- If you want to get rid of your highlights and return to your natural color, you have two options: to dye your hair or to let it grow out.
- Dyeing your hair is the fastest way, and you only need to find a color that matches the color you originally had in your natural hair.
- Growing your hair will take much longer because new hair grows at a rate of 1 cm per month. This can take up to three years and you’ll need to trim your ends to remove any previously processed hair.
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There is something you have to know: your highlights will never return to their natural color.
The reason is very simple.
When you did the highlights, you bleached your hair. In doing so, you removed the natural color pigments from your hair. Removing those pigments is permanent.
It’s like birds who eat and fly away. They never return to the nest.
With this scenario in mind, you only have one decision to make and you have two options:
- OPTION 1: wait for your hair to grow and trim the ends to remove that hair with highlights
This is a very natural choice. Besides, you’ll avoid highlights maintenance and spending money on each visit to the salon, not to mention the savings on hair products, such as toning shampoos.
However, not all that shines is gold. Your hair won’t cruise like top-of-the-line vehicles. That is, your growth rate will be average, one centimeter per month.
Start doing the math.
With a bit of luck and a lot of downwind, your hair will grow 18 centimeters per year.
Therefore, it will take about three years for your hair to be completely in your natural color, and that’s if we’re talking about shoulder-length hair.
Imagine if your hair is down to your waist!
Plenty of time for impatience, right?
Do you have a choice? Yes, you do.
- OPTION 2: Dye your hair with a color similar to your natural hair color
This option is obviously faster and easier. You choose a tone similar to your natural color, buy the dyeing kit, and dye your hair.
There you go! You’re back to your natural color. However, what about the gray you were hiding with your highlights?
Ouch! Nothing is perfect in this life, but you can always make the best choice.
If you want to get rid of the highlights and go back to your natural color, stay with me, because I will tell you:
- How to dye your hair to cover the highlights and return to natural color.
- How to return to your natural color without applying dye in the highlights
Will you go slowly or at the speed of the legendary mouse Speedy Gonzales?
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How to dye your hair to get rid of highlights and return to your natural color
Let’s start with the quickest option for you to show off your natural color again, leaving behind the highlights: apply a dye.
Your highlights will never go back to your natural color since bleaching has removed the natural pigments in that hair.
Applying a dye of your natural color will solve the dilemma. Best of all, as your hair grows out, the color will match, and you will be able to space out the dying.
However, things aren’t so brightly colored if you have gray hair. Or they are, depending on which side you look at it.
- If you had your highlights done to hide grays, when you apply a dye of your natural color, the gray will continue to be hidden, because the dye will cover it. Be sure to use permanent hair color.
- If you want to stop doing the highlights because you want to transition into gray, you should only apply the dye to the highlights.
This way, your newly grown hair, the mediums, and ends will be even thanks to the application of the dye.
There is also another issue to consider.
Bleached hair is more porous and retains less pigment. Therefore, the color will fade faster and you’ll need to renew it every 8 or 9 weeks.
However, that’s nothing compared to the touch-up you do every 4 weeks, right?
Now, do you want to try and let your hair grow out so that your natural color appears and your highlights are a thing of the past? Read on, I’ll tell you all about it so the transition won’t be so hard.
How to get rid of highlights by growing your hair out and cutting a few inches per month
- Tired of maintaining your highlights?
- Tired of chemicals and coloring treatments?
- Don’t want to see a hair dye anymore in your life?
Well, never say never, because you never know.
If you’ve decided that you want to get rid of the highlights but don’t want to use a dye, the only solution you have is to let your hair grow out.If you choose this option, it will take you longer, but not only will you return to your natural color, but your hair will also be virgin again, that is to say, immaculate and never touched by the chemicals of a dye. This leads to healthier and stronger hair.
However, the process of growing back to your natural color will be a long one.
When I say long, I mean two or three years and sometimes more. Besides, if you have gray hair you will have to live with it: covering it with hats and scarves or showing it to the world as if it were the women’s manifesto for natural life.
That’s up to you.
The good thing about this option is that month by month, you will notice the change in your hair fiber because it will be stronger and with a unique shine.
Besides, you can always appeal to the old trick. Do you want to know what it is?
Trim 1 or 2 cm from the ends every 2 months, to reduce the waiting time for your hair to return to the natural color you want.
Conclusions
If you don’t want to do the highlights anymore because you want to return to your natural color, you will have to make a very important decision. If you choose the second option and you have gray hair, it may be time to start the transition to gray hair. The decision is yours, which way will you go? YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED: Can you let highlights grow out to turn them into ombré?