Airtouch for grey hair blending

Yes, Airtouch is very good at hiding grey, which is exactly why it's often chosen by women who are tired of colouring their roots every month. For grey hair blending, Airtouch dissolves the grey among lighter strands, so the regrowth line becomes almost invisible. A correction is needed roughly every 4 months, and sometimes you can go without one.

Why grey disappears among lighter strands

Grey hair has no melanin. It looks white or silvery, and on a dark base every grey hair stands out because the hair around it is dark. When you colour your roots dark, a white stripe appears along the parting within a few weeks, and you can see it from across the room.

Airtouch works the other way round. I lighten some of the strands, and the hair as a whole becomes lighter and more varied. The grey hairs mix in with the light strands, and the eye stops picking them out one by one. The regrowth doesn't form a hard line either, because the gradient moves away from your natural colour gradually. That's why Airtouch on dark hair with grey still looks neat several months later.

How grey hair behaves with toner

Grey hair is often coarser and denser: the cuticle lies tighter, and colour penetrates less easily. So toner can take more weakly on grey than on the lightened strands next to it, or fade sooner.

This needs to be planned for. I choose the toner so that it gives a shared shade to both the light strands and the grey hairs, and so the grey doesn't read as a yellow or dull patch. Toning doesn't cover grey as densely as root colour does. It softens its tone instead, and with Airtouch that's exactly what we want. So on grey areas colourists sometimes apply the toner first or leave it on a little longer.

Why grey turns yellow, and where chelation comes in

Grey hair picks up yellowness easily. UV light, minerals and metals from tap water, cigarette smoke and some styling products all contribute. On hair with no pigment, any stray tone shows straight away.

That's why every service I offer starts with chelation. It clears the hair of metals and mineral build-up from water. Without it, lightening is less effective, the powder dries the hair out more, extra yellowness appears, and the reconstruction actives don't penetrate as well. I go into the treatment in more detail in the article on hair chelation. At home, a shower filter and aftercare for lightened hair help, and I'll tell you individually whether you need a purple shampoo.

When Airtouch suits, and when it's better to start with toning

Airtouch works well when you have a little to a moderate amount of grey scattered through the hair and you're ready for a lighter look. It looks especially good on a mousy or medium-dark base.

There are cases where I suggest toning the base first:

• when there's very little grey and you only want to soften it without changing your overall colour;
• when the hair has been dyed dark for a long time and I need to see how it behaves before lightening;
• when you're not sure you want a lighter look and it makes sense to begin with a gentler step.

If there's a lot of grey, Airtouch is still possible, but the result will be closer to a light blonde. We decide together how light you'd like your hair to be.

At the first appointment it's worth looking at where exactly the grey is concentrated. There's often more at the temples, around the face and along the parting, and less at the back. That's where it makes sense to place more light strands, to dissolve the grey areas. If you've been colouring your roots dark, there's artificial pigment through the lengths, and it lightens less readily than a natural base. In that case the first Airtouch may be softer, and we add more light at the corrections.

Grey usually keeps coming through over time. Airtouch handles that calmly, because at each correction the amount of light can be adjusted to what's happening on your head.

How often you'll need to refresh the colour

With dark root colour, you usually have to touch it up every few weeks, because grey shows through quickly and obviously. With Airtouch the rhythm is completely different. If up to half of your hair is blonde, a correction is needed roughly every 4 months. And if you prefer, you can skip corrections altogether: the hair grows out softly and you just refresh the toning when needed. I explain how a correction works and how it differs from the first visit in the article on Airtouch correction.

Getting Airtouch for grey hair with me

The service includes chelation, Airtouch (the technique or a correction), reconstruction and toning. It costs from 3,200 UAH for all zones. If your grey is mainly around the face and temples, we can work on just those zones. Toning with reconstruction and chelation on its own costs from 700 UAH.

Message me on Telegram: https://t.me/le2chris. Send a photo of your hair in daylight, ideally showing the parting, and tell me what your hair has been coloured with in recent years. Then I can tell you where it makes most sense for you to start.