Why must grey roots grow like weeds? You’ve scarcely scrubbed the dye stain off your forehead before the silvery regrowth is peeping through your parting again, leaving you wondering if it’s time to hang up the latex gloves and join the Silver Sisterhood. It’s a hair dilemma faced by every woman who’s passed the 50% grey threshold, and Trinny Woodall is the latest to ponder her options - prompting some extremely blunt advice from her former What Not To Wear co-star Susannah Constantine.
In a candid new video, Trinny has shared just how quickly her grey roots come through, and how she feels about the idea of embracing her natural shade.
‘Off to the hairdresser to deal with that,’ she says in an Instagram reel, showing off her already sizeable stripe of grey regrowth to the camera. ‘That is two weeks' growth.’
Simply growing it out has seriously crossed her mind, the Trinny London founder says. ‘I've contemplated the idea of going grey. I have some friends and family members who have become grey early in life because their hair turned grey, or they just went into it in my age group. And I look at them, and I think that looks great.’ (We agree that silver can be chic – see our guide on going grey without looking older.)
However, Trinny's background in fashion is one key factor that’s held her back so far. ‘They have a different skin, hair, and eye [colour to me]. We wear different coloured clothing, and I think you have to change quite a lot [if you go grey]. My hair is a sort of neutral shade, and if I went grey, it would be I would veer to neutral/cool in my colouring.’
Swapping to that new colour palette would, she admits, involve a radical wardrobe overhaul: ‘A lot of my clothes would change.’ And that wouldn’t come cheap if the well-stocked rails seen on her social content are anything to go by.
The psychological element of going grey can’t be discounted, either. Trinny admits she just feels perkier and happier with her grey roots covered and a fresh new tint applied. ‘I feel I look tired [grey],’ she confesses. ‘Especially that contrast when you wake up in the mirror and you think, “gotta get it done”. That feeling just brings an exhaustion out of me. I notice it, because you know, in an hour and a half time, I'll be jumping with joy. And right now I'm feeling ugh.’
Trinny has also shared the tricks she uses to cover up her roots in between appointments. Josh Wood’s wash-out root blending brush gives her ‘gorgeous-looking hair’ when her greys are showing through, and she also uses Color Wow’s brush-on powder cover-up – with some reservations. ‘Color Wow on holiday isn't great,’ she grumbles. ‘And you get sort of dark bits coming down your hairline.’
With all the pros and cons to weigh up, Trinny asked her followers to share their advice on going grey, and it didn’t take long for her old workmate Susannah to dive in with a brutal assessment.
‘DO.NOT.GO.GREY! No no no. NEVER!!' she writes in the comments. 'Wipe that thought from your mind. Your hair will look 10 years older than you do. Love you and your roots 😘’
To show her exactly how to do it, Susannah has posted her own hair makeover video, showing her swooshing her own freshly-coloured hair. ‘SOOOO happy to be a 'natural' blonde again,’ she writes.
And naturally, Trinny shared her own, equally candid, thoughts on her friend’s hair, commenting: ‘The best dumb blonde, gorgeous f**ing girl, I miss you’
Can those two please present a TV show together again soon – ideally one on beauty?
