Going Gray Or Giving Up?

If we all looked as magnificent as model Carmen Dell’Orefice, we would all go gray. But there is a huge part of me that thinks that she is an anomaly and that going gray is a little bit like giving up. Or, at least, giving in.

For the life of me I cannot remember the name of the book I am about to quote but its message about the physicality of aging is one I am compelled to share. So apologies to the unknown author and if anyone recognizes the content, do let me know.

I describe the writer’s thoughts here, not for their entertainment value alone- although they can be funny-but for her unabashed look at what getting older really means for women, including sexual challenges, like vaginal dryness (eek) and the relentless struggle to combat the more obvious signs of aging, like going gray. 

Although this book advocates going au naturel, I found it more than a little interesting and perhaps telling that the chapter on “Going Gray” was immediately followed by one entitled “Going Invisible.” I believe that one does inevitably lead to the other and it is a path I am loath to take.

“Some women have great gray hair. It’s silver,” said my newest hairdresser/colorist. “But whether you have great, gray hair or bad, gray hair, gray adds 30 years.  It’s always aging. No doubt about it.”

He said this without judgment or unkindness. Like it was a fact, not an indictment against beauty. And he’s had some personal experience in how various physical traits can be unattractively and unfairly interpreted.

“I went bald at 21,” he said “and it made me look 41,” he added.  

I told him that in my experience with heterosexual men most women did not care so much about whether a man had hair or not so I hoped his bare head had not adversely affected his love life..

“I didn’t care. Nothing I could do about it.”

 And he doesn’t actually  believe his follically challenged state was a deterrent to romance anyway.

“Women don’t want to go out with me because of my personality,” he laughed. 

Humor aside, I do find some irony in my hairless hairdresser’s choice of career-something akin to the phrase that unkindly referred to academics “ those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”- but his attitude was spot on.  

“Just do what you want to do,” he said while discussing the going gray dilemma. Which is exactly what a lovely friend of mine did when she came to visit not so long ago.

“I’ve let my hair go,” she announced cheerily, as if my eyesight were failing (it is a little) and I couldn’t see for myself that she had bravely gone somewhere I would never dream of traveling by suddenly deciding to forgo regular root service. 

Certainly there is a financial cost involved in maintaining at 50 the color you had at 20. And then there’s the inconvenience of having to spend vast amounts of time traveling to your salon for monthly touch ups. It is a sacrifice I am willing to make, by the way, should there be any doubt about my position on this matter.

A reality confronted by one of the main characters in Celia Walden’s book, PAYDAY.

“Jill ran a hand through her hair. She’d always felt proud of how few grays she had, even as her sixtieth approached. But over the past few months she’d seen and felt the color and texture change, and with everything she and Stan were going through, it felt like a spiteful little twist of the knife on the part of Mother Nature.”

I never asked my friend why she decided to give up her artificial color in favor of her natural one. And it’s not like she doesn’t still look good. She does. It’s just that now she actually looks her authentic age. She’s not trying to kid anyone or be something she’s not. Young, that is. She’s much more honest than me and I feel just a little bit of shame about that. (Not enough to give up the bottled blond, of course, but enough to publicly admit my shortcomings). 

I’m all for truth in advertising. 

But I can accept some things are better left unexpressed than drilled home with a hammer. For instance, whenever I see “milk feed veal” on a menu I wonder why I needed to know what that poor little thing had for its very last meal.

Vanity is rarely perceived as an attribute and I am clearly lacking in integrity when it comes to my judgmental opinion that we should stay away from the gray. Unless you are a man, of course, because they rarely look good when they color their hair. Simply because they try to do it themselves rather than seeking out the skills of a trained professional. 

An internet search shows that the majority of women who finally stopped coloring their hair did so in their fifties.“Part of the reason we associate gray hair with old age is that the vast majority of women dye their hair starting at a fairly young age,” according to KATIEGOESPLATINUM, a blogger who explains that finally these women stopped giving into “societal pressure to look younger and embracing the gray seems to be almost a form of rebellion.”  Okay. You go girl.

“I have a friend who is letting herself go gray,” said a very blond friend of mine, who  observed the struggle her friend was having with the aging process despite her decision not to color her hair. 

“But then she still has botox and fillers,” my friend said about her friend. “I find it so bizarre as it is so contradictory,” she said.

“So you’ll make your face look young but not your hair,” she questioned. 

I have many friends (mostly married) who, like the woman mentioned above, have deliberately decided to also abandon the creativity of a colorist. I do not mean to offend them but their choice just isn’t for me. But neither is pickle ball or preparing exotic banquets for twenty. Same goes for the fabulous Cher who spoke to PREVENTION MAGAZINE about her refusal to yield to the graying groupies. 

“At the end of the day,” the magazine explained, “Cher loves to boldly express herself, and that’s something we can admire. When it comes down to it, her motto is: “Do life on your own terms.” And for her, that means holding onto dark hair, bright lipstick, and big eyelashes no matter her age. “You know what? You never stop being a girl,” she said. “If you never stop being a girl, you’ll never get old.”