How to Grow Out Your Natural Hair Colour

If you’ve been thinking about growing out your natural hair colour for a while, you’re not alone. 

Ditching the dye and going low maintenance is officially a hair trend and lazy girls everywhere are more than ready to embrace it. 

But before you get carried away and delete your stylist’s number, you need to make it through the growing-out stage first. 

Growing out your roots can be a long and complicated process – and you might be tempted to grab for a bottle of dye at different stages. So, to help you commit and embrace your natural hair, we’ve listed all the pro tips you need to make it happen.

Figure Out Your Natural Shade 

If you’ve been dyeing your hair for years, you’ve probably forgotten what your natural shade even looks like. 

Allowing your roots a few weeks to grow is the best way to see what you’re working with – and give your hair a little break. 

Ideally, you want a minimum of 2 cm growth before you take the next step, so you can see the shade properly. This sounds like a lot but, if you’re struggling, just pick up some root touch-up spray to hide it for now.

Make a Plan

Growing out your hair colour is a long process that you really need to plan for in advance. 

The best way to transition to your natural shade is to keep it gradual by only making subtle changes over a period of months. This way you can skip any awkward stages and keep your hair looking healthy. 

It’s best to book a quick appointment with your stylist first and discuss all possible options before deciding on your next step.

Go Back to Your Natural Colour

The easiest way to grow out your hair colour is to just dye the lengths back to your root shade. 

This may sound simple, but how well this works will depend on what colour products you’ve used on your hair in the past. 

If you’ve recently had highlights or balayage, it’ll be difficult to get a uniform colour – and you might be better off going for a root drag instead…

The Root Drag

Blurring your root shade into your hair is an easy way to transition to your natural hair colour.

A root drag involves combing dye in your natural shade down the lengths of your hair – creating a seamless transition, so it eventually looks like ombre or balayage. 

Going for a glaze, rather than a permanent colour, will be gentler if your hair is already damaged.

Add Some Lowlights or Babylights

If you have highlights – and don’t mind applying more dye to achieve your natural shade – then consider asking your stylist to add some lowlights to the gaps. 

If your root shade is a lot darker, this will really help to blend the harsh line and disguise your roots. After a few months it’ll just look like balayage and will be easy to maintain, so you won’t have to worry about going back to the salon as often. 

You could even try getting babylights, as they’re a lot thinner and easier to grow out.

Growing Out Lighter Roots

If you’re naturally fair-haired and have previously adopted a darker colour, your light roots will eventually start to show. 

Obviously, lighter roots and darker lengths are going to be trickier to blend – but it is possible to manage the in-between stage as you grow out your natural colour. 

You can gradually lighten your hair with highlights to transition your darker lengths back to the root shade. This will take several trips to the salon, but bleaching your hair all over can cause a lot of damage so it’s best to take your time.

Dyed Black Hair

Black is the hardest colour to remove, so growing out your real colour will be a super lengthy process. 

Unfortunately, unless you want to wait for the whole of your hair to grow out, you can’t lighten black hair without bleach.  But the least damaging way to do this is asking your stylist for a bleach wash.

This uses a diluted bleach mixture to lift colour and is a gentler alternative to straight bleach. But you should only go a few shades lighter at a time to avoid damage. 

Bleaching black hair to platinum blonde in one sitting is only going to leave you with banana-yellow, straw-like strands. And trust us, it’s not a good look. 

Your best bet is to be patient and take things slowly.

Blending Bleach or Pastel Colours

Most pastel shades will fade over time, so it’s often just a waiting game until the colour wears off. 

Once the colour has shifted, you can use a mix of highlights and lowlights to cover any leftover pigment and get a softer blend between your root shade. 

Bleached hair takes a while to absorb new colour. So, you might need regular trips to the salon in the first few months. 

It’s best to transition slightly darker each time until you reach your root shade, rather than trying to dye it back in one sitting. You’ll also need to use masks regularly and avoid heat as much as possible, as bleached hair is more porous and prone to damage.

Embrace Your Hair Curlers

Unfortunately, growing out your hair colour isn’t going to be quick.

It can be disheartening to not love your current hair colour. So, you might want to embrace some hairstyles that will help to make the transition a little easier. 

Curling your hair will disguise roots way better than wearing it straight, so this is the go-to look while you wait for your hair to grow out.

If you need to skip the heat, try braids instead. They’ll create the same effect without causing heat damage.

Add Extensions

If you want your natural hair colour back, the ideal way to do this doesn’t involve any more hair dye or damaging products. 

If you have highlights with darker roots, apply some clip-in hair extensions that match your shade to disguise your roots and seamlessly blend with the rest of your head.

Similarly, your best option to blend light roots with darker hair is to get some lighter extensions that match your natural colour. This will blend out your darker colour and create a more uniform look while you wait for your roots to grow out.