I know I should weigh in on the bizarre rants coming out of NY NOW about Ted Kennedy endorsing Obama instead of Clinton, but I think my opinion will be redundant to what’s already out there. Instead I’m going to blog about this interesting article in Alternet by Anne Kreamer, who wrote a book about women who go gray instead of start dyeing their hair when the gray comes in. It’s a subject I find interesting, because dyeing your hair to cover gray has become very normalized, almost mandatory for women. It’s assumed that it’s what you do, just like it’s assumed you shave your legs and wear a bra. Since I adhere to those cultural norms, I’m at a crossroads now that my hair is actually beginning to turn gray enough to be noticeable. I really, really don’t want to dye my hair. I used to dye my hair a lot when I was younger for the hell of it—I liked being a redhead and then a blonde—but it’s time-consuming and expensive and messy and I’ve been done with it for about almost 8 years. But watching my hair come in gray, I had the initial thought, “Oh shit, now I have to start dyeing it again.” It popped into my head, because it’s just so automatic for women to do this, and then my feminist self began to ask questions. And I realized that I really don’t care enough about having salt and pepper hair to address the issue. (We’ll see if this changes.) I want to be proud of my rebellious ass, but mostly I feel a twinge of shame at having gray hair when I’m only 30 years old. I realize that I’m being ridiculous—I suspect a lot of women are in my position, but I don’t know it because they dye their hair—but still, that’s my honest reaction.
There’s two big legitimate reasons women are scared to let their gray hair just be that Kreamer mentions.
In 2007 when I was fifty-one, I published Going Gray, a memoir-cum-amateur-social-science exploration of what it felt like to be gray-haired in America. I wrote honestly about my own fears and experiences as I abandoned hair dye after twenty-four years of coloring, and I became my own guinea pig in various experiments where I probed two of women’s biggest fears about aging: that they will be limited professionally by looking “old” and that they will lose their sexual attractiveness if they have gray hair.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t talk about the professional blowback from resisting the cultural norm of having dyed hair. She talks only about the sexual aspects, and her results were not as surprising to me as she thought they’d be. I’d predict what happens in that arena more easily than I can predict what would happen to you in a work environment.
In one, I posted my profile and picture on Match.com, putatively looking for dates in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles — first with my hair photoshopped back to the brown color I had once dyed it, and then, months later, with my current gray hair. To my surprise, three times as many men in each of those cities expressed interest in going out with me with my hair gray than they had with my dyed hair. Good Morning America’s producers, somewhat incredulous of my results, replicated the stunt in advance of my appearance on the program, with a sixty-one-year-old widow from Florida, and had exactly the same results. Needless to say, the finding that men seem actually to prefer a woman with gray hair (among many other surprising findings in my book) generated a tremendous amount of media interest.
I’m not as surprised as she or the producers were, and I don’t think it’s that gray hair itself is sexy specifically. I think it’s more that it’s not unattractive, and bucking any kind of cultural norm tends to make a person stand out a little. She probably got more emails because she stood out a little and got more attention. Also, the kind of social lie that justifies the pressure to dye your hair is that it’s about looking young, and men supposedly want younger women. But obviously they don’t—I’m sure that Match.com has a search function for age ranges, and the men were specifically searching for middle-aged women—so it’s not like these guys were going, “Oh, ew! A middle-aged woman!” I’m sure not a few of the men were also figuring she’d be less judgmental of a bald spot. Hair anxiety is something of an equalizer in that sense.
But as Pam has noted before, hair is about politics as well. And having gray hair when you’re merely middle-aged instead of elderly says that you’re a hippie and willing to question cultural norms. Being a bit rebellious helps you in the sexual marketplace for sure—most people like the idea of sleeping with a free-spirited sort—but what about in a work environment? Not dyeing can be as alarming as having visible tattoos. On the other hand, having gray hair does convey a certain authority, which could offset the fears that the gray-haired woman is a dangerous rebel. I would probably trust a woman with gray hair more than not to be competent at her job, figuring she’s been around long enough to have made herself an expert, but I’ve long learned to understand that my gut instincts are not necessarily shared with others.
131 Responses to “Gray-haired young ladies”
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I question the wisdom of dyeing beyond the political ramifications - it’s adding unnecessary toxins to your system. Anything that sits on your skin gets absorbed into your bloodstream. That’s enough to keep me from dyeing (or wearing nailpolish for that matter).
But I’m an unshaven, tattoo-wearing hippie-type anyway. And I lucked out by getting a secure position before turning gray. If I thought it would mean a significant difference in my ability to advance at work, I might have second thoughts.
I always told myself that I’d allow myself to age gracefully, and not spend tons of time or money covering up grey hair when it came… I just expected that to be later than age 25. Sigh. Sometimes I pull them out, but so far I’ve resisted the urge to dye. I’m hoping that as the grey advances, it’ll be like, cool grey face-framing streaks.
One thing I noticed when I moved back to New England after four years in Maryland is that there are more grey-haired ladies here. I suspect that some of the pressure is regional, although there are plenty of women here who dye their hair, too.
Well, I’m old(er) and my hair has little bits or gray in it, but not too much. I dye my hair, not because of the gray, but because as I aged, the color darkened and looks dull (I used to be blonde, now I’m not brunette or blond, just dull). I figure it makes me feel better about myself do it. Once it stops making me feel perkier, I’ll stop. Actually, if I went completely gray, I would stop dying immediately, I think gray can be very pretty.
My black-haired mom started graying at age 16, was more salt than pepper by 32, and had solid silver hair in her early 40s. I always thought she looked beautiful without dye. My brown hair is sprouting gray wings now; I’m 39. I don’t plan to dye it for now—I work at home, so why bother—but if I tried to upgrade my career I might. For now, I try to avoid drawing my hair back so that the gray shows less. The combination of gray plus severely pulled back hair plus no sleep for two years as a stay-at-home mom working full-time nights and weekends makes me look as haggard as I feel. Not good.
I have one friend my age - 50 or so - who has been completely gray as long as I’ve known her, over 20 years. She’s never dyed her hair and she’s always been attractive to me - and, I’m sure, to her husband of 28 years, who is as affectionate, handsome, dashing, and clever as a European diplomat (which he is).
I have another friend of about 10 years standing, also 50 now, who has these little wisps of gray at her temples, which she tucks back unselfconsciously behind her ears when she’s talking about something serious. I’ve been terrifically attracted to her since the day I met her and haven’t ever told her so. Presumably she knows but she’s far too well-mannered to let on.
Both these women are successful professionals, to move from the confessional to answering your question.
Guess it’s a vanity thing for me, but not just youth-vanity: gray is a hideously unflattering color on me & I refuse to wear it (except at the gym), because my skin has yellowish undertones. That means either my gray hair will be very dingy and/or dirty looking and sorta match my complexion, or I could brighten it and look like I’m waiting for a liver transplant. Neither seems like a good option, so I just keep applying a slightly lighter brown that mostly produces the reddish cast of my teen years & makes the gray bits sort of blondish.
hear hear, uh, hair.
i think there’s a broader range of opinions on gray hair these days than there was before some women decided to make dyeing it optional and live with the reactionary consequences. the problem with it becoming a shame-based thing is that you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
I guess it’s different for me because I’m male, and I imagine the pressures affecting men and women respectively as it concerns gray hair aren’t altogether equal even if they are similar. But I have long, curly hair at age 25 that is rapidly graying. As this is a strong genetic tendency in my family, I’ve known it’s coming and I actually kind of like seeing the new gray hair come in. It connects me to my mother and my cousins and other older relatives on that side of my family.
I think among my friends that are graying early and those that have gone bald, there is a substantially higher rate of emotional scarring from the baldness. Sometimes it’s shocking to see someone lose all his outward confidence and start wearing the ball-cap nonstop.
So I’m personally happy to be going gray- it beats the major alternative for men at least. I’ll see if I feel the same way, though, when it’s no longer obvious that I’m in my mid-twenties and I start getting offers for the senior discount.
I have absolutely no plans of coloring my hair when I start to go grey. But then, what do I know, I’m 23 and nary a grey hair in sight.
Though, I’ve finally been able to convince my mom, in her mid 50s, to lay off the dye once in a while.
And why the leg-shaving? It is customary in the US, but not in every country.
My parents were married when my father was 34 and my mother 28. In their wedding pictures, my father is more salt than pepper. I knew by the time I was 20 that I’d inherited that particular gene. At this point, I now have lovely white hair, with a few stray black hairs left. I tried dying it exactly once, and decided it was far too much trouble (and mess). One of the grooming things I can’t help be judgmental about is having obvious undyed roots showing. I had some medical issues for a while that meant my hair was brittle and I had to wear it short (in an age-appropriate cut?). But no more. I have mid-back length white hair that I tend to wear loose. I honestly don’t know whether I’d be as strongly anti-dying if my hair hadn’t grayed so nicely.
And, in response to LauraB (#2), when I lived in Florida, every person who ever cut my hair tried to sell me on getting it dyed. In Connecticut, that’s never happened.
My hair started to go grey when I was 26 and had a series of very high fevers. I don’t know if this is a BS correlation or not, but every time my fever spiked over 103, I’d have a new chunk of grey hair. Now, at 37, it seems like I’m at least half grey, and it’s not attractive. It’s just…a reminder of something that started in a truly, truly awful time in my life, and it isn’t who I feel like I am inside. I’m the goth punk rockabilly mosh pit mom. And I am just not ready to be anything other than a screaming burgundy red anytime in the near future. Screw the politics.
You earned that gray. Wear it proudly!
I’m fifty, now, and my hair is maybe 20% grey. After wrestling with myself in my forties, I landed solidly on the no-dye side, and I have come to love my hair just as it is. Interestingly, I often get compliments on it, now. It took some work, though, to get to that place.
We get so many anti-ageing messages in this culture. Especially women. When you turn fifty, you become invisible. Literally. If you have relied on your looks throughout your younger years, there is tremendous pressure to turn back the clock.
-l.
ailei, i got a couple clumps of grey hair when i was 7, supposedly also due to unacceptably high fevers.
As other people have said, I think part of the decision is how attractively one is graying. I had a friend who was completely gray before she was 40, but it was a great color on her. At 38 I’m going gray slowly (I keep trying to tell my husband they’re highlights but he doesn’t believe me ;-p) so I’ll have to wait and see. I do highlight my hair, but it’s more because I think I look better with reddish hair than to cover gray.
Out here in the West, I’ve noticed that a lot of women go platinum blonde when they get almost completely gray, and it looks pretty good.
“On the other hand, having gray hair does convey a certain authority…”
I was actually quite pleased when I found two gray hairs this week (I’m 23). I took them to school to show my students what they had done.
I read Kreamer’s book, even though I’m not her target demographic, and I think about it a lot. I’m 35, rather young-looking, and just starting to go grey. I’ve also been dying my mousy-brown hair various shades of red since college. As the grey is starting to come in, I’m feeling pretty conflicted. If there were an easy way to dye the brown hairs red and leave the grey ones alone, I’d be all over it.
Not to double post, but lacking any genetic members of my family to compare against myself, I think my visceral reaction against my grey hair is in part shame, honestly. I feel like I have so much grey hair at this age because I’ve had a ‘hard life’ with too much stress and anxiety and sorrow. If I’m going to project a confidence I don’t feel, I need every asset on my side, including my hair dye, my nice clothes, my makeup and my stompy boots. If I don’t have those things, I feel as weak on the outside as I do on the inside, and that’s just not acceptable to me. Who knows, maybe my whole birth family went grey by 40 and I’m being a total nitwit, but I don’t know that. I just look at that grey and see all the sleepless nights and the residual feelings of abandonment (when the person who was supposed to be taking care of me left me sick and alone with a baby). It’s a really emotionally fraught thing for me to get used to. Resigning myself to no more babies was easy, contemplating a hysterectomy in the near future, no big deal. The small lines and dark circles under my eyes I can handle with aplomb. The grey hair? Not so much.
I have no plans to color my hair because I start going grey, but that assumes that a) I’ll have stopped coloring it long enough to notice and b) my natural color will have settled down enough to make a definite call one way or another. After I stopped running around in the sun so much that my hair was bleached even blonder and swimming so much that it turned chlorophyll green, I discovered stray strands of everything from cornsilk to black. So far, neither A nor B seems to be in the cards.
My mother started “having” to dye her hair to cover the grey before she was forty. I finally got her to stop crabbing at me over dyeing my beautiful! natural! blonde! hair red by pointing out that, so long as she insisted on dyeing her hair, she might as well dye it the color she actually wanted.
Yeah, this is going to be a tough one for me - which is weird, because I neither shave my body hair, nor do I wear a bra (except to work, because I’m a librarian, and I have actual boobs, and people would bitch). I generally don’t cow-tow to much in terms of “the norm,” but, I have a feeling I will cover my gray for a bit.
And I guess it’s all psychological - I will be 40 in two weeks, but I don’t look a day over 27, and I LIKE THAT. A LOT. I’m not pretty, I’m not thin, but I look really young - and I have a younger boyfriend. So, yeah, when the gray happens, I have a feeling it’ll go bye-bye fast.
I feel like I should have my feminist card revoked….
My father’s side of the family tends to grey early, but I apparently haven’t inherited that, because I am newly 30 (turned in December) and can count the number of grey hairs I have on one hand. One of my cousins, on the other hand, had fully white hair by his mid-twenties. One of my younger sisters has much more grey than me, but because her hair is that weird blondish-brown color (mine’s dark brown), you have to really look for it before you notice. As far as I know, she’s got no interest in dyeing it.
I don’t plan to dye my hair, because both sides of my family turn gloriously white haired, and I love how it looks. My mother’s mother’s hair was bright, perfect white, and my mother’s is turning the same color (she’s dyeing it for now, because she doesn’t like how patchy it is at the moment. Supposedly once it’s more uniform, she’ll stop).
On the other hand, I have found the very occassional grey hair places … not on my head. And THAT I found really, really disturbing. And I felt terribly old.
Never had any gray hairs to my knowledge at almost 25 (but my hair is red to begin with, goes differently than other colors.)
Lost a LITTLE front scalp hair around the corners over the past ~3 years, but it’s essentially invisible if I comb halfway decently, gel it and stay out of high winds (just tried Nioxin, already reversed most of the losses within a matter of weeks too.) I’ve been a little concerned about going seriously bald, but the genetics have been in my favor for most of the other men in my family.
I already wear my hair in a profoundly unprofessional style (waist length, simple ponytail, no products), and think it’ll look even better when I start to get a few more grey hairs streaking the dark brown (right now I only have a few visible), but I’m lucky enough to be in a line of work (lab research) where I can get away with that sort of thing. I have no idea what I’ll do if I ever want a more corporate job… but then, I doubt I could pull off the rest of it (makeup etc) anyways.
Jessica - Don’t give up the feminist card. It’s all about being able to choose to go gray or dye your hair. That’s what makes feminism so enticing (to me).
I noticed my first grey hair the week before my 30th birthday. My initial reaction was that I was going to have to start dyeing it (I’ve never done that, being a redhead and loving my natural colour).
I pulled that first hair out.
I’m almost 32 now and I’ve still not coloured my hair. I haven’t pulled out any more of the hairs that are starting to appear more rapidly. I’m actually starting to like them.
I discovered that the women on my dad’s side of the family all started going grey in their late 20’s too. I didn’t know this because they all dye their hair. So I’m going to be the odd one out in the family, not that that is a new experience for me.
That is not to say I won’t dye it in the future, but that won’t be because of the grey, it will just be because after over 30 years, I want a change.
Yeah, this is one of several feminist-linked decisions that I’ve “dealt with” by putting them off. I’m 36, my hair is getting a lot more grey than it was 5 years ago (though it’s still down around 10%) and a lot FASTER than it was 5 years ago. I dyed my hair red, blond, etc. in my 20s and then decided it was making it dry and breaky and so went back to all-natural light brown.
Anyway, in my mind, I’ve decided that I might start dyeing my hair when I am 40. It works great as a line to put both others off and my own thoughts off. So when the hairdresser asks me about color, I say, oh, not till I’m 40. And I say that to myself, too when I start to think about it and then get all mentally perplexed over the anti-feminism of it (not to mention the dealing with maintenance, etc). I kind of suspect when I’m 40 I’ll start saying — when I’m 45; and at 45 — when I’m 50; but maybe not. But it kind of lets me have my hair-dyeing cake … without dyeing my hair! I mean, I never feel like, aw, this darn feminism forcing me to keep my grey hair! I just feel like, well, that’s something I’ll deal with later.
Hmm. I think I just got a bit more insight into why women become more radical as they get older….
I was actually surprised when I began to go grey at where my alarm was centered. It can be summed up in one unsettling sentence:
“If I have grey hair, my boss will expect me to know what I’m doing!”
*flails arms and runs away*
I’m not READY to be a grown-up. I can’t even pay my effing phone bill on time, damn it! Now, people will expect me to know what I’m doing at work, to be able to handle a crisis without bluescreening, to be somewhat mature, to know where the hell I’m heading in life.
Agh.
The social aspects I rather like — men defer to me or at least think twice before brushing me off. I can say something about my tastes in life and not get back, “You don’t mean that,” or “Awwww, come ooooon,” or “I bet I could get you to!” Now, it’s just taken as a matter of course that I’m saying exactly what I think. I couldn’t give a crap for dating sites since I’ve never wanted a BF or husband, and the dubious blessing of my looks has never gotten me one damned thing in life that I ever wanted. Sure, I could have made a grade-A trophy wife. Too bad I wanted a doctorate in physics, eh? Didn’t help much there.
In general though, grey hair means you’re a grown up.
Grey hair means you’ve got your shit together. I’m not even sure where all my shit IS.
My great grandmother was completely grey by age 20, and as far as I know, never dyed it. None of the other women in my extended family dyes her hair, either. I’ve always just assumed that when I start getting grey hairs–which will probably be by the end of grad school–I’ll let them come in. I like my hair’s natural color, and it would be hard to find a dye that matched it perfectly (brown, but red if you catch it in the right light, and prone to sun-bleaching). Plus, with all my swimming, I do enough damage to my hair as it is.
LauraB @ #2: I think it’s definitely regional. Texas is pretty hard on anyone who wants to avoid gendered beauty norms. Austin is not so bad. After living here a few years, my mother got a bit more relaxed about going out of the house without her make-up.
BTW, I use henna + indigo for my hair. Tanks the greys and turns it pretty much the same color it’s always been. Except for the temples. I leave my grey temples alone cuz they’re cool.
I’m probably going to end up doing the same thing except for a shock at the hairline as well. I LOVE the Lily Munster look.
When it’s ALL grey, a purple underdye might be nice.
I want to be grey right now! I have a little on the sides, a lot on the chin, and a slapdash bit here and there. And there. And a bit back there. Get on with it, body!
I’m 37, aren’t even a tenth as caring about it as the previous paragraph might seem, but still would love to have Anderson Cooper’s hair. I need that authority a man gets when he’s grey, but still dresses like I do (think college student working at a library, but on a long-ago college grad working at a library.)
I’ve colored for more than two decades, not to cover gray, but just because it entertains me. I’ve bounced between blond, brunette and red so many times I’ve lost track. I’ve tried to quit the dye, but after a month or two of looking at my naturally mousy tresses, I get bored and head to a salon for a fix.
I’ve found most men don’t like the musical hair colors. Most of the ones I know like natural and low maintenance. I suspect that’s the reason Kreamer got more responses with her gray hair. While the stereotype of middle-aged men is midlife crisis and lusting after blonds half their age, I suspect the reality is a lot more laid back. Certainly, my 47-year-old guy is happy when I forgo the makeup and manicures and whatnot.
One of the beauties of hitting middle age is the realization that you don’t have to work that hard… at appearances, at trying to impress people, at doing what others expect. Smart people get ever more comfortable in their own skin as they get older, and they look for others who are the same.
You know what, my hair is starting to turn white, and I am much, much younger than you.
Sure it is stress, but it is also genetic, so in a way this is a token from my family, even from those ancestors who I never had the pleasure to meet.
I guess I am getting wiser faster than most people
)))
I would *love* to be going grey. My hair is just turning dark as I get older. I am seriously considering dyeing it back to its original, more reddish color, just because I still feel in my heart that I am a redhead, and having brown hair doesn’t fit my self-image.
Once it’s actually grey, that would be very different. Then it would give me an air of authority and wisdom. Now it’s just an ugly shade of brown.
I have just started greying on my head. (The asymmetrical grey that has pretty much taken over my left armpit but not my right is kind of weird, though.) I’m planning on dyeing my hair, but not because I’m going grey. I had my hair dyed black for about five years, and I love how it looks on me. I have this dead-pale complexion and blue eyes, so dyeing my hair black (no word of a lie) increases my colour saturation to the point where my face looks vaguely pink. Besides which, I’ve never liked having non-colour brown hair.
I agree with Janis about grey hair and being an adult. I don’t think I know where all my shit is, either, despite being on the high side of 30…
Some people do not go grey gracefully. My grey hairs are a nice, metalic white (so far), but my very black hair is of the dark auburn type with lots of red and lots of blue (for hair). People like me have to worry about their hair gaining pink and piss yellow overtones over that gray color. So some people have to either dye the hair or bleach it, if they don’t want to look like a punk.
This is very interesting, especially in the context of a book I blogged about today: Charla Krupp’s How Not To Look Old, which postulates that you have to look a certain way to be reasonably attractive to the patriarchy in the workplace.
For the record: I dye my hair because I like it redder than it is now. Heck, I haven’t seen my “natural” haircolor in years …
I don’t like my natural hair color, never have, and dying my hair (at age 26? 27? anyway about ten years ago) was an act of autonomy and rebellion against the “Natural Order Of Things” school I was raised in, which also included “Women shouldn’t wear makeup b/c it’s trying to improve on God’s handiwork” - that it covers up the gray which I started to go at age, yes, seventeen (and if stress causes grey hairs then I should have started going gray at age four) is not a reason for me not to have the color hair I want at last.
If I were *really* defiant, I’d dye it bright neon blue, but I’ve worked hard to become as comfortable with being visible, and to overcome the “modesty” crap selfconsciousness instilled in me, and to go full-on Goth is still beyond me.
I think I’ll probably start dying with water-soluble when I go completely gray, though, and wait until it’s all grown out, and then change over in a night, just to freak people out…
totally stealing this. YOINK.
Interesting alternative data-point, a female friend of mine was talking the other day about dyeng her hair grey and asked to be put in touch with my brother the hairdresser about finding a product to do it with. She’s 20 or so.
LauraB, you made my day with “cool grey face-framing streaks.”
I’m 36 and currently growing out my natural hair - which has lots of gray in the front - and blogging about it. I live in Los Angeles and work in the entertainment industry so “two of women’s biggest fears about aging: that they will be limited professionally by looking “old” and that they will lose their sexual attractiveness if they have gray hair.” - Check and Check.
I’m dead set on growing it out for ME, and still I’m completely worried about how having gray hair will effect me professionally and romantically.
I will feel better when it’s fully grown in… I hope.
Hair.
I remember hair.
*gloom*
Quick question: reference the post about Toni Morrison to learn about my Non-Standard Brain Bits, but here goes:
Is the fear about losing sexual attractiveness REALLY all that strong?
I’m serious. I’m not being facetious. Is it that strong a motivator? Fear of having it impact your career I can buy into, but fear of not getting laid seems … I don’t know. Is it that much of a concern? Aside from if your husband is worth several million dollars and you worry about getting thrown over for an underwear model, which is just another way of saying you’re worried about your career …
Sex and the primate sex drive does mystify me sometimes. I’m actually glad to say it out loud.
Seconding LauraB’s observation — the willingness of women in New England to let their gray hang out is very noticeable by contrast with even the mid-Atlantic states. Within a region, there always seem to be many more gray-haired women in college towns than elsewhere. I suspect that’s partly because teachers, like judges or witches, actually *need* the distancing effect of gray hair.
My Mom’s hair went grey young. By thirty she was substantially grey, and by forty it was total - not white, but a lovely cool, pale grey tone. I was more than ready to accept greying young, because I think it looks pretty cool on my Mom. Instead I got my Dad’s hair genes and have nary a thread of grey at 38. (Dad is still not grey at 72.) Unfortunately, I got all of Dad’s hair genes, and my hair is thinning noticeably in front.
Speaking from a particularly male-gaze point of view, there’s a turning point somewhere (usually depends on the the apparent age of the rest of someone’s features) where hair without even a hint of grey in it starts to look a little strange, and one can’t help wondering what kind of image the non-grey-haired person is trying to present. I know it’s a superficial judgement, but I’d probably have it as much in a work as in an interpersonal context.
This is OT (well, maybe slightly tangentially related), but Amanda, have you heard about this book yet? It’s by one of the “50 most powerful women” in the U.S. (she runs an ad agency), and she claims that women have to use “seduction” in order to get ahead in the office…so teh poor menz will be “comfortable” with us.
I just heard bits of it on On Point (oh, ghod, NPR sucks these days). I say “bits of it” because I kept turning off the radio in disgust, then turning it back on due to Trainwreck Syndrome.
Janis, it might depend on your sex drive, in all honesty. Not getting laid on a regular basis makes me a really intolerable person. It’s not a quality about myself I like, but there it is. Masturbation only takes you so far. Sex clears my head and improves my circulation and makes me much better at my work.
I’m somewhat surprised that I’m not more gray. I was very close to certain that I would take after my dad in this, since I take after him more than my mom in the above-the-neck region. I remember when he was my age; he was already graying rapidly.
Phoebe Fay - when can I expect that feeling comfortable in my own skin thing to kick in? My hair is red and greying nicely at the temples and elsewhere (more at a trauma site - any explanations?). I’m not worried about the younger partner up and leaving, but I am worried about losing marketability professionally. Thing is - I’ve never put a chemical in it, and I think I would not know how to start.
My FWIG (Friend Wot Is a Girl) is about 50% gray at 44. She does occasionally dye it, but her preference is for colors not found in nature. This has become unexpectedly difficult now that she a) doesn’t want to bleach it anymore and b) has enough gray that the Manic Panic does weird stuff.
I’m starting to get grey around my temples. I doubt I’m ever going to dye it for one big reason: I’m lazy.
(And just on the bio side — serious stress to the organism, be it injury that messes up blood flow or nutritional deficiencies or whatever, can tell your follicles to stop producing pigmented hair, or stop producing hair at all. It used to be assumed, for example, that absent clear genetic factors, early grey was a sign of compromised nutrition at some point during after childhood.)
I never colored my hair ’til I was 39 and vexed by a few gray hairs. Hey, I pride myself on still getting carded sometimes, and visible grays are totally gonna ruin that gig. So I started getting salon highlights. Now that I’ve done the same colors of highlights and the winter lowlights for a couple years, I’m feeling ready to try something a little more daring. I don’t know what, exactly—more reddish? More stripey? I go tomorrow morning, and will put myself in my colorist’s capable hands.
Yeah, so I don’t want to see the grays. I was plucking them out before I started getting highlights, and my hair’s much too thin to keep plucking!
My best friend is about half gray, and it took me a few years to get used to seeing her that way. (She won’t be dyeing her hair, ever.) Now I think it suits her completely, but perhaps it grated before because it reminded me that we were both getting on in years?
I suspected that I’d be gray by 40 - the current common wisdom is that men get their hair from their mother’s families. But at 35, I’ve got nothin’ to complain.
My beard, OTOH, is a freakin’ calico.
I thought by now you realized that all of us men are chest talkers and it takes us weeks to look at your hair.
Seriously though…women color their hair for other women, not for men.
My mother is the only person I know who dyed her hair gray. When she became a grandmother at age 61, she said she wanted to look the part. Of course, dying hair grey is tricky and she ended up looking more like Billy Idol than granny. Now 68, she leaves her hair alone and it has just a little gray at the temples.
My hair is red like my grandmother’s. Hers didn’t ever get gray, just paler and paler red (perhaps she was getting it colored–I don’t know).
I have an autoimmune disease that demands some strong medicine; I noticed that within a few weeks of starting one of my drugs, I got a few platinum-colored hairs and eyelashes (!). At first I was upset; I was already feeling old from the illness (I’m 34) and the hairs just seemed one more unbidden physical change and reminder of mortality. Thing is, though, they look really cool! And so far, they don’t grow long enough to be really visible–they all stay an inch and a half long.
I’d love to have a whole head of platinum, or salt-and-chili hair. Just as long as it doesn’t fall out on me! And if it does fall out, I guess I’ll get used to that too. There are worse things a body can do to you.
I’ve been dyeing my thigh-length hair for years. Deep violet.
During a recent bout of laziness, I let the roots grow out a bit to check the condition of my hair, and discovered that I’ve got beautiful shiny sparkly streaks of silver in my naturally dark brown mop, and considered leaving it be and going back to non-dyed hair.
Then the eldest pointed out that if I kept dyeing it, I’d have shiny lavender highlights in the violet, and besides that, he likes that his nearly 40 year-old Mum doesn’t give a shit about how society says she should look. So I’m sticking with the violet.
“In one, I posted my profile and picture on Match.com, putatively looking for dates in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles — first with my hair photoshopped back to the brown color I had once dyed it, and then, months later, with my current gray hair.”
First, I think this highlights that what we are taught to believe is attractive doesn’t necessarily match with what people actually find attractive. (Same with weight.) Second, I personally think that lighter colors (including gray) are more flattering to the face as both men and women age.
I had the same thought as Janis in terms of henna instead of dye, if you want to color.
I don’t expect to color my hair. First, I’m a redhead and red hair coloring always looks fake to me, and second, in terms of appearance, I would rather go with a nice cut than color.
Early gray runs in my family. My brother has beautiful salt & pepper hair with white temples. Unfortunately my hair grays more like my mom’s - around my face. I was hoping for a cool stripe, but it wasn’t happening that way. I started dyeing mine a few years back, a nice auburn. I was actually going through some medical issues at the time, and it made me feel old (yes, I had an early mid-life crisis). I started dyeing it then (why wait anymore?) and it has made feel more my age. So, I don’t think I’m doing it for the patriarchy, but it is nice to feel attractive.
Call it a nitpick - and it is, because I agree with the entire spirit of what you wrote - but can you say “obviously they don’t”, implying that you have a definitive answer, while following it with “I’m sure that…”, implying that you don’t have a definitive answer?
“Obviously they don’t - even Match.com has…” would have worked, as would have:
“Most likely they don’t - I’m sure that Match.com has…”
But to combine the two smacks of stretching the evidence to prove a point (which happens to be true, but weakens the argument).
I already know I’ll be too damn lazy.
It seems to me like there was a tipping point in the U.S. where it was a mildly scandalous thing to dye your hair, for older women (maybe for any women). While now… it’s the opposite, and we’re all expected to do it!
I’ve been dyeing my hair for so long that I barely even recall what my natural color is anymore. It was a sort of reddish, blondish brown in high school (before I started coloring it). I’m 31 now and I have no idea if I have any gray or not. Probably I do, my mom started going gray about my age and dad did just a few years older, but I don’t really care. I just get bored with my hair really easily and I change it every 6-8 months. Last year I had it a really bright, copper red, which matched my peachy pale skin tone really well and I loved and may go back to eventually. Right now it’s kind of a darkish-blond with highlights. I like this too, but I’m starting to get bored with it now.
I don’t have any particular opinion about having gray hair, though. Maybe once I start noticing it consistently in my roots, I’ll give it a go, but I’ll probably get bored with that eventually as well.
I am 39 and my hair is visibly greying. I dye it partially back to its original brown colour - looks natural, and the roots don’t show. I actually like the grey - my last year was shitty, and I survived. I feel I have earned my grey hair, it’s who I am.
I think that any blowback a woman might get from not dying their her hair to hide the grey would be totally overridden by people actually recognizing that she is an adult. I am almost 40 and I STILL get mistaken for a student - and NO it is NOT a compliment on how youthful I look.
42 and no grey yet. No plans to dye.
But - maybe I have it easy? My parents only began to go grey in their early 60s and at 70 my dad is getting to be more salt than pepper - at 66 my mom’s red hair now looks lighter than it once was.
I’m from New England and have lived abroad for the past 15+ years, so I’m surprised to find out that in most of the USA older women dye their hair, or even that it’s EXPECTED.
My m-i-l stopped dyeing her hair when she got to be in her late 60s - I think it looks much better that way. She still perms it ‘though.
As I’ve started showing my age I get alot more respect at work. That may also be because my self confidence has deepened as I age. But I definately think appearance has something to do with it too. Just 3 years ago I had a boss pinch my cheek and tell me I was “such a smart little cookie.” I don’t get that kind of shit anymore since the crows feet and grey hairs have started popping up.
I suppose it depends on what business you’re in, but I’ve found in my field you don’t get anywhere by being flirty and cute. You’re much better off being assertive and smart and a little age makes people take you more seriously.
I realize that if I don’t dye my hair, in a few years I will be grayer than my mother. Funny how that works.
I loved my mother’s gray hairs so much as a kid, I convinced myself that I had a few gray streaks.
The question in my mind now is, why do female politicians and newscasters dye over the gray? You’d think that, like teachers or judges, looking older/more knowledgeable would be a benefit. Especially if they’re being compared to men their own age who are graying.
Most female newscasters have no grey — they’re broomed at 40 anyhow.
For the record I got my first gray hair at age 14. It wasn’t a trend, though, as I’ve had mostly original-colored hair on top with it slowly going gray from the temples and moving up.
That said, pretty much everyone else with genes from my mom’s side of the family started going gray in their early twenties and were more salt than pepper by their 40s.
But here’s the thing: that’s not that unnatural. Most people start getting it in their late 20’s such that — if not for the “does she or doesn’t she” hair-dye ads that have run continuously since the early 1960s — no one age 30 or older would need to be *at all* ashamed to be going gray.
I’m not surprised, by the way, with the findings about men preferring women with undyed gray hair. In the first place it looks very good on almost everyone, also it’s not phony, and if you’re considering conventions of sex appeal it’s almost irrelevant compared to any other conventional factors.
And if you’re *not* considering sex appeal then… all the other factors you listed, Amanda, from genuineness to iconoclasticism to competence and experience gray hair is all good.
figleaf
I so look forward to being the long gray-haired hippy. To the point that at 23 I’m growing mine out and have stopped dying it
I always wanted red hair. Somehow, I find seeing little bits of grey make me feel more justified in taking the time to mix a batch of henna and rub it on. And then I have this luxurious mop of dark auburn I find much more fun than my real ash brown. But honestly, I doubt anyone would see my gray if I didn’t hold up individual strands for them to acknowledge as pigmentless.
I always swore up and down that I’d go completely natural with my hair when it started going gray - I have an aunt whose hair started graying very early - I don’t ever remember seeing her original hair color, actually - and she now has a beautiful head of pure white hair at age 50 which I love. So I guess I sort of had her in mind when I made my resolution. But now…I’m 26 years old, and I’ve started going gray myself, and suddenly I’m completely freaking out. Luckily, it’s not too noticeable on top yet, but the underneath parts of my hair are liberally sprinkled with white. So now I’m starting to weaken in my resolve…
Somegirls, ITA. I’m also in an environment where there is as little glass ceiling or selection for youth as there has ever been in my entire corporate career. I’m worried enough — and gunshy enough — that I’m really skeptical about overstating it, and I’m almost waiting to get the rug yanked out from under me, but at the same time it’s incredibly refreshing. Sometimes, when the job annoys me, I’ll stop and remember that and think that I’d sooner get tossed out a second story window than leave that place. It’s fantastic.
My old workplace? OMFG, no WAY would they deal with a pushy smart middle-aged broad in that place. What a bunch of losers — twentysomething young guys with cellphones stuck to one ear going on with one another about the latest BMW convertible and why it was so cool and why Asian chicks are hot because they’re all domestic goddesses who are wild in the sack. Boys. Little, tiny, pathetic boys. All run by a CEO for whom a day without screaming himself purple in the face at some slit was like a day without sunshine. Buy me a drink and I’ll name names. They were incapable of seeing any balls-out woman as anything other than Scolding Mommy, and they acted like it.
Compared to that, the “just get it done” attitude in my current workplace is like a breath of fresh air. (And it probably isn’t coincidence that most of the men at my current workplace are well over 50. Little boys they ain’t.) All the most well-regarded women are there to get shit done and they aren’t above being abrasive if they need to be, and while they are together women with pride in their appearance, they aren’t gonna go the creepy, laquered, taut-eyelidded helmet-head route anytime soon. It’s an academic corporation; I think the woman on the front cover of that LOOK 29 OR DIE TRYING!!!! book that Charlotte linked to would scare the crap out of most of the high-placed men in this place.
That said, I think many of them do get rid of the grey — but that seems to be all they do.
I’d wager that while most men over 50 would fantasize about sex with someone in her 20s, if confronted with a woman like that IRL, they’d demur. Yes, it’s all well and good in fantasy, but I think older men might have the experience to know that IRL you want someone who will not stare at your bald spot or laugh at your CD collection.
I realize one factor in my willingness to go gray is my own vanity about my hair. I feel I have gorgeous hair. It’s one of my best feature—I got a double dose from mom and dad with the thick, soft hair. My stepmother was intimidated by my hair when I was a teenager, and it reminds me of reactions in The Mill on the Floss, except without the moralizing. My stepmom had a point—if you didn’t have my hair growing up, it’s intimidatingly hard to manage. My willingness to mess with it comes from having my mother corral me as a child and force me to endure the blow dryer. Marc gives me a gentle amount of shit over my addiction to the hair dryer (since it sucks up so much electricity that I have to dry my hair in the kitchen to be on a different circuit than the Mac and the TV, lest we blow a fuse), but no joke, if I don’t dry my hair with the blow dryer, my hair will stay wet for 6 hours. It’s that thick. My sister has even more hair than I do. It’s a blessing (wildly sexy) and a curse (impossible to manage). In junior high school, my huge head of hair earned me the nickname “Cousin It”.
Because of the issues and the abuse, it took me a long ass time to embrace my natural hair as an asset. I still mostly lean towards cutting it all off for convenience, but tip my hat to sexiness by leaving it shoulder length. (If I let it get mid-back length, it literally gets heavy.) Now that I realize there’s no shame in having a lot of fucking hair, I’m unwilling to toy with its natural wildness by dyeing it.
My mother started going gray when she was eighteen and finally stopped dyeing when she turned fifty. That’s a lot of dye.
I found my first gray hair the week after my twenty-first birthday, the morning before I set off on a solo bus trip across a foreign country. I found the second a few weeks ago, right before graduating with my B.A. I wouldn’t give those hairs up for anything.
I started going gray when I was 17, and now 15 years later my mom has finally acknowledged (along with some friends, who seem surprised when they notice it) that I’m getting pretty gray.
I’ll probably dye again for fun rather than covering, but in addition to all those “people treat you like a grownup” reasons to love my gray, it works great as an ID. Seriously. No bartender will deny a drink to a woman who suggests her plentiful gray hair be used as proof of being over 21. (I think it’s a combo of gray=older and willingness to look imperfect=older.)
That being said, i TOTALLY FREAKED OUT when I found my first varicose vein the weekend of my thirtieth birthday.
I’ve just started greying in my forties. Unusual for my family actually. My family has a horrifying tendency to doe young - before the onset of greying. I’ve just started balding - thinnng really. I’m curious to see when a bald spot develops. My father, uncle and grandfather all died before 53 and hadn’t started balding yet.
I live in the Southwest, where there are a lot of aging hippies who spent a lot of time in the sun before anyone even thought about sunscreen and I really like looking at them so I can get used to what women in their 50s and 60s look like without makeup and dyed hair and perms. Living here (after living in other parts of the country) I realize how rarely you see that, and I think one reason so many of us feel compelled to mess with our appearance is we just don’t see people actually aging in front of us. So for selfish reasons, I hope you don’t dye, Amanda.
I’m 30. I have some white hairs (not gray - stark white) that stand out amid the rest of my dark brown hair. Every time I go through a particularly stressful period in my life, a few more pop out. When I got the first few as a freshman in college, they distressed me. Now I kind of like them, along with a few fine lines around my eyes. When I first started working, people often mistook me for a high school kid, and it messed with my confidence, especially because I deal with a lot of older men in my work. I like feeling like I look like an adult.
I think it’s pretty strong. Well, for those of us who are still finding a mate (and who want that), it sure is…
I’ve been getting odd grey hairs since I was 14 and now, at 26, I get about a half-dozen every few months. I pull them out. I’m very attached to my natural auburn-y colour and the texture of the grey hairs doesn’t match the rest of my hair. The greys are all wiry and straggly and I don’t like them at all.
I have my grandmother’s hair. She kept a lock that she had cut when she was young, and I once held it up against my hair –it’s the same hair. She had only stray grey hairs until her seventies, or so it looks in pictures. I could live with that. Just not yet.
No wonder I think you look vaguely like you’re related to me, Amanda. My hair is thick like that, too; fine hair, but so much of it, it retains water and heat. I do prefer mine cut very short; only then is it manageable. I don’t know what guys think of it, but women compare me to fashion models.
It’s so great to hear everyone’s hair stories, since I’ve been going through some of that anxiety lately. I’m almost 30, and I’m starting to get lines on my face, which bugs me a lot more than I thought it would. It’s not so much vanity (I actually think I look better now than I ever have) as it is the idea of “looking old” when I still feel young and hep and with-it, or whatever the kids are saying these days.
I don’t have any gray hair yet. My mother went totally silver in her 30s and my father still has a completely black head of hair (as does his 90-year-old mother), so I guess pretty soon I’ll find out which set of genes I inherited.
My mother started dying her hair when she got those initial gray wings, and her hair’s been the same color for 20 years now. I always figured I wouldn’t dye, if only because I wouldn’t know when to stop. It seems like it would be weird to be 70 years old and still dye your hair, but equally weird to wash out the dye and suddenly go from totally dark-haired to totally white in one day.
I have gray underneath and in back with silver white in front. I dyed it when it was shorter but once I let it grow out I became to lazy.
I think the white eyebrows really age me tho and I don’t know what to do about them.
I’m not surprised that men are okay with gray hair either. I also think there’s a parallel with weight. The assumption is that men uniformly desire size 2s, but my experience and observation tell a more complicated story. Publicly, the lads clamor for the lithe and toned. They have to, for few men seek the ignominy of straying from Howard Stern’s or Donald Trump’s or Hugh Hefner’s mandates. But deep in their hearts, they know that Miss Sixpack Abs is more likely to wake them for pre-dawn jogs and frown at the indulgence of comfort food than the gal who packs a little junk in her trunk.
Still, I wish they’d admit it and stop joining in the Weight Police pile-on.
I’m a guy with a white beard. (Yes, I’ve been a hippie my entire adult life.) My female friends, both of them, make fun of me for not dyeing.
I’ve tried the more masculine solution, shaving, like my brothers, which sadly makes me look like a buck-toothed geek instead. (My brothers as youths were nearly as hairy as I am, but as their beards grayed they aimed their razors ever higher and have now entirely erased their sideburns.)
(Then there’re the stray wiry white hairs growing out of the side of my nose, or out of my eyelid - ouch - and like Spock I have to shave the tops of my ears.)
My California driver’s license shows me in my early forties, only slightly grizzly. After three or four renewals by mail, I no longer resemble my photo. The young things who ask to see my ID when I make a credit card purchase tend to give me a quizzical look, but they may be wondering why I’m buying something in their department anyway. No one my age should be wearing stylish jeans.
At soon to be 32, I have waist length medium dark brown hair which develops red highlights in the sun. I have dyed it many times, for the heck of it, to red-red, black, blond highlights, blue, purple, green. But, I’ve stopped with the dye for about 6 months now, (I can’t do the fun, funky colors any longer), and really like it. I have too many grey hairs to count, but I’m okay with it for now. I do remember at about 24 having to move my part over a little, because that’s where all the greys seem to have sprung up, if my roots were showing.
BTW, I usually refer to my grey hairs as “sparklers”. It always gets a laugh, and I think it really lets people know that, yes, I’m aware I have them, and yes, I’m okay with them.
Hair Talk I LOVE IT!!, I have been losing my hair since my mulleted 16 yr old days, I dyed is a few times before it disappeared, anyway, I had a hard time letting it go, but once I did at age 24, I was liberated. No more hair care required, I do however go through razors a bit faster than your average guy. I have saved lots of money. I heard Anne Kreamer on a the radio and said her hair care with the dyeing cost over 50K in her life time. Save Time, Money, and Electricity go natural or for us lucky bald guys go without. Now if I convince my girlfriend to give up the dye bottle.
I have long hair (past my shoulders), and it used to be red, but is now about half grey on top–not at all underneath. I actually stopped putting henna on my hair when the grey got intense; didn’t like it. (The henna was the color of my hair.) That was maybe ten years ago?
Anyway, while visitng my parents, my mom wondered why I don’t dye my hair–and before i could answer, my dad said, “She’s comfortable with mother nature.” (Love ya, dad!) A few days later mom informed me that I am Too Old To Have Long Hair. I’m turning 50 this year–but mom’s been saying this for 25 years. Now it just amuses me.
To my surprise, three times as many men in each of those cities expressed interest in going out with me with my hair gray than they had with my dyed hair.
Perhaps they appreciated honesty (or authenticity or whatever you want to call it)
My father needed to pursue a new job later in life (post 60). He was and is in excellent physical shape, and looks younger than his years, except for completely gray hair. He found he got a lot more job offers after he dyed his hair to looks merely salt and pepper instead of completely gray (he knew better than to dye the gray completely away- we was obviously old enough to have some, and he didn’t want to come across as trying too hard, I suppose).
But my question is, why? If gray-haired older women get more dates, if gray gives a woman authority in the same kind of way it gives a man, why broom them? Is the audience truly threatened by getting news from a woman who gives the Teacher/Mom vibe, or is it the internal culture of the news organizations themselves? — which often sound a lot like Janis’ old workplace (@77).I’d be perfectly happy with gray or graying hair; there’s one woman I met a few times who had long hair in that gorgeous mix of colors you get sometimes when blonde hair goes gray - the sort of mix that would make a lovely heathered yarn, if you could only spin it - much more interesting than a single color. I have not as of yet had the option of significant gray hair; at 39, there’s a strand here and there. Sometimes they turn back to brown.
I shall content myself with the knowledge that, if I ever had to, I could probably strangle someone with my hair.
Slightly off topic: I love Kathleen Sebelius’ hair. That is all.
because dyeing your hair to cover gray has become very normalized,
I found the dyed unicolor-look (instead of the normal shades) a good first indication to a woman’s age, better even than hands, which take longer to look at. I have been surprised occasionally when a woman with hair dyed in a boring colour had the hands of a 30 yo.
That said, I’ve wondered for years if there might be some transparent dye that would only show up on the white hairs (I’m cutting the grey stage and go straight to white). Dark brown mixed with some shiny punk colour would be fun.
Guess I’m a hippie at heart. Well, my hippie-looking mother who started going grey at 50something had a co-worker twenty years her junior trying to send her out of the staff room in school, believing her to be a student. Any way you look at it…
I have silver temples in my dark brown hair. The Big Four -Oh is at the end of April.
*preens*
Gray-haired women are sexy. Did anyone see Kathleen Sebelius Monday evening giving the Democratic response to the State of the Union address? She looked amazing. Visit my blog:
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Eric–I always associated a comb-over with people who have actually lost LOTS of hair, lol. This is just normal combing.
When I was a little girl, there was a woman in our church who had a gorgeous head of white hair, and I remember thinking it was so beautiful that I couldn’t wait until my hair was white.
I’m 38 now, and while I don’t have any gray hair - the genetic lottery, I guess - my father has barely any gray hair and he’s 66. I’m a redhead, and like I said, no gray, but my hair has changed color. Most of it has gotten darker and duller, but some of it, mostly around my face, is getting lighter. I hope it’s turning white. I’m mostly grateful that the texture of my hair is staying the same. My older sister has been going gray since she turned 30 - taking after my mother - and her gray hair is a completely different texture than her colored hair.
When I started getting gray hairs at 33 or so, I thought I was starting really early, because my mom who’d never bother with dye, was still completely dark. Just in the past few years her hair has started to get gray, but at the rate I’m going, I’ll pass her up in the next 5 years. Because she wouldn’t dye, I just assumed as a child and young adult others wouldn’t either, and it really skewed my perception. I remember being startled by in college by a teacher at 25 with white hair and blue eyes, very striking and unusual, though as I recall he wasn’t entirely thrilled with it. I’m not good at judging people’s ages, and I think the fact that a lot of my (female) acquaintances dye does deceive me into thinking they’re younger.
I never figured I’d dye nor my mom either, but she travels a lot and told me about one of her acquaintances getting repeatedly mugged and molested in foreign countries with white hair, till she dyed it red. No more purse snatchings. I’d color mine with henna at least to prevent that.
Ailei: I feel like I have so much grey hair at this age because I’ve had a ‘hard life’ with too much stress and anxiety and sorrow.
If someone is grey-haired because of a hard life, I’d consider it doubly worth of respect — not just respect of age, but also of making it through: of toughness and ability.
But of course every group regards such features differently, and, whatever works for you…
Gray-haired women are sexy and powerful. Did anyone see Kathleen Sebelius Monday evening giving the Democratic response to the State of the Union address? She looked amazing.
Visit Going Gray
Amanda wrote:
Then don’t.
There’s a possibility that if I suggest anything to you, your tendency will automatically to wish to do the opposite, but most men — at least once they’ve gotten out of their twenties — really don’t have a problem with grey hair.
My wife is 48; she has some grey, and it looks just fine on her. It certainly looks better than a dye job and the inevitable “roots.”
The male equivalent of this dilemma is definitely baldness more than grayness. To Rogaine or not? Toupee or razor? Keep the sides or shave the whole damn thing? Many guys I know have pre-empted the whole issue and just shaved it since their mid-20s, Vin Diesel-style. If they go clinically bald, who can tell?
My hope is that Bill Murray killed the comb-over for anyone who saw Kingpin. No hairstyle speaks of more desperation and delusion, even the toupee (though a bad rug is a frightening thing to see).
I seem to have drawn my uncle’s hair gene and shown no signs of loss at 34, gray streaks notwithstanding. Whereas my brother, 5 years my junior, is practically Phil Collins, but with no gray. People give you that noise about how your hair comes from your maternal grandfather, but I think we’ve disproven that.
The overall problem in both sexes is fear of aging. That’s a massive cultural issue, and hair is only one aspect of it. Personally, I look forward to being a grizzled old bastard, Walter Matthau style. You can get away with so much more than people would put up with from a young person. Damn kids…
Amanda, I’m living that right now. I had my first gray hair at age 11, people noticed my gray by high school, and I colored my hair from my mid-20s until early 30s. Since my dad was gray from my earliest memories, and I remember my mom coloring her hair in the bathroom from the same time, this was not a huge surprise. I gave up coloring my hair because it was expensive to have it done right, and I started freaking out seeing my roots after two friggin’ weeks. The roots made me feel way older than just being salt-and-pepper (or tuxedo, like my cat).
So I’m in my early 40s and my mom is in her late 60s with brown hair. She just claims in public that I take after my dad.
After being terrified about looking old (both the sexy side and the business side, since old and IT don’t go together), I just decided to own it. And I’ve gotten way more complements on my hair than I did back when I got really nice professional coloring, or when I was a child with naturally dark brown hair. Even better, people get *really* confused about how old a small woman with smoothish skin and tuxedo hair is!
32, long brownish hair, no greys. Mom and Dad both stayed dark into their 40s and 50s. I used to dye/henna for fun and/or to give my straight, fine hair more body, but then it turned into something I “should” do to “correct” my not-good-enough natural color/texture Not fun.
Not coloring has been about accepting myself. Sometimes I think about going back for the fun of it, but I’m leery of getting on that ride again, and my hairdresser (maudeblessher!) says “don’t touch it, it’s lovely” even though she might profit from my insecurity.
I think some women can look fabulous with grey hair, but then, I prefer a generally natural look anyway. That said, if you’re 35 and fully grey, you’ll “play 50,” as they say in thespian circles.
Nothing wrong there, it’s just are you prepared for that.
I have that same hair, Amanda. It’s really thick and soft, holds water like a sponge and grows pretty fast. It’s also very, very fluffy and wild, no matter what length I have it. Right now it’s just above shoulder length and I do like this length, but I also love it really long (however, I hate the in-between stage of shoulder length hair–it just looks awful on me). But I love to change the color. My natural color is, I think, is a light-ish mousy brown, but I’ve had just about every color that naturally occurs in people, from white-blond to really black to bright red and I change it regularly. I sort of regret that I never dyed it any fun, crazy colors like pink or blue, because now that I’m a teacher and have to look at least a little professional, I can’t do that and I wish I had. I’ll stop eventually, because I think it looks odd for an older woman to have obviously dyed hair, but I’ve got a good 10 years left, at least.
And my husband is going bald. He’s 38 now, but he’s been losing hair since I’ve known him, for 11 years now. His hairline is receding, he’s got a bald spot on the top, and the rest is thinning. He’s also got a bit of gray, which is really noticeable in his black hair. I think it’s cute and he’s not bothered by it in the slightest.
I’m another one of those with early gray hair. I’m 22, 23 in a couple months, and I had my first gray hair when I was sixteen. I wouldn’t say I have a lot of gray…but there is a fair amount of salt in my pepper. I have never dyed my hair, and don’t plan on starting anytime soon. It really doesn’t interest me…
I recently started dying my hair at 45. I had been steadily refusing to dye it because I was damned if I was going to deal with the hassle of dying my hair on a regular basis. Besides, it was a lovely silver color.
But I found myself not recognizing myself in the mirror. I looked old to myself. I wanted my external appearance to match my inner appearance. Perhaps it is shallow, I am not sure. But I feel better now and that is what matters to me.
I have a sneaking suspicion that at some time or other, I will look at myself and decide that that dark brown head of hair doesn’t look like the person I am inside. And then my silver grey hair will make a comeback.
I had gray hair back in high school, so did my friends. ALl the smart kids, boys and girls, had strands of gray in their hair. It’s the academic stress. It’l be great if we can excel without hindering worries, but I rather have gray hair than not a thought in my head, if it comes down to it.
It’s strange to read the comments about gray hair commanding career respect. As I’ve said, I’m in L.A. and the entertainment industry and no one - and I mean next to NO ONE - doesn’t dye their hair. Take a good look at a red carpet, not just the actresses, but if you can catch glimpses of PR people, wives, etc. There’s probably 10 women in the whole industry without dyed hair and they’re all over 60.
And I would suspect it’s more likely to make you instantly invisible than bring you any respect.
So for me, it is terrifying. I talked to my boyfriend about it when I started growing it out, but now I’m afraid to ask him about it. I mean, what would be the point, I guess. I really want to grow it out, despite my fears. I’m just really honestly afraid he will someday see me in a sea of entertainment people, and I will look really old and unattractive to him. I mean, geez, I’m already (at 145) 20 pounds heavier than “attractive” in the industry.
OK, enough dysfunction exposure for now…
I really enjoy reading everyone’s comments on this topic.
Having grown up with a grandmother who had white hair at 25 and a dad who was white by 30, grey hair never scared me. However, when I started to go grey at 16, I colored my hair until my early 30’s, when I decided “eh, who needs it?” My curly shoulder-length hair is now past the salt-and-pepper stage and I’m getting a surprising number of compliments about it. I have a profile on an online dating site, and I’m clear that I have grey hair. Doesn’t seem to be a problem, and it does set me a bit apart.
However, when I go home to visit, my Southern friends are horrified - HORRIFIED. Of course, that’s the land of big blonde hair…. feh.
But how can you tell, given that no-one — or at least no woman — does it? Would looking like Kathleen Sebelius (instead of Kathleen-Sebelius-with-dyed-hair) truly be a disadvantage for a director, producer, studio exec, or other decision-making order-giving position?Let me put it this way. The decision-making males in Hollywood clearly don’t feel an obligation to look like the actors. Why do decision-making females feel that they have to look like the actresses?
Since my hair started going white in high school, I don’t really react to it as “OMG I’m getting OLD!!” I mean, I had white hairs before I could drive. Right now I dye them because I don’t like how they look just dispersed throughout. I’m kind of looking forward to going completely white, though, so I can experiment with color without stripping my hair (it’s very dark brown and doesn’t take other colors).
celsus: “And why the leg-shaving? It is customary in the US, but not in every country. ”
I understand that American women started shaving armpits and legs post WWI. The American soldiers came home from France, talking about how the French women shaved and how sexy it was.
Unfortunately, the American women didn’t realize that those doughboys were talking about French prostitutes, who were required to shave, have a monthly medical examination, and be licensed to practice by law (and had for approximately a century).
Of course, anything those Frenchies could do, we American women could do better …
Of course, it could be a total urban legend about the shaving. I do know that the medical examination and licensing for French prostitutes is true (at least, according to Anais Nin) …
Just a Kathleen Sebelius note–I agree that she looks great, and her hair is fab. But that doesn’t mean that it’s undyed. Looks to me like it’s toned, or whatever they call it, to a nice even silver (no yellow overtones or dullness). So, sticking with gray is not necessarily natural or low-maintenance. Politicians are right up there with actresses on the polished-and-up-to-conventional-code exterior. Think of the time and money that demands–ouch!
I suspect that my hair will follow my mother’s hair: increasing blond until it turns white. I’m 31 and I already have once-darker blond/red sections fading out.
I fall on the lazy side (good god, I haven’t even managed to get my hair CUT in over a year and a half), so I doubt I will ever dye for age-related purposes.
Once in a while, I dye for “I’m bored” purposes. It was after one of those sessions that I realized that my hair was shifting colors–the dye was just an overlay and took differently than it had in the past.
Waaaay late to this thread, so I don’t know if anybody has mentioned this yet. My wife colors her hair because she says the gray hairs cannot be controlled and coloring makes her hair more managable. We’re both in our forties and she’s not really that vain, but she HATES fighting w/her hair before work.
This feels like a therapy session. I have been slowly greying since college (I’m early 30s now) and I don’t think I will ever dye. I can’t be bothered to shave most of the time and I’ve never worn makeup so any kind of beauty ritual beyond combing my hair is rough for me. That said, I also will never dye it because my mother has dyed her hair for 20 years not because she is bothered by her grey hair but because my father, who is 8 years older than her, thinks her grey hair makes him look older. And that makes me ill.
Also–I’m a prof and I look younger than I am. I think the grey hair probably helps my authority in the classroom.
I dyed my hair for most of my 20s, just for the fun of being blond or redhaired or whatever. I stopped a couple years ago to a) see what my real hair color was (it’s changed quite a bit throughout my life, and b) to see if I had any gray and what it looks like. My grandmother has really cool-looking silver-gray hair and I always thought if I went that kind of gray I wouldn’t want to dye it. Turns out I am a very nice medium-dark brown with quite a few silver hairs (I’m 33), and I don’t plan on dying my hair ever again.
After over a decade of hair dye, I’m currently trying to get back to my natural color (the novelty has worn off). Now, if I could just figure out exactly what it is…it darkened over time…I do like the grays that have begun to pop up. Literally. Coarse and silver tends to stand out against fine and blonde?/brown?. The silver strands are beginning to recruit in earnest, and I now have a proto-streak forming. I’m impatiently waiting for at least salt-and-pepperdom to commence Manic Panic experiments…
Here in Durango, Colorado there are a lot of very attractive, athletic, educated older women with beautiful long silvery-gray hair. My husband drools over them. Alas, I’m 44 and have exactly three gray hairs; my parents didn’t go gray until mid-60s so I expect I’ve got a while to go yet. I never thought I’d feel bad about not having gray hair until I saw the way some of these 55-to-65 women look. I’m tempted to dye my hair gray now!
(I think that having long gray hair is a double unconventionality, because it seems that older women are “supposed to” cut their hair short. Maybe that’s the “dangerous rebel” vibe?)
Killing time before I head off to work for my first day at a new job! Project management, here I come!
My parents are from India and my hair is naturally black. As in, the shiny shade and texture of black that basically all Asian hair is. I don’t remember when my mom and dad’s hair started changing, but in their early sixties and seventies respectively they’re both salt-and-pepper now. So I can’t expect that my hair will stay uniformly black forever. But dyed black looks duller than natural black. And it would be such a bother to dye, since I’d have to bleach it first. So I find it hard to imagine that I’d want to dye it.
I could see hair change making my job easier or harder. Older = more experienced, more competent, etc., sure. But in the tech industry, there is a perception that older men and women don’t grok the hottest technology fads.
So I’ll find out in a few decades.
THIS IS SO GREAT!
I thought I was alone!
I’ve been attempting to pluck out rouge grey hairs and then recently got my boyfriend to dye them for me (he complains that I am being ridiculous).
But now that I realize I’m not a freak at 26 I feel much better. Esp. since my Mom said she never had grey hairs until she was in her 40s and my grandmother still had mostly brown when she died at 96.
Yay! Thanks!
The universe is 14.5 billion years old. My life span will be about 70+ years, if I stop drinking, which I won’t because I’m getting quite good at it. Besides, the universe is 14.5 billion years old. I’m nothing. You’re nothing. We’re all worm food to be. Nihilism is liberating.
With that in mind, I vote that you shave it all off and go with tattoos.
“Is the fear about losing sexual attractiveness REALLY all that strong?”
In my case, I didn’t marry until 39, to a man nine years my junior. I didn’t plan to ever color my hair, but when I developed a “silver lock” at 44, I changed my mind, and have to admit there was an element of fear involved in the decision. At this point, 10 years later, I would probably feel comfortable letting it go gray, (confident that my husband would never leave me over something so trivial), but I like the way it looks; it feels like me when I look in the mirror (I’ve always been a mousy blond, and maintain my natural color). Maybe I’ll wait until I’m sixty…
Meryl Streep, Stacy London, Helen Mirren, Jay Manuel. All have had some gray or white hair, and I kinda want to be all of them. I think gray and white hair looks distinguished, clean, and unabashedly sexy. Though, I’m just a wee one at 20 years old, and still have the natural light brown. I hope my opinion doesn’t change when I start getting grays, but then again, it appears I will be able to avoid it til around 45, based on my parents.