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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/12921
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I would recommend you to describe the hair of that character as "white" or "grey". Maybe "silver" when you want to be a bit more lyrical, but that's the furthest I would go into detail about the haircolor.

The artist of that image likely decided to put a tiny bit of yellow into the color-shade, because pure shades of grey generally look boring and sterile in artwork. But that's a problem which only applies to _visual_ media. As a _writer_ such design details aren't really as important.

Instead of taking multiple paragraphs to describe your characters appearances in great detail, you should rather focus on describing their personality and motivation. You might drop a few key-aspects of their appearance, but only when it is:

- Something _other characters_ would notice immediately and which would _affect the way they interact with her_. A young woman with grey hair might be something unusual in your fictional universe and a reason for others to notice her. Maybe having grey hair at a young age is a telltale sign that she practices black magic and would make it impossible for her to conceal this (in that case you could mention that her hair isn't completely grey but still shows a tiny bit of her original haircolor as a sign that she is not completely corrupted yet). Or maybe young people with grey hair aren't anything special in your universe. Then it's an irrelevant detail you have little reason to mention at all.
- Something which is a key hint to their personality. When a characters dress style is described as a lot more extravagant than appropriate for the situation, it might be a sign that they are vain or proud of their social status. When they openly carry a weapon everywhere they go, they might be paranoid, militant or like to intimidate people. When they have scars, it should be a crucial part of their background story.
- Something you need to identify the character. When you don't want the reader to learn her name (yet), you might want to refer to her only as "the grey-haired girl". Also, other characters which don't know the name of another character will refer to them in their inner and outer monologue by visual details (like "the girl with the sad eyes" to give an example from your source material). To make it clear which character they are talking about, it should be a distinct detail you mentioned before (Although on the other hand, you could also deceive the reader by intentionally picking a detail you left out so the reader does **not** know which character they talk about even though the reader already knows her. So the reveal of her identity will surprise the reader as much as it surprises the characters).

But describing the appearance of a character just so the reader can picture them better is unnecessary. When you omit irrelevant details, the reader will unconsciously fill in the blanks by making them up on their own.

Original score: 2