The Cuts, the Grooming and the Dye

The short answer

Going grey is a change in how your hair looks and often in how it behaves; what you do about it is a preference, and the practical adjustments below apply whichever way you decide.

The Art of Manliness, quoting the barber Thad Forrester, puts the cut first: use “clippers on the sides and the back and use some textured cuts on the top”, because “A short haircut lets you hide or blend the gray more compared to longer haircuts”. Forrester’s own preference is for going grey naturally, which he says is “just easier to manage than dyeing your hair, [and] it looks good, and shows a lot of confidence in a guy”; that is one barber’s view rather than a measure of what men or barbers generally do.

The same guide gives its product and washing suggestions: semi-matte products with a little shine rather than fully matte ones, which Forrester says make hair “look a bit dull”; shampooing every other day or so rather than at every shower, because in Forrester’s words “gray hair is already naturally drier”; a hair oil for wiriness; and a purple shampoo once a week against yellowing.

The Book of Barbering’s salt and pepper guide describes the texture change from the chair: “Gray hair is coarser and drier than pigmented hair”, which is why, it says, grey hair “sticks up more, holds product differently”. It suggests purple shampoo twice a week, left on for two to three minutes, and advises keeping beard and hair within one “gray step” of each other. Both are barbers’ working preferences: the shampoo timing belongs to the product you buy, and the beard advice is about a contrast you may or may not mind.

On the biology, the American Academy of Dermatology is the source to use rather than a barbering site: “Hair turns gray (or white) when your hair follicles stop creating melanin”, and the melanin stops regrowing after a number of hair cycles.

The rest of this page is the cuts with lengths, the routine, the yellowing, the beard, the clothes, and the section on dye.

The cuts

The haircuts that suit grey hair

The lengths in the table are the Book of Barbering’s, and the principle behind all six is the same: whatever your hair used to do by colour, the cut now has to do by shape. How your own grey reads against your face depends on your skin: against pale skin it usually softens the edge of the hairline, against darker skin it can stand out more sharply than your dark hair did. Look at your own reflection in daylight before deciding how much structure you want.

What asks more of you: a long cut, which needs conditioning and regular ends work to keep its shape once the texture changes, and which is a perfectly good option if you want it; a heavy fringe combed forward, which flattens the texture; and a hard part or a skin fade, where the growing-out line shows sooner against grey.

Salt and pepper is a different case from full grey: while the two colours are mixed, texture and a shorter cut keep the mix looking organised, and for that patchy stage the Book of Barbering suggests a crew cut or textured crop with the sides on a number 2 or 3 in a soft taper.

The texture

Why grey hair behaves differently

The follicle has stopped producing melanin, which is the AAD’s account of why the hair loses its colour. Barbers also report a change in feel, the Book of Barbering describing grey as “coarser and drier than pigmented hair” and saying it “sticks up more, holds product differently”. That is a practitioner’s observation rather than a measured property, and not every man notices it; if your hair has not changed in feel, the adjustments below are optional.

Where men do notice it, the effects reported are the same few: the hair holds less of a smooth shape without product, it frizzes more in humidity, and a pomade that used to work sits on the surface instead of going through the hair.

The adjustments are small, and worth trying only if the problem is there: shampoo less often so the scalp’s own oil stays in, condition every wash, and add a light hair oil or leave-in cream, which is what the Art of Manliness suggests for wiriness.

Product choice may change too: Forrester’s view in the Art of Manliness is that a fully matte finish can make grey look dull and that a little shine suits it better, which is a judgement about appearance rather than a rule. The Book of Barbering’s own list for grey hair still includes a matte clay, alongside a sea salt spray, a water-based pomade “never petroleum” and a texture powder for lift, so the two guides disagree and the mirror decides. Our guide to hair products sets out hold and finish for each type.

Yellowing

How to stop grey going yellow

The Book of Barbering puts yellowing down to three things: mineral deposits in tap water, UV from the sun, and product build-up. It happens gradually, so its advice is to start early, since prevention is easier than correction.

Violet-pigment shampoo: the pigment sits opposite yellow on the colour wheel and offsets it. Frequency and contact time are set by the product, and they differ widely, so follow the instructions on your own bottle; for reference, the Book of Barbering suggests twice a week, left on for two to three minutes, and the Art of Manliness suggests once a week. Use an ordinary shampoo on the other days.

Time it and rinse thoroughly: used more often than its instructions say, a violet shampoo can tint white hair lilac, the Book of Barbering warns, so keep to the contact time on the bottle as well. It washes out, and timing it avoids the question.

Avoid products with amber or gold in them, which the Book of Barbering flags, because a yellow-tinted pomade on white hair does visibly what the sun does slowly.

Wash after swimming. Rachel Falkner, a dermatologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, explains in a university article that grey or white hair is among the types more likely to take on a green tint in pools, which comes from copper deposits in the water rather than from chlorine itself, although chlorine makes the hair more porous and lets the metals in. The same article advises a sulphate-free shampoo straight after swimming for all hair types.

A clarifying shampoo clears the mineral and product build-up that a violet shampoo cannot reach. The Book of Barbering suggests one a month; the alternative is to use it when the hair feels coated or looks dull rather than on a fixed schedule, and either way follow the frequency on the bottle, since clarifying shampoos differ in strength.

The beard

The grey beard, and matching it to the hair

Beard and hair often grey at different rates, and the difference between them is more noticeable than either on its own.

The Book of Barbering’s preference is to keep beard and hair within one “gray step” of each other. That is worth knowing rather than obeying: plenty of men wear a grey beard with darker hair and are perfectly happy with it. What is true is that the contrast is conspicuous, so a decision to dye one usually leads to a decision about the other.

The lower-maintenance option is to let both go grey and keep the beard short. Where the beard greys faster than the hair, the Book of Barbering’s advice is to keep it shorter and neatly shaped, while a long grey beard needs more regular attention to keep its outline; our short beard styles guide gives the lengths.

A grey beard can yellow too, and the Book of Barbering suggests a grey-blending beard wash to knock it back; whatever you use, follow its label and rinse well.

Trim the lines more often than you did: grey grows out as conspicuously as any other colour and the outline is doing more of the work, so check the neckline and the cheek line between trims. Our guide to how to shape a beard covers where the lines go.

The rest

Clothes, skin and the upkeep interval

Grey hair changes one input into which colours suit you, and only one. Skin tone and undertone, eye colour and the overall contrast between your hair, skin and eyes all still count, and our seasonal colour analysis guide works through them, including how grey hair changes the contrast. What changes with grey is that the hair itself becomes a light, low-saturation frame, so a colour that used to be balanced by dark hair may now sit differently against the face; that is a reason to look in a mirror in daylight rather than to adopt a palette.

Black next to grey or white hair is a high-contrast combination; some men like it and others find charcoal easier to wear.

Skin: once the hair is no longer the strongest colour in the picture, the face carries more of it, so a basic routine of cleanser, moisturiser and sunscreen shows more than it did at thirty.

Upkeep: the Book of Barbering’s intervals are three to four weeks for most of these cuts and every two weeks for fades and tapered sides. It adds that grey strands often grow faster than the pigmented ones next to them, so a cut can look uneven sooner than you expect.

For the shortest cuts, see our guides to the crew cut and the buzz cut and the men’s haircuts hub, and for the beard, our beard styles guide.

Questions readers ask

Common questions