How To Grow Out Your Hair Color Without Looking Crazy

There are dozens of reasons to go on a hair color hiatus. Weaning off the bottle will help improve the health of your strands and can save you serious time and money. Taking a step back from dying altogether is also totally en vogue right now, with colorists jumping on the bandwagon of endorsing soft, lived-in locks. The only problem? After years of regularly scheduled color appointments, how is one supposed to transition back to a more natural — or totally dye-free — mane without looking crazy in the process?

"The most important thing is to have a plan," Nine Zero One hair colorist Morgan Parks told us. In other words, forget dying your hair the one color you think best reflects your natural shade, or diving headfirst into color-correction boot camp. Parks suggests taking baby steps, by softly blending your roots into your current color, then slowly adding soft touches of color over several months. Not only will it save the integrity of your hair, it'll also make the transition easier on you, too. (Anyone who's done it knows that a quick color change can be jarring, to say the least.) However, not all shades should be treated the same. So Parks, who regularly takes people back to a life of less maintenance, broke down the process for us.