Whether you're fully silver or have shots of sparkle speckled through your hair, greys are beautiful, natural and increasingly popular. To keep up the condition, a shampoo for grey hair that's been specially formulated with your specific strands in mind is definitely a good idea.
Perhaps the pandemic (and not being able to visit our salons for a couple of years) pushed our acceptance along a little, but grey hair is being embraced more than ever before. At 2020's Golden Globes, Gwyneth Paltrow gave her root regrowth a red carpet moment, and let her greys shine. She previously told People "Of course I have wrinkles and grey hair. I genuinely love it, it's who I am." And Salma Hayek, Lily Allen and a whole heap of celebs joined the party, too.
Undeniably, the conversation around greys has shifted in recent years. Rather than covering them up, we've become a lot more comfortable and celebratory about our God-given strands. Instead of erasing them, we're embracing 'em. So, we need products that will show them off to their full potential with some toning, softening and shine-inducing action. The first step, is finding your holy grail shampoo.
How is grey hair different?
Before you start curating your haircare routine, it's important to work out what makes grey hair tick. It's different from other hair colours and textures and therefore requires its own unique approach. Technically speaking, grey hair isn't grey. It doesn't have any pigment at all. Instead, it reflects light, which is what gives it its distinctive colour. Hair doesn't turn grey, it grows out from the root that way (so a brown, red or blonde hair won't become grey halfway down the strand). As you grow older, your hair follicles produce less and less melanin, so varying degrees (and shades) of grey hair will grow out of those different follicles.
Grey hair can also feel more coarse and limp, making it difficult to find products that soften and moisturise strands without weighing them down. Like all hair colours, it can present its own challenges, appearing dull, brittle or brassy, so shine-inducing and toning formulas are the way forward.
Do I need a different shampoo for grey hair?
Before you pick up the first bottle of purple shampoo you can find, it's worth noting that blonde hair is structured differently from greys. “Both colour-treated blondes and natural greys can suffer from unwanted brassiness. For blondes this is because when you lighten hair, and take out dark melanin, what is left is an orangey, golden tone," explains Jill Lynch, John Frieda's Senior R&D Manager. "Conversely, the reason grey or white hair can look brassy is because hair is naturally made up of keratin, which is warm in colour, and there is no longer pigment in these strands to mask the natural warmth of the keratin." Plus, environmental factors, like sunshine and pollution can cause greys to appear more yellow, so blue-violet toned shampoos will counteract this.
"Another difference is that whilst blondes can suffer from high levels of damage, naturally grey hair is generally undamaged," says Jill. "Non-damaged hair is harder to penetrate, which means the violet-toning molecules in a product designed specifically for grey hair need to be able to penetrate really well, without staining, whereas for blondes with damage, the molecules are easily absorbed as the cuticle is already lifted. If you simply used a violet-toning shampoo developed for blondes on naturally grey or white hair, then you would find you wouldn’t get as good or as even a result.” So, it's worth finding formulas designed specifically with your hair in mind.
Here are 8 of the best shampoos that make the most of gorgeous grey hair...
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