I will learn to love my gray hair...I will learn to like my gray hair

....I will learn to tolerate my gray hair.

That's about all I can commit to right now. I don't have an aversion to gray hair..I just want to gray gracefully. Not this random patchy graying that I'm doing.

I've had a patch of gray in the top of my head that I've had since I was around 15...I'm cool with it because it's the silvery gray. It's the random brassy gray that's popping up in strands here and there that are driving me nuts.

I've got that stubborn "you won't suppress me with with dye no matter how harsh the chemical is" gray. So it never covers well. A few years ago, I went with hi-lites to hide them since they won't color with the dye. (I'm lucky I even have any hair left. My hair is just way to fine to be stripped and punished that way). But I did it all in the name of hiding the gray.

When I decided to go natural, I also decided to no longer color my hair with a commercial product. Henna was the way to go. So I patiently waited out the process of growing out my relaxed, even though I wanted to henna badly. Other nappies advised me to wait so that I didn't run the risk of drying out the relaxed hair, having it start breaking and then cause damage to my new nappy newgrowth.

After the BC, I saw that gray and knew, I would go mad just looking at it...so henna, here I come. {Sigh} Beautiful reddish brown undertones to the rest of my hair...but the gray was screaming a bright brassy bronze, bordering on orange....UGH! I knew at this point, I would be hitting the commercial products again.

I waited 4 months to color, sneering at the gray hair the whole time. I decided to go with Dark-n-Lovely's Red Hot Rhythm. Loved it! With lots of moisturizing and deep conditioning, I didn't have any breakage and still don't. However I ran into a new dilemma....do I continue to color...and how do I do it with out eventually drying out the hair that had been previously colored? Which leads to another question...am I truly natural if I have chemically altered my hair color? Still pondering that one.

After reading many stories of fellow nappies having to cut off years of growth due to dryness caused by coloring with commercial dyes....I have decided not to color with harsh dyes again. Now I don't know if I can truly live with this gray hair. I'm doing more research on Henna. I may have not purchased the best quality product the first time around (got it from and Indian grocery store in my area...and I admit, I didn't check out the brand and whatnot, I just assumed it was a pure henna).

I don't know if I can successfully apply the henna over the currently dyed hair. Not sure what kind of differences I am going to see in terms of hair color between the new growth and the previously dyed hair. I am slowly trimming the previously dyed hair while i try to make my decision about the henna.

Again, I have not had any damage, no dryness what-so-ever...I just don't want to end up frustrated a year from now trying to decide if I need to just cut out the hair that has been dried like straw from repeated colorings.

My current mantra: I will learn to tolerate my gray hair.