Go away grey without PPD

What about presoftening your roots with peroxide?  It should lift the cuticle a little and help the dye stick better, but not be as damaging as bleaching or bleach bathing.

If your colour is similar to the one on the box, I would suggest a deep, pink-based red like SFX Blood Red mixed with a brown like Adore's Medium Brown ... the only thing is, Adore really does not touch completely unprocessed hair, so it probably won't work very well unless you can presoften your roots.

If you want to use a true semi over greys you need to presoften  and lift the cuticle first with a weak bleach solution.  Box dye wise,  there is http://naturvital.co.uk/coloursafe-ppd-free-haircolour/   which is a demi,  which is definitely PPD free.  mahogany looks to be the closet match for you.

edited to add link to ingredients. http://naturvital.co.uk/coloursafe-full-list-of-ingredients

Thanks for the tips so far. Natur Vital is what I meant when I said Natur Tint, all their products do contain PPD, because it's less than 1% they are, by law, allowed to leave it off the ingredients and claim it is PPD free but on the boxes it does say "contains phenylediamines". Phenyltrimeticone is also a 'sister' to PPD so if you are allergic to PPD it includes all types/forms of PPD of which Phenyltrimeticone is one. It's absolutely disgraceful claiming something is PPD free when it isn't, people die of this. Can you imagine a company getting away with selling an ice cream as nut free when really it has 0.5% nut's in it?

There's a big gap in the market here for a safe product to cover greys, I just presume it's flippin difficult to find one!  🙁

I think using peroxide to soften the grey is the only option here. Are there any video's or tutorials on here about what I need to buy and how I go about that process please? There is a big Sally's close to me if that's any help.

Basically, you use a low volume peroxide (10 or 20 volume), apply it straight to your roots, cap your head and apply a little heat for around ten minutes.  Rinse it off, dry the hair and add your semi 🙂

Brilliant, as simple as that, thank you!!

I've ordered some Light Mountain Color the Gray in 'Burgundy' which is Henna so will give that a go and if that has the same result as the Lush Henna and gives me lurid roots then I'll go for the peroxide and SFX or Manic Panic dyes. Such a pain in the backside being grey so young!! *puzz*

I have a lot of grey (it isn't even, but it is about 75% white, 100% in some patches) and while pre softening helps, the only way i have achieved full coverage on my roots is by bleaching. There is no reason that a short, low volume bleach bath over coconut oil should cause any damage, it will be far more gentle than the box dyes that you used before.
I wouldn't use Henna unless you are prepared for the commitment, you cannot remove Henna, it is truly permanent. (You can dye over it, but it will still be in your hair)

Thanks Pixie, sorry you have a lot of grey too. This is a bit of a minefield so not really sure what's best. Probably trying the peroxide and semi first as I didn't realise Henna was a complete commitment. The Lush one I tried which turned out horrible I removed what looked like all of it the next day using Colour B4.

I'm only reluctant to do the peroxide thing because I don't have anyone to help me and it's ridiculously fiddly and time consuming applying peroxide to just my grey/white roots by myself with an array of mirrors. By the time I've covered the last bit around 30 minutes would have gone by so I am worried about frying the hair done before the last bit, if that makes sense!

Give the pre-softening a go first, it may work better for you. For me it only let my blue dye absorb enough to be a pastel sort of sky blue on the white areas, where the rest of my (bleached) hair was a deep blue. You could use that method to create a highlighted look, which is similar to what i did before i bleached for unnatural colours. I dyed my hair a light brown with a lot of highlights, (my natural colour was a dark/medium brown) and the roots blended nicely with just a tint of dark blonde on the white.
I have gone for a lighter colour nowadays so my roots don't stand out as starkly, and they don't look as bad in between bleachings.
You don't have to be super careful with just peroxide, but if you decide to do a bleach bath you will want to avoid overlapping. A 10 vol bleach mix diluted by as much shampoo again is a pretty weak concoction though, a typical box dye would have 30 or 40 vol peroxide and need leaving on for at least 30 mins. A BB can be rinsed of as soon as you reach the desired level of lift, it gives you a lot more control.
But yeah, grey hair is a pain! Mine started greying when I was only 17.

I have predominantly white hair (see in my avatar : green semi on non processed hair, bun = hair from when I used natural coloured dye) and what I used to do when I wanted a natural colour (dark brown, close to black) was a two step henna-indigo : first overnight henna (with darker type of henna, BAQ, from Rajasthan or Yemen), then 4 hours with indigo - yes it was a pain in the a$$, but my whtes were covered, and not bozo-style. As with any henna though, you may not be able to go back.

Then when I was trying different brands for green I tried Elumen, which is (supposedly) permanent non damaging no PPD dye. I found it to stick pretty well on unprocessed white hair, I had to stop it because their "bright" colours were nowhere bright enough for my liking, but their natural colour range might well suit you.

Now I'm using semi-perms on (still) unprocessed hair, it does not stick well generally and I'm still on the look for something that would ... to be continued 😛

Thank you Muza you're hair looks beautiful!!

I had a horrible attack of sinusitis so I stalled on my experimentation for a little while but the other day I have had some relative success with Superdrug Colour Effects on my virgin roots. I think it's a toner/shader. I bought the Mahogany one, 1 bottle cost 99p and was more than enough to do my roots and the rest of my hair which is collarbone length.

It has covered 90% of my white and grey and despite the bottle saying "do not use on grey hair" it has covered it extremely well and is still nice and healthy. PPD free, smells nice, apparently lasts 6 washes or a month which is when I am desperate to do my roots again. It's more copper than mahogany but it's a lovely sparkly colour that surprisingly blends well with the rich red of the Schwarzkopf dye which I'll have to grow out. So I am now a reverse Ombre ;D

I will try and take some photo's if anyone is interested.