Being gray

I found my first gray hair at age 21. I promptly plucked it. I found occasional gray hairs throughout my 20s but they were far enough apart spatially and in frequency that I could keep plucking. In my 30s that became altogether impractical and the word “Clairol” became a regular part of my existence.

Now I’ve decided to do away with the whole dye routine. This brings us to the big question: Why?

It comes down to a few reasons. The first is that I hate dying my hair. It’s messy and stinky and has stained my bathroom cabinets and shower curtain at times. I would just rather not do it.

The second is what the dye is doing to my hair. Curly hair is at its best quite dry and tends towards frizz. Dying it has made it absolutely straw-like. I’d like to see if I could have half-ways healthy hair again – or as healthy as what is basically dead cells can be.

Third is I’m starting to see the beauty of gray and white hair. I’d look at some people who don’t dye and I’d say “dowdy”. But I never stopped to connect the fact that it wasn’t simply that they weren’t dying their hair, it was also that their whole appearance – hairstyle and clothes – was dated. They didn’t look like they were putting their best selves forward. I started to notice gray and white haired women that keep themselves up, and I realized that it had little to do with hair colour. My sister-in-law recently stopped dying and she looks amazingly awesome. Ditto a woman I met through work – no dye, and she looks professional, dignified, and actually quite young.

But graying is associated with aging as no matter when one starts to get gray hair, it increases in amount as we age. At forty I’m coming to terms with the fact that statistically speaking, my life is coming to its half-way mark. Ain’t no way of getting around that. I set my mind to embracing being forty. I look back at what I was like, and life was like, at twenty and thirty and I think there is no way I’d want to be there again. I appreciate the wisdom and perspective that comes with age and how it has opened me up to freedom and joy. I have become increasingly aware, however, of the cognitive dissonance within myself about aging. I want to reject society’s idolization of youth, but every time I purchase a box of dye I am literally buying into it.

Another reason is frank curiosity. I have been reading the book Going Gray by Anne Kreamer and she noted that before allowing her gray to come in, she didn’t actually know what she looked like. I don’t actually know what I look like. I’d like to.

When I first started to muse about going gray on Facebook my wonderful cousin-in-law encouraged me not to, saying that I will have lots of years to be grey. She’s got a point. But this also isn’t an irreversible decision. I can change my mind next week and buy my usual dark blonde. I can change my mind at eighty and colour my hair purple with green stripes. I’m free. And for the next while, I want to be free of dye.