I will be 46 this month and only have a little gray as I was blessed with my grandmother's hair genes. Her hair was dark until she was 50 and then she started going grey/silver very quickly. I am too lazy to color my hair and I just don't care what people think about me or my hair. I did highlight when I taught school b/c it did make me look a bit younger but when I got it cut one time, I asker for a trim and wound up with about 1 inch of hair all over my head. Needless to say, wasn't a happy camper. Same salon scalped me the next time and haven't been back b/c I trim my own bangs mostly and trying to grow out the rest for awhile. I have dark brown hair and people cannot tell my age from my hair color b/c there's so little gray and it's mostly along the part line. Friends and DH say I have lovely hair which is naturally pretty. It's also bone straight excpet for the Alfalfa spot in the back when it's too short.
Disasters - permed my waist length hair, used Sun-in to color several times, did try to lighten it with henna prodcut but wound up orange. Did professional highlights once where it came it out almost white and when they tried to trim them out, I had tiger stripes in the back for about a month.