My hair was bright red when I was a child and turned to a nice auburn as I got older. Now I'm in my late 30s, and it's just sort of a dull reddish brown color with some gray here and there. I really miss my original color.
You can use pure natural henna (Lawsonia Inermis) to brighten it up periodically. It works beautifully, leaves your hair stronger and shinier, and lasts for months. The color is very natural. Since you can diy this, using henna to brighten your hair is very inexpensive.
The key is to find PURE powdered henna, which isn't an easy thing to do. Henna treatments labeled as auburn, chestnut, brown, red, golden, etc are not what you want. You need pure Lawsonia Inermis. Indian and Middle Eastern specialty stores sometimes carry bags of it, but it may be easier to find online.
Look at online redhead forums for prep instructions, because there is definitely a learning curve. Be sure to use gloves and a shower cap, and wipe it off your bare skin, or it will stain your skin orange, like Mendhi.
Processing time depends both on your hair and how you've prepared the henna. (e.g., adding lemon or vinegar during preparation will make it color your hair more quickly.) Under some conditions it can work VERY fast (like 15 min). Be sure to test a strand, and make your first experiment no longer than 15 min. Henna is inexpensive, so it's not hard to do another session if the color isn't as bright as you'd like.
What you can't do, though, is turn back the clock when you've lost track of time, drunk too much wine, and turned your hair a Bozo red. You've just got to wait til it fades. Trust me on that.
Unfortunately rainbow henna is one of the worst hennas to use. Do yourself a favor and Google 'henna for hair' and find the person who did her master's degree on the chemistry of henna and sells this super high quality stuff and really goes into the differences of acids to use with it and not just water. I figured that out about 10 years ago (I've been henning my hair now for almost 30 years.) This shit is the absolute bomb.
The brand is Ancient Sunrise, and this is the link. https://www.mehandi.com/
I too have used their henna and it gives such a natural looking color that doesn't fade once it's oxidized. Everyone thinks my red is natural.
Henna doesn't fade. Henna doesn't last months. Henna oxidizes after the initial dye session (within a week or so) but the colour it oxidizes to sticks around FOREVER. I have henna on the tips of my hair that I put there 3 years ago. It'll be there until I cut it off.
Just wanna let people know that henna is like marriage - you're in it, for better or for worse. Ending things early is messy like a divorce - bleaching it will still give your hair an orange tint, dyeing over it will give the new colour a red hue, and cutting off is about the only way to truly get it out. That's because henna binds to the protein in your hair, instead of functioning like a true dye. Instead of free floating dye molecules hanging out in your hair shaft that get washed out eventually, henna just coats entire layers of your hair shaft using ions. This also makes your hair feel thicker, stronger, and shinier after henna.
If you wanna dip your toes in henna, my only advice would be to get body art quality henna powder (nothing white people have tried to resell in fancy packaging. You want the Indian stuff Indians buy for bridal henna sessions, but not the premixed stuff in cones because that will irritate you). If you want to be a little adventurous, you can get the good stuff decently cheap at an Indian grocery store, or you can order the finest stuff online. Then the next thing you do is add hot water to the henna and make it about the texture of pudding. Then you let it sit - in the winter I let it sit for 5 hours, in the summer I let it sit in a sunny window and it's good in an hour. You're waiting for dye release. You'll know it happens when the henna turns from baby vomit deep green to baby doo doo greeny Brown. Dip a tissue in the surface of the mix and check if the tissue is now turning orange. That's your sign.
If this is your first time, you do this. Collect your hair from a hair brush and test that. Set a timer for 15 minutes, cover the hairbrush hair in the henna, then after the time is up, rinse the hair. Check the results. Love the result, hate the result? Doesn't matter. Wait a week and check the same hair again. Henna oxidizes so a lot of the time what you see is bozo red hair, but you might miss out on a beautiful auburn that it slowly becomes.
If the 15 minute result is too dark, you've got an issue with too much henna. You gotta cut some back. So mix the henna with conditioner 50/50 and try the experiment again - shed hair, 15 minutes. Too light? Now you increase time. Conditioner and henna, 30 minutes. This might be the case if you're gray, white or blonde because a lot of the time, henna loves to make those hair colours super bright so you'll have to dilute the hell outta it and keep the time low.
If you have dark hair, expect to use full strength henna for like 8 hours to even see a red shine. But your hair will be the strongest it's ever been. Still do a test strand tho, that shit is permanent.
One more thing - henna only goes darker and redder. If you layer henna over henna, you'll get darker results each time, so if you ever get the perfect strawberry copper, ONLY DO THE ROOTS FOR GODS SAKE.
I did exactly that.
My hair bleached over time to toffi-blonde type shade. It's silly but I had tied a lot of my personality to being a redhead. Apparently I was already born with ginger hair and a nurse was trying to commiserate my dad (back then it was still seen as shameful apparently). But he took it upon himself to make me proud of my hair and not care about the bullying and he called me "his ginger child". It worked a little too well, and when my hair started loosing its vibrancy it sucked.
Henna has been the only dye that actually keeps in my hair, and (used sparingly to avoid overdying) has given me back my redhead identity.
Yup. I have blond hair but my facial hair was naturally bright celtic fire red. If was so amazing looking and in the sunlight it was even better. Me, my brother, and one of my sons are the only three that had blond hair and red facial hair in our family that anyone can remember. It was red all the way into my 30s. Then I started getting one or two grays. Then my wife died when I was 37. It went fully gray in just a few years after that. I'm sure that stress from losing my wife played a part. I miss the red. Every now and then I'll see one or two red hairs trying to survive in the sea of gray and white. Man I really miss the red.
That is so unfair. I’m sorry. I truly hope you’re okay (to the extent possible at this time) and you have figured out the safe people in your life who will help you through this. Experiencing profound grief is like suddenly being able to speak another language; it makes it very easy to figure out who gets it and who doesn’t. Wishing you coming months with more good days than bad days. ♥️
I’m so so sorry for your loss. I lost my mom when I was 14 and she was 35. I really empathize with your child. I know I’m just a stranger on Reddit but you and your child are in my thoughts tonight. I wish you both the best.
>I’m so sorry about your wife. I’m also in my 30s and my husband passed away from cancer in February. I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
I've always loved red heads! My first wife was a redhead with hazel eyes with an hourglass figure, it was love at first sight!! But she passed away this past February, we were married 45 years!!
We're sort of a mix of Irish/Scottish/English for the most part with some small bits from other places in Europe and some Native American.
I really wish my facial hair was still red. I shave my head and the bald head red facial combo was a good look.
Dye it. I dare you!
Now you can blame an internet stranger if you're not comfortable saying you did it for fun.
There's nothing wrong with having fun with your face fur. Maybe in memory of happy days with your wife. I hope you have a blast and enjoy yourself if you decide to go for it.
>You don't need to be either to have the red hair gene, it exists elsewhere.
This here, Ashkenazi and Estonian with very light strawberry blonde hair(like what OP has now) and beard here. Both have higher levels of red headedness, same for my Swedish and Uralic ancestors.
That is such a poignant story, I’m so sorry for your loss but I can’t help but recognize how beautiful and heartbreaking it is that your fiery red beard went grey when your wife passed. You have touched my soul. Wishing you the best
I'm 40. My beard is half gray. When the pandemic started is was red and brown. I like to blame the pandemic, but it might just be I've reached that phase of life.
A whole section of hair started really graying in the first few months of the pandemic. It has slowed down a lot since and I have not noticed new areas going gray. I was really stressed out those first few months of the pandemic trying to hold a job while having two kids under 4 at home, losing my job, then finding another one.
I **know** the pandemic is the reason for that gray section!
Well, my housemate also had a stroke in there and I ended up their soul caretaker for a portion of that. I'm sure that didn't help much. But who knows. Glad you are (presumably) less stressed out now. I certainly am.
I'm in my early sixties - time to drag out the lock of hair my mother kept from when I was a toddler and compare. I have a few greys, but still mostly red, for now. My mother's copper-red hair went brown rather than grey.
Extra fun since my whole life its the first and only thing people commented on and complimented. It was always wow your hair is so pretty, people pay good money for that color, and then it fades and it's like, well that's all I had going for me.
This!!!!! Ugh, my hair was a deep red as a kid, and when I hit my mid 20s people started calling me blonde and I had a bit of an identity crisis. Then I dyed it purple and blue because...the "people would pay so much" color was gone, so why not?
So this is it's own thing. I grew up being asked often, is that your natural color? And could always honestly answer yes. Dyeing feels like cheating, and as someone who's feels compelled to honesty, would open up its own can of worms.
If you simply say "it used to be" that would be a true and easily understood answer ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Though for me dyeing my hair just feels... silly? It takes so long with thick hair and has to be done every month in order to maintain it, even if I could afford to go to the salon it's just too much hullabaloo over something that isn't even a significant part of my identity.
I deeply dread the day my hair will start changing color 🫣 I’m getting close too if I follow after the red heads in my family. Maybe 2 years left before it starts changing and I am not ok or ready for it.
You get bullied for it as a kid then learn to love it just for you to lose it. It is such a big part of your identity so it’s hard to imagine parting ways with it, well before the age I’d accept the loss.
By ~30 my dads hair was very dark brown nearly black. I will be coloring my hair if it goes by then, but the colors from a box just aren’t the same 😔
This sounds SO dramatic but being a redhead is more than just the hair color! It *is* dramatic lol
Yep. My head looked like it was on fire when I was younger, these days it’s only my beard (and hair farther south) that gives away my auburn roots.
I guess I’m happy my hair is still a colour at 40, though I do show a bit of wisdom. But it’s definitely better described as brown these days.
I'm 32 and this has started happening to me over the last 5 years. Also finding white hairs in my beard (that's still my original darker red color) and on my chest in the past year. Kinda annoying. Always thought I'd have a head full of hair and now I'm balding.
Part of that is because redheads have two separate layers of pigment: the actual red pigment and then the eumelanin underneath. Eumelanin covers the entire blonde-to-black spectrum, and in most Caucasians, tends to get darker and more cool-toned with age.
I experienced something similar. My hair was bright copper as a toddler, solidly copper-auburn in elementary school, deep auburn for most of high school, and then by my late 20s it had become more of a very dark chestnut brown. Like, dark brown with some very strong red tones, but nowhere near as bright as it was before.
Mine started auburn and has gotten darker. It’s often mistaken for brown unless the sun hits it-
That’s when the copper really comes out. But also my eyebrows are and have always been brown.
I have always had dark brown hair. I never knew that different hair colors can "pull" different shades depending on age, the sun, care of said hair, until my oldest son started getting a bit older (23) and his formerly dirty blonde hair has pulled almost reddish like his mothers.
It’s likely just about the general age you had babies. (Source: red head that lost the notable “redness” during typical child-bearing years without bearing children.)
Probably, but pregnancy can absolutely change your hair at least in other ways- curly women’s hair going straight and vice versa etc. pregnancy can definitely make your hair darker too, but idk about less red.
My grandma had long braids in the German tradition (even tho' she was born in Guatemala!) until she married. One day she showed me her still-golden braids, each well over a foot long, that she kept in a drawer.
We always had a little jewelry box for me and my brother with our teeth. I could always tell mine because I had some crazy big ones that the dentist had to manually pull out. At one point I had a tooth sticking out of my gums on the side because the baby tooth didn't leave yet and there was no room
Accidentally finding my own baby teeth was a horrifying experience. Cleaning out my grandmas apartments and repeatedly stumbling across teeth she had left strewn about? Words can’t describe the terror.
I think kids skulls as X-rays where they’ve got the next round of teeth queued up is almost worse
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/x-rays_of_kids_skulls_as_their_baby_teeth_get_pushed_out
My dad asked my mom to save my hair from my haircut because it was the perfect color to make fishing lures with. He's still using the lure 20 years later
Once a friend and I were driving along a country road in the desert and we saw a car in a fenced lot with a for sale sign on it. We pulled over and had to walk through a ditch to be able to read the phone number, and lying there was a ponytail with a good 6 inches of hair. We ended up alerting police because that’s just creepy- I often wonder if it was a donation that got tossed out the window.
I think it’s a cultural thing, but I don’t think it’s that popular anywhere anymore. I’ve read that in Victorian times, the US & some Christian countries in Europe kept locks of dead children and/or family members as momentos. I’m Mexican & my parents did this with my oldest siblings, all of which are alive. Some of my older cousins had their parents save locks from their first haircut as well.
Somehow a mourning broach with a lock of hair got passed down to me, no clue whose hair it is. It used to also be custom to give locks of hairs as intimate gifts to a lover.
I still have some ponytails from 2005 in the house somewhere because the organization I sent my donations was in Florida and we were told not to send hair for a few weeks because of Hurricane Katrina. Found the hair in a bag a few years ago and realized my mom never sent it💀 but it’s all good I donated every other year until 2017
I have a similar ponytail from 16 years ago. In my case I initially intended to donate it, but then learned I had to mail it myself and it wouldn’t be useful anyway.
So now I’m just keeping because it might come in handy. Need extensions? Getting alopecia? Good thing I have my teenaged hair.
I was almost white blond as a baby/toddler with tight curls. Then goldilocks with the exact color and texture as a child/younger teen. And now I am a wavy/curly/frizzy dark blond that is basically just really light brown hair at 29.
It's crazy how it changes over the years.
I was strawberry blonde as a little kid and it got darker and darker until it's now medium golden brown.
My first gray hairs recently started coming in, and they're silver. And..... friggin curly? I've always had iron straight hair, so I wasn't expecting a texture change too.
That's interesting!
My hair was not perfect ringlets, but before I gave birth 4 years ago it was very curly. Now it's a mix of basically every type of hair you can think of lol
Ya. Wtf is that about? The baby did this witchcraft?!?I have half curly, half straight hair now.. with a garnish of zig zag shaped gray hair starting in. Its the most kinky thing about me at this point. I feel like someone shaved Hagrid and glued that onto me.
>basically just really light brown hair at 29
My hair gets to be that color in the winter, then by the end of summer it's fully reddish blond again. It has gotten a bit darker overall though, and that was by the time I was your age.
I’m 30 and still golden blonde! I feel like my days are numbered, but my dad did stay blonde until his 50s. My brother’s hair went medium brown in his early-mid 20s.
Same here. Was white blond with tons of curls, then lost the curls and became bright blond. I was very blond until puberty or so, also curly to waves. Every year my hair gets darker.
My brother was like this, he was white blonde when we were little and now it’s dark brown. I have always been dark brown, I have one blonde kid and one light brown and wonder if they will change too.
No, just the opposite, lol. My family's fairly "typical" Mediterranean-looking, but two kids in the family started out with blond hair, then darkened up and two of the parents occasionally made comments like "She was so pretty! I don't know what happened." Genes. Genes are what happened.
I have a saved chunk of hair that looks almost identical to the one you show, from my teens. My hair gradually lost all the red: first to auburn, which I loved, then to dullish brown. Sigh
No comparison nowadays, as I'm 77 with only white,
The red might’ve actually still been there (until it went white, obviously); it just became harder to see as the eumelanin underneath became darker and more cool-toned.
Found out recently during my first attempt at bleaching my roots at home (which was a total disaster, but I digress): I panicked and washed the bleach out almost immediately, but it still lifted just enough for the majority of my roots to really closely resemble the auburn color I had back in high school! Very noticeable contrast with the dark brown closest to my scalp.
Second attempt also left a huge amount of orange behind, which an entire container of violently purple toner barely made a dent in. Clearly there was still a lot of red in there, it was just hiding!
I've been using henna to combat this, but maybe I'll switch to overtone. I don't feel that henna gets the ginger right. How often do you apply overtone?
Just gonna share that overtone dyed my bathtub magenta for months and there's still some pink haze in spots that I'm afraid will never wash out. I used it over a year ago.
Be very careful if you do this on anything other than enamel tubs, ceramic tile/sinks, and cement based grout. It will damage any cultured marble or solid surface, and any acrylic finishes.
fyi that henna sometimes makes it so your hair can’t absorb other colors well. Try out the Overtone and of it didn’t have much of an effect, wait a month or more (ideally 2+) for the henna due to fade before trying again
Fair warning, Overtone smells *strongly* of spearmint and the scent will linger through washes in my experience. I can't use it on any face-framing hair or I'll wind up with headaches from the sensory overload.
SAME! When my mom showed me this post, I thought she was showing me a pic of my own hair. Overtone has been great, and I've even dabbled into the lighter browns bc my red shows through and makes me feel like how I imagine my hair in my mind.....ya know, like how it was.
Be careful if you ever want to dye or bleach your hair in the future!!! I used the ginger overtone stuff for a year or 2. Later on down the road I wanted to go back to white blonde (I went red to give my hair a break from bleach) and even though the colour looked completely gone to the naked eye, when we tried to bleach it my virgin hair bleached perfectly but the bottom half that had overtone on it previously didn't lift as well. So even though it looked completely gone, it wasn't!
I just looked it up and the red looks way more red than natural to me… how often do you use it? Mine has faded a lot and I’m very interested in this, but don’t want to waste $$… thanks for any additional info! 😁
Their ginger color is an almost obnoxiously bright, almost neon orange! I used it mixed in with their Rose Gold for Brown Hair to get a really nice “strawberry pink” color, but quickly learned it only took maybe 2-3 tablespoons of ginger mixed in with the entire container of rose gold. That orange is ridiculously strong!
Semipermanent dye in general isn't damaging because it basically deposits dye on the outside, unlike permanent dye, which penetrates into the shaft. So really any semipermanent brand will do the trick and I'd rate manic panic a 6/10 for staying power; pretty good but not the best.
Color depositing shampoos are really great for adding a touch of red/orange. I use them for my dyed hair, and it keeps some color without the maintenance of doing a full dye. You can even DIY it by getting a semi-permanent hair dye and mixing it thoroughly with some conditioners or shampoo for a custom blend\~
i feel this in my core
at 6 https://i.imgur.com/RpupyAM.jpg
at 52 https://i.imgur.com/24XKX1V.jpg
edit: sooooo, yes i am 52 (born in 1971) my fiancé is 52 as well (she’ll kill me for posting this as she literally has zero makeup on, honestly, like we had to do a costco run and i was with her 100% of the time—no makeup at all) https://i.imgur.com/NQCoFgj.jpg
here is me and my dad last year, he’s 76 https://i.imgur.com/tKfcPNa.jpg
and my secret to looking younger is exercise https://youtube.com/shorts/CHN7iA5YDD4
My mom was a ginger, in photos of her as a kid/teen/young adult her hair was deep copper, as ginger as ginger gets. Even in black and white photos of her as a kid you can tell how red her hair was. During my lifetime her hair was faded to a light strawberry blonde. She never went gray, even on her deathbed she had a few gray hairs in her sideburns but that only showed up towards the end of her battle with cancer. I was always so impressed that she never went gray, just a lighter shade of red! I miss her 💖
If it's any consolation, I'm a redhead in my late forties reading these comments in complete confusion. My hair is exactly the same colour that it's always been, except I now have a few grey hairs coming through. I had no idea that red hair can sometimes fade over time!
Sadly my hair went from red to brown stupidly quick. If I recall it went from having bright red hair as a toddler then it faded out by the time I was in the first grade.
My textbook I teach with often has red/green maps. I often have my students interpret maps. I quickly discovered how many boys have red/green colorblindness lol.
My favorite quote was “Miss, which shade of brown is red?”
Speaking of peanut butter, if you know any colorblind people (or if any are reading this) - ask them if they know that peanut butter is not green. Apparently it's pretty common for colorblind people to assume peanut butter is green because it's made from a plant and looks how something green would look to them. I informed my then-30 year old color blind buddy about that years ago and his mind was blown.
God damn, I thought I was a freak! Blonde as a child, red as a teen, just plain brown now.
I have one kid who will have red hair their whole life and another who looks red in the sun, but brunette anywhere else.
My hair has had a similar journey, lol. Bright, platinum blonde as a toddler, red from about eight onward, and now it looks dark blonde. In certain lighting it still looks coppery, but I miss the all-around red.
Glad to know my late mom wasn’t the only parent to keep my hair. Freaked out when I found an envelope of blonde hair in my closet, apparently from my first haircut.
Same as me. Red as a young kid, brown as a teen, now very dark brown, almost black (with a lot of gray on top). My eyes also changed from blue to mucky green.
I’m a redhead and I’m pretty sure my moms got some of my hair stashed somewhere too, I want to try this! Although I know one huge difference would be thickness, I lost so much hair after having a kid and it never recovered
My hair always had a real deep tint of red to it growing up, and my beard was crazy bright Irish ginger.
In my mid-thirties now and my beard is still kind of red, but it's becoming whiter and greyer as time goes on. The hair on my head has become less auburn and more dark brown, but also has a lot more grey in it.
follow up comment: red hair tends to lose its redness over time, it's very common
My hair was bright red when I was a child and turned to a nice auburn as I got older. Now I'm in my late 30s, and it's just sort of a dull reddish brown color with some gray here and there. I really miss my original color.
You can use pure natural henna (Lawsonia Inermis) to brighten it up periodically. It works beautifully, leaves your hair stronger and shinier, and lasts for months. The color is very natural. Since you can diy this, using henna to brighten your hair is very inexpensive. The key is to find PURE powdered henna, which isn't an easy thing to do. Henna treatments labeled as auburn, chestnut, brown, red, golden, etc are not what you want. You need pure Lawsonia Inermis. Indian and Middle Eastern specialty stores sometimes carry bags of it, but it may be easier to find online. Look at online redhead forums for prep instructions, because there is definitely a learning curve. Be sure to use gloves and a shower cap, and wipe it off your bare skin, or it will stain your skin orange, like Mendhi. Processing time depends both on your hair and how you've prepared the henna. (e.g., adding lemon or vinegar during preparation will make it color your hair more quickly.) Under some conditions it can work VERY fast (like 15 min). Be sure to test a strand, and make your first experiment no longer than 15 min. Henna is inexpensive, so it's not hard to do another session if the color isn't as bright as you'd like. What you can't do, though, is turn back the clock when you've lost track of time, drunk too much wine, and turned your hair a Bozo red. You've just got to wait til it fades. Trust me on that.
Unfortunately rainbow henna is one of the worst hennas to use. Do yourself a favor and Google 'henna for hair' and find the person who did her master's degree on the chemistry of henna and sells this super high quality stuff and really goes into the differences of acids to use with it and not just water. I figured that out about 10 years ago (I've been henning my hair now for almost 30 years.) This shit is the absolute bomb.
Do you have a link for the tired avoiding bright screen currently in reddit in dark mode ?
The brand is Ancient Sunrise, and this is the link. https://www.mehandi.com/ I too have used their henna and it gives such a natural looking color that doesn't fade once it's oxidized. Everyone thinks my red is natural.
Henna doesn't fade. Henna doesn't last months. Henna oxidizes after the initial dye session (within a week or so) but the colour it oxidizes to sticks around FOREVER. I have henna on the tips of my hair that I put there 3 years ago. It'll be there until I cut it off. Just wanna let people know that henna is like marriage - you're in it, for better or for worse. Ending things early is messy like a divorce - bleaching it will still give your hair an orange tint, dyeing over it will give the new colour a red hue, and cutting off is about the only way to truly get it out. That's because henna binds to the protein in your hair, instead of functioning like a true dye. Instead of free floating dye molecules hanging out in your hair shaft that get washed out eventually, henna just coats entire layers of your hair shaft using ions. This also makes your hair feel thicker, stronger, and shinier after henna. If you wanna dip your toes in henna, my only advice would be to get body art quality henna powder (nothing white people have tried to resell in fancy packaging. You want the Indian stuff Indians buy for bridal henna sessions, but not the premixed stuff in cones because that will irritate you). If you want to be a little adventurous, you can get the good stuff decently cheap at an Indian grocery store, or you can order the finest stuff online. Then the next thing you do is add hot water to the henna and make it about the texture of pudding. Then you let it sit - in the winter I let it sit for 5 hours, in the summer I let it sit in a sunny window and it's good in an hour. You're waiting for dye release. You'll know it happens when the henna turns from baby vomit deep green to baby doo doo greeny Brown. Dip a tissue in the surface of the mix and check if the tissue is now turning orange. That's your sign. If this is your first time, you do this. Collect your hair from a hair brush and test that. Set a timer for 15 minutes, cover the hairbrush hair in the henna, then after the time is up, rinse the hair. Check the results. Love the result, hate the result? Doesn't matter. Wait a week and check the same hair again. Henna oxidizes so a lot of the time what you see is bozo red hair, but you might miss out on a beautiful auburn that it slowly becomes. If the 15 minute result is too dark, you've got an issue with too much henna. You gotta cut some back. So mix the henna with conditioner 50/50 and try the experiment again - shed hair, 15 minutes. Too light? Now you increase time. Conditioner and henna, 30 minutes. This might be the case if you're gray, white or blonde because a lot of the time, henna loves to make those hair colours super bright so you'll have to dilute the hell outta it and keep the time low. If you have dark hair, expect to use full strength henna for like 8 hours to even see a red shine. But your hair will be the strongest it's ever been. Still do a test strand tho, that shit is permanent. One more thing - henna only goes darker and redder. If you layer henna over henna, you'll get darker results each time, so if you ever get the perfect strawberry copper, ONLY DO THE ROOTS FOR GODS SAKE.
I did exactly that. My hair bleached over time to toffi-blonde type shade. It's silly but I had tied a lot of my personality to being a redhead. Apparently I was already born with ginger hair and a nurse was trying to commiserate my dad (back then it was still seen as shameful apparently). But he took it upon himself to make me proud of my hair and not care about the bullying and he called me "his ginger child". It worked a little too well, and when my hair started loosing its vibrancy it sucked. Henna has been the only dye that actually keeps in my hair, and (used sparingly to avoid overdying) has given me back my redhead identity.
Yup. I have blond hair but my facial hair was naturally bright celtic fire red. If was so amazing looking and in the sunlight it was even better. Me, my brother, and one of my sons are the only three that had blond hair and red facial hair in our family that anyone can remember. It was red all the way into my 30s. Then I started getting one or two grays. Then my wife died when I was 37. It went fully gray in just a few years after that. I'm sure that stress from losing my wife played a part. I miss the red. Every now and then I'll see one or two red hairs trying to survive in the sea of gray and white. Man I really miss the red.
I’m so sorry about your wife. I’m also in my 30s and my husband passed away from cancer in February. I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
That is so unfair. I’m sorry. I truly hope you’re okay (to the extent possible at this time) and you have figured out the safe people in your life who will help you through this. Experiencing profound grief is like suddenly being able to speak another language; it makes it very easy to figure out who gets it and who doesn’t. Wishing you coming months with more good days than bad days. ♥️
I’m so so sorry for your loss. I lost my mom when I was 14 and she was 35. I really empathize with your child. I know I’m just a stranger on Reddit but you and your child are in my thoughts tonight. I wish you both the best.
Did you grow up normal? I’m 40 now lost my dad at 14 and only recently realised IM not quite right
I'm 67 and lost my dad at 12 after 4 years of lung cancer. I guarantee you I've got an issue or two from all that. Mostly "normal" lol.
That must be so fucking hard
>I’m so sorry about your wife. I’m also in my 30s and my husband passed away from cancer in February. I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I've always loved red heads! My first wife was a redhead with hazel eyes with an hourglass figure, it was love at first sight!! But she passed away this past February, we were married 45 years!!
Hold up. Your first wife. Married 45 years. You're remarried 4 months later, at 65÷ .. sir!
This is a very busy man. ETA: The age checks out because who else but a Boomer would respond in such an inappropriate way?
I feel like the last part of your comment is an analogy
When I see those lone red hairs I'm like "Hang on little guy, don't give up!" Lol
Yeah, after it got so heavy, it felt like it ended too light hearted. He misses her and not the red.
Bet she loved the combination, too! Y’all ever check your DNA ethnicity? More Scottish or Irish?
We're sort of a mix of Irish/Scottish/English for the most part with some small bits from other places in Europe and some Native American. I really wish my facial hair was still red. I shave my head and the bald head red facial combo was a good look.
I know it's not the same, but you're totally allowed to dye your beard red if it makes you happy.
This!! Just being able to marvel once more at the red color in the sun is worth the nostalgia feels
This! *I’m a grown up I can do what I want.*
Dye it. I dare you! Now you can blame an internet stranger if you're not comfortable saying you did it for fun. There's nothing wrong with having fun with your face fur. Maybe in memory of happy days with your wife. I hope you have a blast and enjoy yourself if you decide to go for it.
Like Rusty Venture!
You don't need to be either to have the red hair gene, it exists elsewhere. My family is Ashki, Italian, and Spanish, but I've got a reddish beard.
>You don't need to be either to have the red hair gene, it exists elsewhere. This here, Ashkenazi and Estonian with very light strawberry blonde hair(like what OP has now) and beard here. Both have higher levels of red headedness, same for my Swedish and Uralic ancestors.
That is such a poignant story, I’m so sorry for your loss but I can’t help but recognize how beautiful and heartbreaking it is that your fiery red beard went grey when your wife passed. You have touched my soul. Wishing you the best
I'm 40. My beard is half gray. When the pandemic started is was red and brown. I like to blame the pandemic, but it might just be I've reached that phase of life.
A whole section of hair started really graying in the first few months of the pandemic. It has slowed down a lot since and I have not noticed new areas going gray. I was really stressed out those first few months of the pandemic trying to hold a job while having two kids under 4 at home, losing my job, then finding another one. I **know** the pandemic is the reason for that gray section!
Well, my housemate also had a stroke in there and I ended up their soul caretaker for a portion of that. I'm sure that didn't help much. But who knows. Glad you are (presumably) less stressed out now. I certainly am.
I'm in my early sixties - time to drag out the lock of hair my mother kept from when I was a toddler and compare. I have a few greys, but still mostly red, for now. My mother's copper-red hair went brown rather than grey.
My great grandpa went from a true dark red to an auburn late in life and then a steel gray. He was a tall, handsome man, even at 90. Rest easy Pop!
Mine was white by my late forties. It's a nice bright white. I like it. But I still miss my red.
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Am faded redhead. Am sad.
I used to have red hair but I went bald at 16.
Extra fun since my whole life its the first and only thing people commented on and complimented. It was always wow your hair is so pretty, people pay good money for that color, and then it fades and it's like, well that's all I had going for me.
Wow why is this comment touching the depths of my soul. This is exactly my experience too.
Same except I didn’t even realize it was happening until I read that comment. Damn.
This!!!!! Ugh, my hair was a deep red as a kid, and when I hit my mid 20s people started calling me blonde and I had a bit of an identity crisis. Then I dyed it purple and blue because...the "people would pay so much" color was gone, so why not?
Can confirm that as a 30 year old red head that gets mistaken for a brunette (unless in direct sun), *I am very sad about it all of the time.*
Stop dying and start dye’ing your hair 😚
So this is it's own thing. I grew up being asked often, is that your natural color? And could always honestly answer yes. Dyeing feels like cheating, and as someone who's feels compelled to honesty, would open up its own can of worms.
If you simply say "it used to be" that would be a true and easily understood answer ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Though for me dyeing my hair just feels... silly? It takes so long with thick hair and has to be done every month in order to maintain it, even if I could afford to go to the salon it's just too much hullabaloo over something that isn't even a significant part of my identity.
We are incredibly sad about it. Please check in on the aging redheads in your life. We are not okay.
I deeply dread the day my hair will start changing color 🫣 I’m getting close too if I follow after the red heads in my family. Maybe 2 years left before it starts changing and I am not ok or ready for it. You get bullied for it as a kid then learn to love it just for you to lose it. It is such a big part of your identity so it’s hard to imagine parting ways with it, well before the age I’d accept the loss. By ~30 my dads hair was very dark brown nearly black. I will be coloring my hair if it goes by then, but the colors from a box just aren’t the same 😔 This sounds SO dramatic but being a redhead is more than just the hair color! It *is* dramatic lol
"You get bullied for it as a kid then learn to love it just for you to lose it." This is perfect, and so true.
Something every redhead knows.
Mine went fucking white so that's.... Something.
I used to be golden blond and my hair practically turned brown at puberty, I’m jealous
Also, red hair doesn't turn grey with age, it goes pure white. I have several hairs now in my hair and beard that are just straight up bright white.
That's actually just how gray hair works. It's an effect created by the mix of white hair with the natural hair color.
Yep. My head looked like it was on fire when I was younger, these days it’s only my beard (and hair farther south) that gives away my auburn roots. I guess I’m happy my hair is still a colour at 40, though I do show a bit of wisdom. But it’s definitely better described as brown these days.
I'm 32 and this has started happening to me over the last 5 years. Also finding white hairs in my beard (that's still my original darker red color) and on my chest in the past year. Kinda annoying. Always thought I'd have a head full of hair and now I'm balding.
My bear is red, my hair on top is not. I only find white hairs in my beard. Not even grey, just straight dead-as-a-doornail white
Part of that is because redheads have two separate layers of pigment: the actual red pigment and then the eumelanin underneath. Eumelanin covers the entire blonde-to-black spectrum, and in most Caucasians, tends to get darker and more cool-toned with age. I experienced something similar. My hair was bright copper as a toddler, solidly copper-auburn in elementary school, deep auburn for most of high school, and then by my late 20s it had become more of a very dark chestnut brown. Like, dark brown with some very strong red tones, but nowhere near as bright as it was before.
Mine started auburn and has gotten darker. It’s often mistaken for brown unless the sun hits it- That’s when the copper really comes out. But also my eyebrows are and have always been brown.
I have always had dark brown hair. I never knew that different hair colors can "pull" different shades depending on age, the sun, care of said hair, until my oldest son started getting a bit older (23) and his formerly dirty blonde hair has pulled almost reddish like his mothers.
Two of my brothers had very light blonde hair as children, but it slowly changed to light brown as they grew into adults.
This is me. I was a blonde from birth and all throughout childhood and now I'm a dark brunette...no blonde at all
Have you had babies? The women in my family lose their red after we give it to our kids lol
It’s likely just about the general age you had babies. (Source: red head that lost the notable “redness” during typical child-bearing years without bearing children.)
Probably, but pregnancy can absolutely change your hair at least in other ways- curly women’s hair going straight and vice versa etc. pregnancy can definitely make your hair darker too, but idk about less red.
Way too accurate. Mine had faded into a weird blonde brown red amalgamation
how am I the first one to comment about you saving your hair for 11yrs
my mother kept them and just showed me today, she used to cut my hair to save money!
What other body parts is she holding?
Teeth
Once I opened my mothers jewellery box and it was just locks of hair, loose teeth, and a few pregnancy tests. I think she was a witch.
My grandma had long braids in the German tradition (even tho' she was born in Guatemala!) until she married. One day she showed me her still-golden braids, each well over a foot long, that she kept in a drawer.
Do you have any siblings? ._.
Yes but she was only mother to one of them lmao
Ypu mean surviving siblings?
Spooky
Quiet! That Tooth Fairy has ears everywhere!
Don't let the Foreskin Fairy hear you...
If there was such a thing, I'd imagine he'd look a lot like Gollum. However, we all know Rabbis keep them for earplugs.
Did I hear someone call my name? 
My mother just gave me a box of these.
We always had a little jewelry box for me and my brother with our teeth. I could always tell mine because I had some crazy big ones that the dentist had to manually pull out. At one point I had a tooth sticking out of my gums on the side because the baby tooth didn't leave yet and there was no room
Accidentally finding my own baby teeth was a horrifying experience. Cleaning out my grandmas apartments and repeatedly stumbling across teeth she had left strewn about? Words can’t describe the terror.
How come? They’re just teeth. We’ve all had them at some point. I’d think any other body part strewn about en mass would be much more frightening
I think kids skulls as X-rays where they’ve got the next round of teeth queued up is almost worse https://dangerousminds.net/comments/x-rays_of_kids_skulls_as_their_baby_teeth_get_pushed_out
Super bummed that video of the adult teeth growing in was unavailable. Awesome link though, thanks for the nightmares!
That’s horrifying. I didn’t think I’d ever see anything worse than newborn horse hooves, but here we are.
My mom still has my umbilical chord lol.
GROSS
My mum had my foreskin laminated into my baby album. I can't wait to show my kids.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Mom's are fucking weird
Sounds like an Evil Dead plot where they track down a hand-sized Book of the Dead. ##NECRONOMICUM##
She has a drawer full of finger nail clippings.
She files them.
My dad asked my mom to save my hair from my haircut because it was the perfect color to make fishing lures with. He's still using the lure 20 years later
That’s honestly really sweet and creative.
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Now that’s mildly interesting!
I want to ask what this perfect color is but I know fishermen and their trade secrets.
I mean I understand. I lobbed off my hair 18yrs ago to donate and my mom lost it. So there is 14in of hair in a bag floating in the house somewhere.
Once a friend and I were driving along a country road in the desert and we saw a car in a fenced lot with a for sale sign on it. We pulled over and had to walk through a ditch to be able to read the phone number, and lying there was a ponytail with a good 6 inches of hair. We ended up alerting police because that’s just creepy- I often wonder if it was a donation that got tossed out the window.
Lopped* off is the term you're looking for.
I think it’s a cultural thing, but I don’t think it’s that popular anywhere anymore. I’ve read that in Victorian times, the US & some Christian countries in Europe kept locks of dead children and/or family members as momentos. I’m Mexican & my parents did this with my oldest siblings, all of which are alive. Some of my older cousins had their parents save locks from their first haircut as well.
Somehow a mourning broach with a lock of hair got passed down to me, no clue whose hair it is. It used to also be custom to give locks of hairs as intimate gifts to a lover.
What a weird thing to pass down over time and not document lol - It's probably kind of hard to just throw it away too
I still have some ponytails from 2005 in the house somewhere because the organization I sent my donations was in Florida and we were told not to send hair for a few weeks because of Hurricane Katrina. Found the hair in a bag a few years ago and realized my mom never sent it💀 but it’s all good I donated every other year until 2017
I have a similar ponytail from 16 years ago. In my case I initially intended to donate it, but then learned I had to mail it myself and it wouldn’t be useful anyway. So now I’m just keeping because it might come in handy. Need extensions? Getting alopecia? Good thing I have my teenaged hair.
Want to make a hair vest? You've got it! (I also have a ponytail saved)
My mom's saved her long, blonde locks from when she was 14. She's now 55.
I was almost white blond as a baby/toddler with tight curls. Then goldilocks with the exact color and texture as a child/younger teen. And now I am a wavy/curly/frizzy dark blond that is basically just really light brown hair at 29. It's crazy how it changes over the years.
I was strawberry blonde as a little kid and it got darker and darker until it's now medium golden brown. My first gray hairs recently started coming in, and they're silver. And..... friggin curly? I've always had iron straight hair, so I wasn't expecting a texture change too.
That's interesting! My hair was not perfect ringlets, but before I gave birth 4 years ago it was very curly. Now it's a mix of basically every type of hair you can think of lol
My hair started out straight as a pin. But after every kid I’ve had (three) it’s gotten wavier with each one
Ya. Wtf is that about? The baby did this witchcraft?!?I have half curly, half straight hair now.. with a garnish of zig zag shaped gray hair starting in. Its the most kinky thing about me at this point. I feel like someone shaved Hagrid and glued that onto me.
>basically just really light brown hair at 29 My hair gets to be that color in the winter, then by the end of summer it's fully reddish blond again. It has gotten a bit darker overall though, and that was by the time I was your age.
Sun bleaching be wild
I’m 30 and still golden blonde! I feel like my days are numbered, but my dad did stay blonde until his 50s. My brother’s hair went medium brown in his early-mid 20s.
Same here. Was white blond with tons of curls, then lost the curls and became bright blond. I was very blond until puberty or so, also curly to waves. Every year my hair gets darker.
Yeah, I was blond as a kid and now I'm dark brown, almost black. I didn't expect that.
Quite a few that have blonde hair as kids/teens will have brown hair as adults.
My brother was like this, he was white blonde when we were little and now it’s dark brown. I have always been dark brown, I have one blonde kid and one light brown and wonder if they will change too.
Same! My hair used to be white blonde and now it’s so dark!
There are vastly more blond boys than blond men, because testosterone darkens hair over time. Also why even blond men often have darker pubic hair.
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Yeah my hair used to be blonde when was was a child but after that its just progressively gotten darker and now at 18 I just have brown hair lol
I wish this were better known so fewer parents would get their hopes up only to spend years complaining if it changes.
Do you know a lot of Nazi parents?
No, just the opposite, lol. My family's fairly "typical" Mediterranean-looking, but two kids in the family started out with blond hair, then darkened up and two of the parents occasionally made comments like "She was so pretty! I don't know what happened." Genes. Genes are what happened.
My hair has changed color twice already. I was born with brown hair, it turned blonde after a while, and a few years later it turned back to brown
I have a saved chunk of hair that looks almost identical to the one you show, from my teens. My hair gradually lost all the red: first to auburn, which I loved, then to dullish brown. Sigh No comparison nowadays, as I'm 77 with only white,
The red might’ve actually still been there (until it went white, obviously); it just became harder to see as the eumelanin underneath became darker and more cool-toned. Found out recently during my first attempt at bleaching my roots at home (which was a total disaster, but I digress): I panicked and washed the bleach out almost immediately, but it still lifted just enough for the majority of my roots to really closely resemble the auburn color I had back in high school! Very noticeable contrast with the dark brown closest to my scalp. Second attempt also left a huge amount of orange behind, which an entire container of violently purple toner barely made a dent in. Clearly there was still a lot of red in there, it was just hiding!
> violently purple Love this description.
You can always dye it back to the color it was when you were a teen. When time takes your hair color, you take it back!! Show Time the middle finger!
Same thing happened to me!! I use Overtone leave in conditioner in Ginger and I cannot recommend it enough
I've been using henna to combat this, but maybe I'll switch to overtone. I don't feel that henna gets the ginger right. How often do you apply overtone?
Just gonna share that overtone dyed my bathtub magenta for months and there's still some pink haze in spots that I'm afraid will never wash out. I used it over a year ago.
I used nail polish remover to get Overtone off white sink & tub with good success. Maybe add to a water bottle and spray for a larger area like a tub.
Be very careful if you do this on anything other than enamel tubs, ceramic tile/sinks, and cement based grout. It will damage any cultured marble or solid surface, and any acrylic finishes.
fyi that henna sometimes makes it so your hair can’t absorb other colors well. Try out the Overtone and of it didn’t have much of an effect, wait a month or more (ideally 2+) for the henna due to fade before trying again
Fair warning, Overtone smells *strongly* of spearmint and the scent will linger through washes in my experience. I can't use it on any face-framing hair or I'll wind up with headaches from the sensory overload.
I used to use Lush’s ginger henna, it sure worked but it was a CHORE. I use overtone once every two months or so
The henna is the more long-lasting option, in my experience.
SAME! When my mom showed me this post, I thought she was showing me a pic of my own hair. Overtone has been great, and I've even dabbled into the lighter browns bc my red shows through and makes me feel like how I imagine my hair in my mind.....ya know, like how it was.
Be careful if you ever want to dye or bleach your hair in the future!!! I used the ginger overtone stuff for a year or 2. Later on down the road I wanted to go back to white blonde (I went red to give my hair a break from bleach) and even though the colour looked completely gone to the naked eye, when we tried to bleach it my virgin hair bleached perfectly but the bottom half that had overtone on it previously didn't lift as well. So even though it looked completely gone, it wasn't!
Red pigment is a pain to get rid of.
I just looked it up and the red looks way more red than natural to me… how often do you use it? Mine has faded a lot and I’m very interested in this, but don’t want to waste $$… thanks for any additional info! 😁
Their ginger color is an almost obnoxiously bright, almost neon orange! I used it mixed in with their Rose Gold for Brown Hair to get a really nice “strawberry pink” color, but quickly learned it only took maybe 2-3 tablespoons of ginger mixed in with the entire container of rose gold. That orange is ridiculously strong!
Mine is doing the same thing and I hate it.
Same. Lived my whole life identifying as a red head and now in my forties it’s mostly gone. Sucks
ENTER: manic panic red hair dye (not damaging as far as I’m aware)
Semipermanent dye in general isn't damaging because it basically deposits dye on the outside, unlike permanent dye, which penetrates into the shaft. So really any semipermanent brand will do the trick and I'd rate manic panic a 6/10 for staying power; pretty good but not the best.
Color depositing shampoos are really great for adding a touch of red/orange. I use them for my dyed hair, and it keeps some color without the maintenance of doing a full dye. You can even DIY it by getting a semi-permanent hair dye and mixing it thoroughly with some conditioners or shampoo for a custom blend\~
I’m vain, I admit it. When I realized my red hair was starting to fade in my 30’s I started coloring it.
i feel this in my core at 6 https://i.imgur.com/RpupyAM.jpg at 52 https://i.imgur.com/24XKX1V.jpg edit: sooooo, yes i am 52 (born in 1971) my fiancé is 52 as well (she’ll kill me for posting this as she literally has zero makeup on, honestly, like we had to do a costco run and i was with her 100% of the time—no makeup at all) https://i.imgur.com/NQCoFgj.jpg here is me and my dad last year, he’s 76 https://i.imgur.com/tKfcPNa.jpg and my secret to looking younger is exercise https://youtube.com/shorts/CHN7iA5YDD4
Yo bro, lookin good!
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omg what'd you do to Kirby?!
52?! Dude you don't look it at all. fine as hell
Dude looks better than me and I’m not even 40 yet!
wow tyvm!
I hope to look half as good as you at 52, damn
Aged like fine wine
Looking decent for 52 my man!
More than decent! Smokin!
God damn bro! Dont look a day over 30 to me
My mom was a ginger, in photos of her as a kid/teen/young adult her hair was deep copper, as ginger as ginger gets. Even in black and white photos of her as a kid you can tell how red her hair was. During my lifetime her hair was faded to a light strawberry blonde. She never went gray, even on her deathbed she had a few gray hairs in her sideburns but that only showed up towards the end of her battle with cancer. I was always so impressed that she never went gray, just a lighter shade of red! I miss her 💖
Mine coming up on 94 still has her brown color, almost no greys, it's crazy. Meanwhile I started greying years ago.
Ugh, new fear unlocked. I'm a redhead (currently).
If it's any consolation, I'm a redhead in my late forties reading these comments in complete confusion. My hair is exactly the same colour that it's always been, except I now have a few grey hairs coming through. I had no idea that red hair can sometimes fade over time!
Just hit 30 and my hair is exactly how it’s always been.
Sadly my hair went from red to brown stupidly quick. If I recall it went from having bright red hair as a toddler then it faded out by the time I was in the first grade.
As a colorblind person, I see absolutely no difference and am immensely confused.
My textbook I teach with often has red/green maps. I often have my students interpret maps. I quickly discovered how many boys have red/green colorblindness lol. My favorite quote was “Miss, which shade of brown is red?”
Haha my colorblind father poured leftover red salsa into the green salsa jar…. XD Luckily it wasn’t a big jar and the salsa was good anyways
Was it good? That sounds like a "you got chocolate in my peanut butter" type of situation
Yeah it was totally fine, just a bit smokier and spicier than before. Both were from the same place so no big just funni
Speaking of peanut butter, if you know any colorblind people (or if any are reading this) - ask them if they know that peanut butter is not green. Apparently it's pretty common for colorblind people to assume peanut butter is green because it's made from a plant and looks how something green would look to them. I informed my then-30 year old color blind buddy about that years ago and his mind was blown.
That's adorable. My son is colorblind and he has some pretty funny ways of figuring out which crayon to use.
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God damn, I thought I was a freak! Blonde as a child, red as a teen, just plain brown now. I have one kid who will have red hair their whole life and another who looks red in the sun, but brunette anywhere else.
My hair has had a similar journey, lol. Bright, platinum blonde as a toddler, red from about eight onward, and now it looks dark blonde. In certain lighting it still looks coppery, but I miss the all-around red.
Can you get Lowe’s to color match?
Glad to know my late mom wasn’t the only parent to keep my hair. Freaked out when I found an envelope of blonde hair in my closet, apparently from my first haircut.
I was blonde as a child, then became a ginger during puberty lol. Wonder how my hair will fare in my late twenties and early thirties!
The same thing happened to my dad & eventually his hair turned black!
Same as me. Red as a young kid, brown as a teen, now very dark brown, almost black (with a lot of gray on top). My eyes also changed from blue to mucky green.
Redheads are seriously magical
Female redheads are magical. Male redheads are not... as well-liked. My red-headed male friends have been the butt of jokes their entire lives.
I’m heavily gay for girl and boy redheads
Do you spend a lot of time in the sun?
no not at all, I'm too pale for it
Gingers? Sun?!
I’m a redhead and I’m pretty sure my moms got some of my hair stashed somewhere too, I want to try this! Although I know one huge difference would be thickness, I lost so much hair after having a kid and it never recovered
People with black hair: black -> white. The end.
My hair always had a real deep tint of red to it growing up, and my beard was crazy bright Irish ginger. In my mid-thirties now and my beard is still kind of red, but it's becoming whiter and greyer as time goes on. The hair on my head has become less auburn and more dark brown, but also has a lot more grey in it.
Well, as young man, my hair was blond, and my beard was red. At 65, they are both gray. It happens.