How to Dye Dark Hair Grey Without Bleaching it Several Times?

Fortunately, not only nowadays bleach is much more performant than what it used to be, you can actually achieve “grey” hair without bleaching (hair that is lighter than a natural level 2 can achieve a dark grey without bleach).

First off what shade of grey you are willing to achieve dark grey (level 6)…

or almost silver grey (level 9)…

To understand how this works it is important to know how dark your hair is. Dark hair is usually referred to someone with hair darker than a natural level 4/ dark brown. In fact they have 12 level of hair color (13 if you count natural white hair). To make you understand, each hair color demands a minimum lightness to be able to achieve/ aka a light enough canvas to apply a color on top of it without it looking weird (just imagine coloring with a green marker on a black paper and compare it on a white sheet of paper).

Getting straight the point you would have two option the main option is bleach and the second option is high-lift tint.

As a experienced colorist, the best of the best bleach out there is the schwarzkopf blondme 9+ premium lightener. It can lift 8–9 levels with 40 vol, 7–8 levels with 30 vol, 6–7 levels with 20 vol and 5–6 levels with 10 volume, in foils or wrapped in seranwrap under low heat for the maximum amount of time (45 min).

About the high-lift, the best high-lift out there is the pravana chromasilk ultra-highlift (I recommend the ash one if your goal is to acheive grey). It can in fact lift 4–5 level ON VIRGIN HAIR if paired with 40 vol on all textures (ex. If you are a natural level 3 you can lift to a level 7/dark blond). It is much more gentle than bleach and guarantee even results if applied effectively/ contrary to bleach that can turn spotty if you are not experienced or trained.

With that said, find the shade of grey you want. Ask if the shade of grey can be achieved on the level of hair you would be lifting it to (the higher the level the lighter the grey: aka level 6 grey=dark grey and level 10 grey=silver).

Note that i’m not recommending you to do this on your own, I’m just giving you the right information to guide you in case you want grey hair in the future. Because achieving a nice shade of grey is very challenging and demands a extended knowledge in color theory. If you have any other question don’t hesitate to ask.