Sometimes it's better to embrace the change rather than resist it. That is why more and more hair lovers nowadays choose to grow gray hair, refusing to cover the silver strands with a hair dye or a temporary spray. Blending gray hair with highlights and lowlights is a popular method for people who aren't willing to wait months for their silver locks to grow out naturally.

Professional hairstylist and salon owner Emily Chen specializes in gray transitions and shows her followers how to seamlessly blend silvery roots with a custom salt-and-pepper hair color formula. In this incredible 13-hour transition to gray, the stylist reveals all the subtleties behind the matching natural hair pattern for her client's silver hair era.

Mapping salt and pepper strands is a painstaking process that requires time and precision. The idea is to separate lighter shades from darker ones and recreate the original root pattern in the center and ends. This client's hair is mainly made up of 'salt', which emerges from the outside, while the 'pepper' is in the middle.

The hairstylist first weaves out the pepper pieces to apply a bleach to the salt areas. These silver highlights revive the hair and add some shine to it. Then the dark strands are brought back to apply lowlight films. If too much salt is emphasized, the struggle becomes real. The first sections are done before the stylist could even start on the sides. So she has to pause the foiling and go back to check the processed strands before moving on to the rest of the hair.