I have and always have had scare hair:  thick, dry, and naturally curly!  I have also inherited the trait of premature graying.  I believe I saw my first gray hair at age 18 and started dying my hair at 23.

I don't want to dye my hair anymore.  I want my natural hair to grow long.  Looking at the roots now, it looks like the top and sides of my hair will grow out whiter than salt 'n pepper while the roots of the back of my head are medium brown like my eye brows.  All of my hair is currently dyed medium brown. 

The dilemna I face is growing out my natural untreated hair until it gets to the point where I can cut all the color treated hair off.  It will look pretty scarey in the mean time.  There will be that obvious line of demarcation where the real color stops and they dyed hair begins.  I never understood why people let their hair look that way, but now I know.  They were waiting for their hair to grow to a length where they could comfortably cut off their dyed hair.  I guess there is no solution except to just give it time.  I am fortunate that I work behind the scenes and don't face the public, but how about the time outside of work?  I guess scarves and knit caps could come in handy.  Or I could just forget about it and not worry.

Has anybody else gone through this?  I may feel too young for gray/white hair, but it could turn out to look rather attractive if not dramatic.

I am so glad I found this website!

Cheers,
Lucinda

Welcome Lucinda!
I wish there were an easy solution to the dreaded "growing out the hair color" dilema.  I somethines think that hair dye was invented specifically to catch people in its trap.

Although I don't necessarily want to advocate more chemical processes, one method to soften the transition is to have "low lights" put into the hair that is growing out.  There is still variation from the ends to the roots, but they can help make the demarkation line a bit less harsh.