Coming out
August 23, 2010I’ve been dishonest with you all for far, far too long. I can’t lie any longer.
Are you sitting down? You’re probably sitting down. If you’re not, you should sit down. Or lie down, with your legs slightly elevated. How and where you recline is entirely your call. I’m just saying, if you’re standing when you read the shocking truth I am about to reveal to you, I will not be liable for whatever happens next.
It’s about my hair. The color it is now? It’s ... well. It’s not real, per se. And by “per se,” I mean “at all.” It is not at all real.
My hair started to turn gray when I was in high school. I was not surprised, as the Bradley family has a long, illustrious history of premature graying. I didn’t mind the gray hair all that much. It wasn’t until my twenties that it occurred to me to color it away. Actually it didn’t occur to me at all—it occurred to my hair stylist, who insisted I “do something” about all the gray. It was making me look “mousy,” she declared.
I did not want to look mousy. Does anyone?
So I started coloring, and haven’t stopped, and now it’s been 15 years of my Adventures in Hair Color. I’ve gone from brown to reddish-brown to brownish-red, with a couple of horrifying forays into something approaching blonde. It never occurred to me, not once, to stop. The thing is, once you start coloring, you’re stuck. Hair color that’s growing out looks awful. Especially when the hair that’s growing out has morphed from silver-flecked brown to brown-flecked silver.
Because my hair grows unusually quickly (about an inch a month) and because no matter what I do, my hair color fades quickly, I have about a two-week window during which I actually like the way the color looks. For the first week, my hair color is so dark that my face looks like I have an awful virus; then it looks pretty good; then my roots begin to show; then all of a sudden my hair has turned sort of reddish-orange and I have gray temples and I count the days until my next hair appointment.
This is madness. Expensive madness. Once I realized that hair color from a box didn’t look anywhere near as decent as getting it professionally done, I’ve been spending upwards of $100 a month on hair color. That’s more than I spend on my gym.
All of which is why I’m not doing it anymore. As of my last coloring appointment (July 25th), I’m done. I have no idea what it’s going to look like. It could look horrific. It could make me look ten years older. I don't care. I want to see what’s under there. I need to find out what I look like. And I need to be okay with it.
I asked Henry what he thought about me letting my hair go gray. “I don’t know, Mom,” he said. “You might look like…”
I waited for him to say it: An old lady.
“…a punk rocker,” he finished.
That’s a little optimistic, but I’ll take it.
Reader Comments (116)
Please post photos! Your loveliness will shine through no matter what color your hair is :)
My mom never colored (she had super-thick hair that she never lost, even after the massive chemo she underwent before she passed away) and she always had short hair. I always had super-long hair, until mine started to go gray (began to be noticeable around 40- 2 yrs ago).
Then I began to understand the cute short haircut thing that many women wear when their hair is naturally gray. There are variations, but I get it, I love it, and when I get gray-er, I will get it. Until then, I am trying to love medium-long hair that has some noticeable gray....
When I do it (and maybe before) I am also going to get my nose pierced. By then my daughter might be old enough to tell me that I look punk rock. My husband already told me he thinks it's going to be hot (above & beyond my usual hotness as his wife).
So- something to look forward to! Rock on with your bad self, as we used to say back in the day.
As for graying gracefully, I remember seeing a makeover show where a woman had salt & pepper gray and simply wanted *less* gray, so they only covered some of it. Technically, I believe it was kind of like getting lowlights. That might be something to consider. But you know what would be really cool? Dye your hair gray. All of it. Then the new growth will come in with some brown, and you'll be browning instead of graying. Freak people out!
I have maybe a dozen of them now, but I don't mind so far because they're all scattered around my head rather than concentrated all in one visible spot.
AND they're wavy!!! This is very exciting for me and my boring straight hair. I hope they all continue to come in wavy/curly - maybe I won't even bother with the dye! We shall see.
I've always thought grey hair was gorgeous. I had this teacher in high school who had this grey bob haircut. she was so chic. I've always, always wanted to look like her.
psI totally get the fast hair growing thing. mine too. it's impossible to keep a cut, a color, anything. people are envious, but if they knew how expensive it gets!
The premature graying is on my husband's side as well (he started in his late teens); I recently noticed that my daughter has about half a dozen gray hairs...she is 12!! I'd hate to see her become a slave to the bottle; but I can certainly understand her not wanting to walk around with gray hair when she is 20. She's not bothered by it -- for now at least -- so I certainly won't make a big deal about it. Although I sometimes want to apologize for the unfortunate hand of genetic cards she was dealt!
All of which is to say, I'm enthusiastically pro-grey hair, and I think you'll look amazing.
I thought I'd never let it go gray again until I was 60 or 70, but now I've got four inches of roots again and it hasn't bothered me yet. So I guess my new rule of thumb is to keep my hair color options open.
I love my gray hair and it is very liberating not to spend hours and $$$'s at a hair salon.
Go for it girl!
Anyway. So she just let it grow out. By then, she was about 95% salt with just a little bit of pepper. So for awhile she had really pretty bright white hair with brown tips. We decided it was ermine. We concentrated on the fact that it was often seen as things like luxuriant collars on royal robes and never talked about the weasel part.
It worked for us - give it a try.
Oh! Also, if it comes in with a lot of gray, ask your hairdresser about using ... what's the name of it ... some special shampoo that really makes white hair look nice. Not yellow and God knows not blue, just pretty white. Silver... Fox? Silver...Lights? Your hairdresser will know.