When I went grey at twenty eight, I started an odd journey with hair dye. To begin with, while all I had were cruella-deville stripes, I used herbal dyes, or stuff that washes in/washes out.
But then pneumonia — the worst one, which put me in ICU for eleven days — made the rest of my hair go white, till it was about 50%. At this point I made a horrible discovery. I have resistant-grey. I.e., I can dye my hair till the cows come home, a week later it will be white.
Only as the next ten years went by, I found it was less "white" than "colorless". My hair started looking like aluminum siding after fifty years in the sun. I looked OLD — also hair and face did not look right together. I settled into this thing where I would dye before cons, and pray it stuck long enough.
And then three or four years ago, I surfed the net for "resistant grey." I ended up on the blog of a woman with my issue who was trying out all the brands and seeing which gave better coverage. She’d been doing it for a while and nothing but the old, old brands worked, same as for me. Woman lamenting she couldn’t use Feria and some of the nicer ones.
In comments, a comment I’m sure I don’t remember exactly but which ran like this "What on earth would you women do, without us f*gs to help you? Have you never heard of Gray Magic? Order some from Amazon, use it with any dye you want and dye your hair any color you like."
It’s been years, and I’m not even sure what blog I read this on. However, Gray Magic has been keeping my hair the brown it used to be even between cons. Allelluiah.
And thank you to that pink masked gentleman wherever he may be. <G>
According To Hoyt 
I made the jump from semi-permanent to permanent haircolor a few months ago. It was a tough decision, because I knew from experience that the color really relaxes my natural curl (which isn’t too intense anyway) into an unpredictable wave; but I decided I wanted all-over all-the-time color more than I wanted my level of curl, *sob*.
Mine is not as color resistant, I see now. In fact I think my mom has used just plain grocery store color with nothing added since she went gray at age 32. But even if I don’t need the Gray Magic now, I’m still glad to know about it. And glad you found something that worked!
LikeLike
Well, I tried Salon coloring, but it did nothing better than the off-the-shelf color — I know that’s weird, but… that’s what happened.
So, because I’m cheap and unpredictable — you’re talking to a woman who let her hair grow long enough to sit on because she kept putting off making an appointment — I color my own hair. And Gray magic is MIRACULOUS stuff. :)
OTOH hair color dries my hair something fierce, so I tend to baby it between colorings, otherwise I look like I have a light brown haystack on my head.
LikeLike
My skunk-streak of white over my right eye is dye resistant. When I dye it myself, I pray that the dye job I do the night before a con last the duration as well. :-D When my hairdresser does it, it lasts longer, but all of the cherry red rinses out almost straight away – then I’m stuck with months of orange. She uses a different and much more resilient formula now. Thank god. :-D
I still dye with a semi permanent between times, though when I need a fix for an event. Glad to know about the Gray Magic – no telling when I’ll need it. :-D
Marianne
LikeLike