents breakage. All of like the good things and um again really light weight, doesn't weigh my hair down, smells pretty good too all right here we have the better, not younger, no remorse, heat protection and taming spray. I would actually recommend this for those of you that have a thicker, maybe more substantial, hair type, where you really need the spray to also help to tame your hair in some kind of way. This doesn't weigh my hair down, but i do notice on days where i prefer a more like slick. Look to my hair. You know like when i part it down the middle and just kind of have it smooth like this. This is typically the spray that i will reach for because it gives me that really smooth look, but without leaving my hair, greasy or weighed down it just does the perfect job of. I don't want to say coding, because that implies bad when it comes to hair stuff in a way, but it just it does it provides this really nice coating to my hair that keeps it really smooth. Looking and sleek, i really like that. Okay, the color wow dream infused, uh, sorry dream cocktail, kale infused uh, breakage leave-in should be probably anti-breakage, leave-in um. This reduces hair breakage by 50. I do think that this one is probably one of the most strengthening leave-ins that i can use in my hair oftentimes. I will take a few pumps of this and put it on like kind of the mid shaft to ends and then on the top of my hair. I will use maybe the sprays, because this comes out in like a like cream format almost so. This is great for my ends. I can use it like throughout all of my hair, but sometimes i do like to mix several options together, and this is one that is great for the ends, especially if you want to do maybe a lighter spray for near your roots, an oldie but a goodie. That i still love to this day is the caviar anti-aging replenishing cc cream. This is a 10 in one complete correction leave-in. So they say with this you're: getting uv protection, softness, smoothness, shine, moisture, manageability strength, anti-breakage heat protection and some light hold you guys. This is a rockstar product. I have repurchased this multiple times um. In fact, i want to put this one in the bathroom, as i think i'm going to be finished with this one in a few days. So this is the one that's going to pop into the bathroom i'm trying to be careful about not putting too many things in the bathroom, because then i have like selection overload, but this one here hands down for years, i think ever since it was released. I'Ve been loyal to this product from uh um alterna. It smells really good, but it really does a good job of protecting my hair, and i think, out of all of these, this one and then this next one i have repurchased the most often most frequently, and that i think i'm the most loyal to um the Pureology uh 21 essential benefits, color fanatic, multitasking, leave-in spray. This is fabulous. You guys um again one of my favorites really lightweight, but this protects my hair, like no other, and this is actually one of the few purology products that i really like the smell of the product of and the pureology hydrate shampoo and conditioner is one of my Favorites um, it's been a go-to for a number of years, but i actually can't stand the smell of it, but i love the way it makes my hair feel this. I love the way it makes my hair feel and look, and it also um smells really good. So that's a bonus, a couple more um, alterna products here um this one is um. When i feel like my hair needs a little bit more strength to it. I will use the caviar anti-breakage restructuring bond repair, leave-in heat protection, spray. This strengthens and protects the damaged hair and it actually protects the hair up to 450 degrees celsius um this one. I cannot spray directly into my hair because it's more of like a stream, so i pump this into the palm of my hand and use it mostly on kind of the mid shaft to ends again and then i will use a slightly lighter option. Maybe something like this on my roots, i can use this throughout, but it really honestly for me works best on the ends. It'S a little too heavy. If i get it too close to my roots, but this really does strengthen um the lower part of my hair and makes it look so shiny and healthy afterwards and then an overnight option, an overnight treatment that i like to use. That'S also from caviar um. Their anti-aging line from alterna is the restructuring bond repair leave-in overnight serum. So i will just put a little bit of this into again shaft to the ends, and then i do because my hair is long enough. Now i will put it in a braid and then in the morning i will wash my hair and oh man when i wake up, and i take my hair out of those braids. It is so soft and silky. I mean it just feels like a million bucks. In fact, i think i want to do this treatment tonight so set that off to the side, and then the very last thing that i wanted to share is obviously gray. Hair has trouble getting shiny um, so this camera platinum, silkening mist. This is a they call it a brilliant shine spray. This is fabulous. You guys, you don't want to use too much if you have fine thin hair like i do, but this might actually tame your grays um. It does come in a like oil or like in a pump type product as well. I would say if you have thicker or coarser hair i'll link that down below for you, but if you have fine thin hair. Like me, this mist is really nice because you can just lightly mist it into the hair. Not only does it smell borderline addicting, but it really brings out the shine in my gray and makes it look so so pretty also, if you deal with like new growth and flyways, which i tend to get right up about here, i'm getting a lot of new Growth around my hairline, which is fantastic, it's a little frustrating because i always have hairs that go pink, pink pink. You know like all over the place, but this helps to tame them down. If i really don't feel like looking at them, so you guys. These are my suggestions for really great leave-in protection type products that are going to be great for not only gray hair like this, but also, if you color your hair you're, going to need a good heat protectant anyway. So i think all of these would be really great options for you so anyway, thank you guys so much for taking the time to join today if you're new, i hope, you'll take the time to subscribe and i'll see you guys in the next one take care. Toodles