TO GREY OR NOT TO GREY – THAT IS THE QUESTION

I’m 4 months in. The Skunk line is dissipating. The last of the years of incessantly dyed hair is starting to lighten up. *ahem* ever so slightly/not quick enough/NOT on the ends/in fact not even past my bloody ears. Stubborn pissing hair! Sod it. I’m over the shock. No going back? I’m embracing my grey.

AGEING HAIR OR NOT AGEING HAIR

Women start to go grey for a ton of reasons not always related to being in their dotage. Some even in their teens. Imagine! Thing is, it happens to all of us no matter what stage of life we are in, eventually. Now – granted, if you are being kind enough to read this, you are more than likely to be in; let’s say, a more ‘mature in years’ demographic (or perhaps not), but the facts remain greying can happen at any time.

The thing to do is make a decision … embrace the grey, yes or no?

What’s the alternative? Keep colouring until you have to do it twice a month. Yup – every 2 weeks. And at the end of week one you’ve got a wicked skunk stripe starting. Oh joy. Of course those of lighter hued hair seem to come off luckier. Blend easier. Hide it for longer. But grey is grey and it’s coming. Sneaking up. Poking it’s sinister head around your ear and sneering, ‘You’re next, Missy’.

GREY IS THE NEW BLONDE/BLACK/BROWN/RED/PURPLE AND GREEN

It’s a contentious idea isn’t it. Women can look older when they are grey. Because they ARE older more often than not (excuse the shouty caps). But looking older isn’t pre-requisite. Lovely glossy, well-kept grey hair shouldn’t age you. Your face hasn’t changed, coloured hair or not. It’s the perception of being grey that ages us to ourselves and others. But it shouldn’t. Needn’t. The trouble lies in the fact that old doesn’t work so well in our youth driven, man ruled media. Or social life, or work life, need I go on? Not to mention we women often don’t help ourselves by feeling shite about going grey, and being; dare I say, a teensy bit judgy? We could all do with giving each other a bit of a break. Open our hearts and minds to the Grey Is Just A Colour revolution. And don’t get me started on the societal need to alienate and not venerate our elders.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE GREY TUNNEL

The good news on the To Grey Or Not To Grey front is that there has been a sort of Grey renaissance of late – have you noticed? It’s not only the young and trendy opting to have lovely grey locks – a fashion fab that has heard most women of a certain age gasp, “Yeah – but it’s alright for them! I’m a hag”, or some similar negative thought speak. There are tons, gaggles, prides (and if you think covens wash your mouth out!) of ladies coming out in all their fab-Greyness throughout the media of late. Most of those are above the age of 30 odd/40odd.

FASHIONS USE OF GREY LADIES 

It all seemed to start with coverage of slinky yoga practicing elderly models working for some of the better known luxury Fashion houses. And what a revelation that was. To my occasionally cynical mind the campaigns used the novelty of grey lady loveliness as a PR exercise only. It certainly wasn’t in any shape or form a bid to make it easier for us to be Au Natural, but boy did it pan out for them – what a PR stunt. Upside for us – It got the idea out there, didn’t it. It broke some taboo’s unintentionally. So Hallelujah regardless. And before you start, you don’t have to be 5ft9inches (or the equivalent in metres) to rock your natural hair colour. Beauty is Beauty: Short, Tall, thin, no so, what ever. Aren’t we all beautiful inside and out? That old chestnut. But hear me out. Now it’s become a ‘Thing’.

Go Grey. Disgracefully. Gracefully. How ever you do it. Go get all rebely on your bad Grey self.

FAB BLOGGING TRANSITIONERS

The blog space is spattered with articles and pics on how to transition. Thank goodness for these pioneering goddesses of natural beauty for they hath pave’eth’d the way for us all. If you are ready that is. If not, fine. Understandable. Totally! Been there for the last 5 years. Upshot: it’s not such a no-go area. So if you’re ready – DO IT! If not, you will eventually, and more power to your elbow till then my beautiful fellow girlies.

STOP MOURNING THE DEATH OF YOUTH – A REVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT

Going grey haired shouldn’t be about a death of youth, it should be about the celebration of a next phase in your hair colour. Grey. It’s a colour. That’s it. See it like that and stop giving a flying fart and all should be plain sailing. That’s the idea anyway. Give it too much thought, buy into the narrative, and the trouble starts. Let’s face it, most who colour their hair to hide their grey are already past their first flush. And that’s perfectly cool. Isn’t it? Come on. Think about it. It is isn’t it! It’s all ok. I could expound the qualities of ageing for an entire blog, but why do that when we already know how cool it is, in many ways,  to be less young. And for those who grey early, it’s just as tough – just because they don’t have as many lines of life on their faces doesn’t mean the pressure to conform is any easier.

HAIR DOTAGE – HOW VERY DARE YOU

I thought about giving in to the inexorable march to greyness when the first hipsters started doing theirs, like I said earlier, on the back of the fashion houses featuring grey haired elderly ladies. I don’t mind admitting that I ran for the hills initially. But that was not before putting it out there on my FaceBook page to run it by mates, who in turn, one by one, bar none, screeched a resounding, ‘NO! You’ll regret it”. To be fair to them, I probably would’ve at the time. Because I wasn’t ready.
I couldn’t get it out of my mind though. You see, dying my hair every two or three weeks made me feel physically ill. I’d feel sick and sort of drugged up for the entire 50 minutes the potion was on my head, and for a couple of hours afterwards. I was incessantly having the nauseating reminder that soon I’ll have to make myself feel poorly again just to cover this shit up. My constant thinking about a Grey headed me wasn’t just born out of watching the inevitable slide into hair dotage and all the associated esteem bashing I imagined I’d face. I had to do something. The motions of de-Greying were having profound negative effects. Of course I considered organic hair dyes, but they made me look like I was wearing a Cher wig. So over a year I researched my arse off, and read tons of advice about how to transition. I still couldn’t take the plunge, mind. And I’d got to the stage where I’d just left it, ignored it. And felt ancient, and hid lots. Then caved. Dyed. Felt crap. And repeat.

COLOURFEST

The best advice came in June, 2017. A madly sunny early June. I’d gone on a weekend away for a mates Birthday. To ColourFest. See their website here: https://colourfest.co.uk/ And no! the festival wasn’t about colouring your hair – it was a Yoga Festival. But it was bursting with strong minded, and bodied, incredible women who were wearing their myriad greys with pride. Yoga peeps do tend to be less judgy about the ageing process, that’s for sure. But hey, we can’t all be zen like and Yogi-fied.

I digress..

The stunning Kim and her equally divine daughter Naomi were part of our merry band of campers. First time I’d met them. They are family to my bezzies BF. Mates, new pals and their kids, and Yoga. A perfect weekender. Our pitch was a vast circle of turquoise Tiki umbrellas’, retro striped sun-beds, a VW Camper, A Space-age looking Motorhome and Russell (and Donna’s) Bell tent that we lovingly nicknamed the Moroccan Harem. The coolest pitch at ColourFest to my mind. Camping domicile heaven. Jo and I (*ahem* Russell) threw our 4 man tent into the mix and I mashed a hat on my head, donned a floaty kaftan and prepared to be a weekend hippy with old and new friends. It was bliss.

THEY TOOK MY COIFFURE IN HAND

By now it’d been 2 months of growing my grey out and I was in the following head space: ‘Fuck It, I look horrendous – and I just don’t care, so sod you all.’ Thing is – I did care. I felt and looked awful with my grown out hairstyle and skunk stripe. I was trying to pull off a sod the world attitude, but the transition and fear of it was etched all over my face and body language. The pics of me in the first half of that weekend are hideous, by the way.

I admitted to myself, and them, in a candid chat one fragrant star lit night, that I just couldn’t colour my hair any more due to feeling ill when I do. I told the gathering that it was really getting me down. It was making me feel and look really scruffy and un-kept. Before I knew it Kim and Naomi gathered round me, lifting locks of hair, mussing it around my face and discussing actions and options between themselves in a lovely outpouring of womanly empathy that made my heart sing. I didn’t even know they were hairdressers! They just got up off their camping chairs and took control in a hive mind fashion – as one. It was a beautiful moment of females empowering other females. Just because they can. And because they are kind and bloody amazing. How lucky was I? Two new life-long friends taking my coiffure and chaotic emotions in hand.

WHITE LINES ON A DARKENED COUNTRY ROAD

The next day, as a tag team, they endeavoured to re-shape my bonce. They are hairdressers, they take the tools of their trade everywhere, of course they do! And thank goodness. In the blazing sunshine they snipped, and tweaked, and snipped some more. Precision. It was like a ballet happening around my head. Fluid motion. Snip. Lots of conferring. Snip. They came up with a plan to enable me to grow in my greys with elegance and ease. The cut was a game changer. They even managed to skilfully hide, by the use of clever dickery cutting trickery, the hanks of hair I’d recently lost on my right side. I have absolutely no sodding idea in the world why the hair had fallen out in handfuls as big as hair extension pieces. But it had, and they sorted it. I now have swishy, flicky, long hair, and it’s allowing my Greys to grow in miles more naturally – without those blunt streaks showing like white lines on a darkened country road.

So word to the wise – don’t hide away like I did.. get a good cut before embarking on your Grey-Embracing.

IT’S FEMININELY GENTLE

This is not a crusade against Hollywood, the Papers and Magazines, the Fashion houses. I’m not singling out hairdressers, the enormous hair colouring industry or the peeps who have so kindly developed organic hair dye to save on our chemical intake. This definitely is not a feminist crusade or a bid to bring to task the state of play that makes it almost impossible for women to go grey. We all know the reasons. The background. The pressures. This is gentler than all of that. It’s femininely gentle. It’s about offering another option. A self-loving platform that enables women to feel much better about their ageing or changing hair colour. It’s not about shaming those who want to keep colouring their hair, or making them feel a sense of guilt. With any luck those who do and those who don’t will be happy for each other and rightly so.

SILVER VIXEN

Let’s collectively make it easier to be valued for who and what we are and what we offer society, as grey haired women, regardless of age. Offerings which are boundless and not the sole landscape of the honoured grandma – who let’s face it .. also deserves a ‘Big UP!’.

ROCKING MY GREY

My tentative idea is to share my progress in the hopes of inspiring those who want to take the plunge. To offer advice, and share any Going Grey-cefully (see what I did there?) knowledge I come across. And of course to show the progress pics. I’m pretty sure it’ll end up being a cathartic process for me, getting it out there. I don’t doubt I’ll shit it at times, and maybe even want to give in. But let’s hope not, hey.

I mean, who knows what it’ll end up looking like. Salt & Pepper springs to mind, at least for the next 2 years. The grey might make me look absolutely horrendous and not suit my skin tone – but I doubt it, because it will be my natural colour by the end of the process. Perhaps I should cut it to my shoulders and bleach all the colour out? But that sounds sick making. Maybe cut down on the chemical shit storm pukiness and put a ton of low light and high light streaks throughout to break it all up a bit, and make it look less skunk like? Or maybe I should just ‘be’ in the space of letting it happen as the Universe intended. And suck it up.

No matter how I go about it, I WILL go about it, so here goes …

This is me coming out. Rocking my SkunLline. Un-ashamedly showing off my wiry, spiked white hairs. 4 months in. You can see that the grey is wide spread in the lightening of what looks like chunky high lift low lights, but which are in fact grey sections of hair that my last dye is clutching onto as if it’s life depended on it. These fake low lights look like they extend down to my shoulder in parts. Like I said, Salt & Pepper but in Malon Like chunky streaks. The bulk of the consistent Grey Growth is in the hair line. But it’s every where – so needs accepting and dealing with.

SPARKLING GEMS OF ADVICE

One of the gems of advice Kim and Naomi gave me was to wash the ends (jaw line down) in a lightening shampoo. You know, the ones that blondes use to help brighten their lovely locks. This would help strip the old dye away. Thing is I only use organic products, so can’t do that. But good advice to those who are trying to ‘de-dye’ their hair without going to the hairdressers to get it colour stripped. Colour-stripping of course being pretty devastating to our hairs condition. They also expounded the absolute essential – Must do! .. Don’t do it at your peril! I mean it! You’ll regret it if you don’t! – need to use a treatment once a week, as Greys are as wiry (and dry) as Feck! And I must at this point say, that if you fancy dying your very dark hair varying shades of blonde/high lift low lights, so the white roots blend better you may have to deal with constantly washing your hair in a lilac tone shampoo/conditioner/product as it’ll have the tendency to turn green in the swimming baths, or just fade to brass and make you look a bit Tango-Like. I did this once in my 30’s. What a chore! And again, the condition could suffer too. And you still have the blond to grow out. Mind you, if you are good at hair upkeep, this would be a good way to do the transition, and all you’d need to do, I am reliably told, is keep adding chunky sections of the lighter colour in (ad infinitum.)  I’m not good at hair up-keep – so probably won’t.

Well – there you have it. You’ve seen my first Grey Headed Offering and (hopefully) got through the waffle on the subject.

I’d love to hear about your stories and comments regarding your progress, or lack thereof, or refusal to .. and everything in between. Keep checking back for updates. ❤

Till Later My Lovelies.