Going grey is a feminist act.

012:  Chauffeur
Originally uploaded by GraceD.

The all-around goddess and chanteuse VeryZen AmandaB, invited this here blogger to join the famous flickr group, 365 days.   Yet another exercise in self-introspection and the teeniest bit of narcissism, 365days requires its 800 plus members to take and post a self portrait every day for a year.  So far I'm at day 12, which is, indeed, very Zen of me. 

Behold yesterday's photographic statement -  Hound, Moll, Moll-friend Francine and me at the driver's seat.  The big deal item in this image?  Besides, these magnificent teen divas, the pooch and those sporty sunglasses, my plentiful strands of grey hair, woven into the black.  Go ahead and click the pic for a better gander at the grey.

Intentionally going grey is one of my everyday feminist actions.    It's my way of telling the beauty industry to fuck off.  Yeah, yeah, I hear you out there - going grey without complaint and with full intention is also within the ethics and principles of most men, the Amish, exceptionally chic French women and Barbara Bush.  My deal is that I refuse to buy into yet another beauty trap.  I'm 51 years old!  I will go grey!  That's the way it is, dude!  (Dude = Clairol, L'Oreal, Redken, Aveda, etc.)

When I turned 45 (with no grey hair in sight), I decided to let my freak flag fly and highlight my hair.  Though I adored my colorist and was tickled that the highlights imparted a carefree, sun kissed look; the process of keeping this going was a royal pain in the ass.  Maintaining the highlights robbed me of life's essential commodities - time and money.  True, I love hanging out at the salon just as much as the next deprived mother, hungry for a scalp massage and a pile of current trash magazines; but I would have preferred to lounge with the trash magazines on the deck at our house.  Indeed, I could have saved big bucks by doing my own hair; but, one of the best things about me is that I know my limits, and home hair coloring crosses the line into my klutziness. 

This past year I stopped getting those sassy highlights.  What emerged was my shiny brown-black hair and streaks of grey, which were hiding all that time under the blondish streaks.  I thought it looked absolutely fine.

It was a good move, giving up my highlighting habit.  It's also good not to give into the notion that it's unacceptable to be an older female in this culture.  We must appear youthful at all costs.  If I have the audacity to appear my acual age, the culture will render me invisible. 

I know, my dollin women, I can hear you as I type this:  You cover your grey for you, you want to look and feel good about yourself.  Or, perhaps you're certain that the grey doesn't look good at all, it makes you look near-dead, it's a bad match for your complexion.   

And, yes, I hear those of you who mess with the fun colors, the purples, the blonde with pink tips, the red-orange, the blue streaking.  I appreciate all that, mostly because it's probably not about masking the grey.

I hear all of that.  And,  I acknowledge your choices.  I embrace you in my feminist sisterly love.

But, I'm not with the older woman hating culture on this one.  This older woman is going to expend her energy elsewhere, like on improving her running stride and speed, working towards optimal wellness, and getting the kid to and from school.   This older woman is also busy with her reign as a 51 year old menopausal goddess.   This older woman has no time or patience for the expectations of the youth/beauty culture.  This older woman is going grey and that, my dears, is hot.

Comments

[dorrie]

WOOOOOTTT!!!

I couldn't agree with your words more, Grace. My dark brown is slowly turning icy grey and I think it looks really, really good. I imagine the "going grey" is more of an image violation for women than anything else, just like your age number or the age of your kids. There is a time to embrace your age and life is too short to fret...thank you for your wonderful post.

[ozma]

One thing that has been weird about me for many years is my comparative lack of interest in my appearance just to look good. I channel most of (not all, of course!) the neurotic energy women often have about their appearance into my career. (Note: I'm not saying this is better because I'm just as or more tormented about this than the normal person is about her looks.) However, I do attempt to remain youthful looking. I have a teeny bit grey and I cover it up a little bit once in a while. I use the wrinkle creams and potions and all that crap. Why? Because I think it will help my career! Here's how I think about it--when my grey becomes noticeable and I am successful, I will go with it. It will give me gravitas. But if it starts to be noticeable before that I want to hide it! That's totally the same patriarchal crap underlying it as underlies the need to be sexual appealing, by the way.

It's screwed up. But I think I have to do everything I can to get where I need to go and if looking younger is part of that, then that's what I'm going to do. I don't think it matters REALLY. Same with being overweight. I think about my weight primarily in terms of its effects on my viability in the market. And that's messed up too. But just like I have to wear nice suits to do well and meet my goals so must I try to achieve the weight that won't be a disadvantage professionally.

By the way, my mother still doesn't have a single grey hair on her head that I can see. She dyes once in a while but not that often. I guess another reason for covering up my grey if I get it is so that I won't look older than my mother. She looks ridiculously young. I don't mind looking like her sister but I'm not sure I want to look like her mother.

[schmutzie]

I, too, have decided to let my grey reign, and it's strange how many women and men tell me that I must have a lot of self-confidence or that I am brave. It makes me want kick the crap out of whatever creates the belief that natural haircolour is a personal embarrasment. It's mine, and I love it. It's sparkly!

[margalit]

I DO NOT cover my gray. In fact, my hair is almost all gray with a bit of a white streak in it. I'll email you a picture. I'm 54, dying my hair is not a financial option, and I like it gray. Actually, I LOVE it gray. When I was much younger I always wanted to look like those psychiatrists in Woodie Allen movies. You know, the ones with the big full skirts and the peasant shirts with huge clunky jewelery and big paisley shawls. And a thick long gray braid down their backs. Well, I've arrived sans the peasant shirt and clunky jewelery. I do have a paisley shawl I bought in Florence years ago just in case! And my hair is long, gray and shiney.

[Debra Roby]

I started turning gray in my mid-30s; colored my hair until my 40th. Then I gave myself a reprieve. Until last year.

It's not the gray. Exactly. It's the fact that all the color has faded my strands, leaving them a dull and odd darkly non-color. Flat and uninspired. Truly mousy.

If it were gray? I'd have no problem.

So a few months ago I decided to pick up a box of my old color. It's the color my hair was when it had color. I used it and felt like myself again. Friends told me I looked rested and 5 years younger. And my gray? It's that color-resistant stuff that often shines through the color anyway.

I'm going to continue to be dark ash blonde that I've always been. With some gray. But the mouse is reserved for those autumn animals scurrying around the corners of my house.

[Bethiclaus]

After watching my mom color her hair my entire life, I swore that I would just let my hair go gray when the time came. I had no idea the time would come when I was 20. At 25, I have a large gray patch right between my eyes (very Cruella). Even my grandmother (a woman who aged gracefully and beautifully) encourages me to dye. "Don't make yourself look old when you're still so young." But if I'm honest with myself, I kind of like what my gray hair says about me. I want my daughter to see that I am not buying into our culture's unrealistic beauty standards. Plus, it appears she has my hair. Hopefully, she thinks young gray is cool.

[Elizabeth]

First grey hair at 22. Salt and pepper by my thirties. At 47 now tending towards all white in front and grey mixed with white in back.

I love it. It is easy. I get to wear a completely different palette of colors than I did when my hair was light brown. Fun stuff.

However.

Our culture is not used to women with white or grey hair who are under sixty. So imagine the looks I got when I was pregnant with my third child at 41 - with very noticeably light grey hair. Major double takes. (And I still get taken for my children's grandmother sometimes...)

But grey is right for me, so I have fun with it.

[Mary Tsao]

You are so right about the time issue. I dye my own hair so the money's no biggie, but the time! That's another story.

I'll stop one day. Maybe next decade.

Interesting topic. I just read an article in Oprah magazine written by a woman who had never dyed her hair until she was in her late 40s. She struggled with the feminist political correctness of it, but I guess vanity won.

[Koan Bremner]

I colour my hair. I colour my hair because I am, naturally. completely grey. Have been since my late twenties. But, since I never had the chance to strut my funky stuff as a young woman, damn but I'm going to strut my funky stuff as a heading-into-middle-age woman. For a few years. And then I'll let the grey rule the roost.

I hate ageism as much as I hate most discriminatory isms - and that's a lot. But my decision to colour my hair is down to vanity, pure and simple. And the desire to experience just a little of what other women at 20, 25, 30, 35... conceivably took for granted.

Having said all that - I haven't had my hair done since the end of June (because I'm too poor to get to my stylist 400 miles away, and too scared to let someone else loose on my locks) so my roots are pretty prominent anyway! Gah.

[Heidi]

Good on ya, Grace! I love it when women are comfortable with letting Mo Nature take her course. My once-naturally blond went kinda blah over the years, but now it's magically lightening up again. I'm with Schmutzie--I like the sparkles!

On a related note, you've probably already seen this excellent quickie movie by Dove:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

Nothing like a little computer enhancement...

[Jan B]

I was born with white blond hair, which started darkening to dirty blond in high school. Since then I spent 20 years trying to recapture the blond. I managed to attain hair that was a color not found in nature. I looked like I was wearing an O Cedar Broom on my head.

I quit coloring 5 years ago and got it razor cut short. Like an inch and a half long -- 13 inches of dead straw cut off. I started over. It is now brown, the sun highlights it a little in the summer, but mainly brown and straight and about bra length.

About 4 years ago I noticed white wires stuck in my head. Oh NO! They were attached. And it was not just the light reflecting on a sun bleached hair. Not grey, but pure white and -- get this -- kinky curly. Pubic hair in reverse!

So I am letting it go. I am 41 and who knows what I will look like in 10 years? I have kicked the Clairol habit!!

[erthsister]

I really enjoyed reading this and all the comments. Go, grey! But I appreciate that we all have to make our own choices.

Way back when I was a college student, I remembered seeing a woman in line at a Washington Art Gallery exhibit. She had long, loosely braided, curly hair down her back, brown with amazing streaks of gray and silver throughout. I thought to myself--THAT's what I'll do! It looked so vivacious and self-accepting, I felt really inspired. But on the other hand, my hair was so wrapped up in my identity, I wasn't sure what I would do when I started losing color.

Now in my family, we go white. My mom has been entirely white for years and looks great. I am only starting to get white strands (it's been picking up speed in the last year), but my hair is too light for most of it to show yet (or for most people to admit to seeing it). But I am now wondering about the shock of people thinking I am way younger than I am... and having to deal with this aging marker. They can't see it 'cause they are in denial! hehe It's even more strange because my husband is mostly gray-silver now (and he looks great) while people still think I am in college. We do get some strange assumptions sometimes. So I don't think I'll ever dye. ---Unless I want to put in some wild streaks of color "to make up for the sobriety of my youth." Darn, I never did that when I was younger.

[samirah]

that's so cool.

[Elizabeth]

Grace, thank you! I have been wavering on whether or not to color my hair to cover up the grey (or is it gray?) Like Jan B, my greys are kinky and tend to stick straight up around my part. They are also heavily resistant to any home hair color product. I can not afford salon color at all.

Therefore, I'm letting my grey hair flag fly, in honor of you and all the other women who don't want to pour chemicals on their heads. Smooches, sweetie.

[cynthia]

I've been salt-and-pepper since my early twenties, and I started coloring my hair since my ten year high school reunion. It's going on two decades of this, and I may very well decide to follow your example when I begin the Croning process. Thanks for the example, when the effort stops being fun, I'll let my grey shine.

[Jess]

I started getting gray hair at 23. Gee same year I had my son. Funny how that works. I am now 34 and have been dying my hair for years. My Dad was completely gray at 30. Well at least till he found " Loving Care". Those photos of him really could have scared me away from coloring my hair but it didn't. Looks like I will be keeping my salon in business for many years to come.

[nakedjen]

Grace, while I appreciate this whole grey business, I do have to admit that no one is ever going to change my mind about my hair. I've been coloring it since I was 11. So long that I actually have no idea what its natural color is. When I shaved my head two years ago, we all saw that I had LOADS of silver hair. And I was told it was really pretty.

But that didn't last long. I needed to go back to those punky colors like purple and blue and pink!

I'm an extrovert. I like people to stare at me. What can I say?? And since I can't really keep changing the shape of my body, at least I can change the color on my head.

[Rae]

So... I take it that you're not going to be spending any money on facelifts or botox? That's the idea that I'm getting from this post.

I watched this Pilates video yesterday, since I plan to at least TRY to build some muscle and shape up, and Romana, the famous Pilates disciple, this 80-year-old woman, was fully grey. But she was also hanging upside from this crazy contraption and then hanging upside down she did some crazy quick maneuvers with her legs like scissors or something... you get the point. She didn't look like she had anything other than an 80-year-old body, with an aging, beautiful face, but she was obviously ripped. She could take me down in a nanosecond. I loved that- that is good aging. Staying strong and not paying so much self conscious and crazy attention to wrinkles or grey hairs. Real health.

[Angie]

Hello. Delurking here to say how much I enjoyed this post. I read you often, can't remember how I was directed to your blog - but just love it.

I am intentionally going grey also, I'm a redhead - so it really shows - but I couldn't agree with you more about not covering it! I refuse.

Thanks for the post.
P.S. What is your beagle's name?? We have a beagle named Riley and he is the best dog in the world!

Angie

[Catherine]

You go, graying girl! I just turned 44 and my "stylist" (whom I do adore) keeps prodding me with "non permanent rinses" and highlights. Well, been there done that for one year...I told him two days before my birthday that I'm growing it out and embracing my "inner skunk streak". Who needs the agony of constant hair maintenance? I've never blow dried so why add the fuss of color?

I do wear moisturizer and am a lipstick fanatic...but nothing else. But just say no to haircolor. I'm with you!

[Comfort Addict]

Go grey, girl, go grey. Contrary to the beauty industry's message, I personally think that grey is sexy.

[Julie]

I have just decided to "go gray" at age 48 after 14 years of coloring my hair. Thank you all for the comments. I thought the coloring somehow makes me "younger" yet why do I need to look younger??? I am tired of chasing the gray roots and hiding them and feeling ashamed of my gray hair....spending the valuable time and money in the salon..Not to mention the uncertainty of the toxic/health effects of hair coloring...How could putting all those chemicals right on the scalp near the brain not have some impact on health???
My hair color is such an emotional, political, social, health issue...As my gray white hair shows more I will most likely be asked if I am my son's grandma..here it goes... but I will sure feel better overall- and be more myself.

[Lola]

I am 47 with long dyed blonde hair. I am finally letting it go natural. I have wanted to go natural for sometime, but family and friends have told me I look younger blonde. I don't care. I am tired of the expense and time to keep my hair blonde. I like my roots, white in front and silver everywhere else. It's going to look awful for a year while growing out. Any suggestions on how to grow out hair gracefully?

[Laura]

Julie -

With regards to the grey growing in...
I'm 44 with shoulder length long hair that has about three inches of grey coming in. I'm wearing hats a lot. Luckily it's a cold winter in Toronto.
But I'm worried about the spring...I've been looking for grey hair extension information on the net.
The thing I remember was that in the '70s when the baby boomers were getting their first grey hairs, there was a fashion trend towards beanie hats for women. People like Rhoda wore them on Mary Tyler Moore. And they wore pirate head scarves - and bandanas...remember that?
Perhaps if all those of us in the molting stage between dyed hair and grey could revive the hat for the summer of 2007 and reveal full heads of long gorgeous grey hair by the winter of 2008.

[Linda]

They say to reverse highlite(lowlite) your grey to blend in with the old color (the rest of it)and then it will look ok to grow out.