Greige

 "No one recognizes me now that I've let my hair go gray," said my friend Tricia when we were chatting at a gathering last week. 

Tricia's hair is beautiful: almost completely white, and cut in a short style that compliments its waves. It had been a rich dark brown before the pandemic--and Tricia kept it that way with frequent visits to the salon, she told me. But when the pandemic closed down salons and made her want to practice social distancing, she stopped having it colored. Now she has a whole new look, and it's great. 

Tricia isn't the only woman who went gray during the pandemic. Google "women going gray after the pandemic," and you'll find plenty of essays and articles.

Even before the pandemic, there seemed to be a movement among women "of a certain age" to stop coloring their hair. Lots of articles in magazines gave advice, or describe going gray as "life-changing." In her essay, Susan Choi suddenly came to see dying hair as "a cultural sickness...akin to wearing corsets." 

As a feminist, I resonate with that thought. Why should women have to color their hair anyway? Blond hair naturally darkens, mature hair naturally turns gray. Women should not feel like they have to put chemicals on their hair to make them look younger than they are. 

I'd like to say that I am the kind of person who is beyond that kind of vanity. But I must admit that I am not quite beyond that kind of vanity. 

I've highlighted my hair since my early thirties when its original blonde color started to fade. I didn't like the way my hair looked as the blond faded. Sadly, it did not not turn a rich brunette color, but instead became dull and dark. I didn't want to look dull and dark, or like I'd "let myself go" after my boys were born, even though my hair was just being its natural self.

So, I dutifully visited the salon to brighten up my hair on a regular basis. I found a stylist that made my hair look young and shiny and bright, adding highlights, and later, lowlights. 

Because I opted for highlights and lowlights, the hair-coloring appointments were serious: it took about 2+ hours for my talented stylist, Robin, to mix up the strong-smelling dyes, paint them on sections of my hair, wrap each section carefully in foil, and then wash out the dyes after they'd soaked in long enough. 

Thanks, Wikihow for the photo of highlight foils!

Other than the strong-smelling dyes, I have to admit that I actually kind of enjoyed the process: just sitting in a chair for a couple of hours, letting someone fiddle with my hair turns out to be fairly relaxing. 

Still, as I got older, I began to wonder how much longer I should color my hair. 

On the one hand, there's this (apocryphal?) story of my grandmother, who went gray early (maybe in her 30s?) in the days before respectable women dyed their hair. Supposedly, she said "don't go gray until you feel gray." I certainly haven't felt "gray," if by "gray," you mean "old." I still feel vaguely middle-aged. Maybe 41. (I am 59.)

Besides, I wasn't sure my gray hair color would be very flattering. Ex-blonde hair is drab, and I wasn't sure if I was gray enough. It turns out that gray hair is gray because it contains white hairs--those that have lost their pigment because of (usually) age--mixed with your former color. 

This probably isn't much of an issue for those of you with dark hair. In fact, I always looked with envy at the streaks of sparkle in the hair of my dark-haired friends and dark-haired magazine models who embraced their gray as it came in. 

Dark-haired Pinterest lady with sparkling gray streak in her hair. 

That contrast is always so amazing. But I feared my graying strands in my ex-blonde hair would just be drab on drab. I'd gone without highlights for 4 months when we lived in DC in spring 2018, and the result was not striking. My hair just looked slightly dusty.

On the other hand, the pandemic.

In the end, the pandemic made the decision for me. Although Iowa hair salons opened back up in late spring of 2020 after only being closed for a couple of months, I didn't feel comfortable going in to sit there for 2+ hours to get my hair colored. 

I guess I was a little bit curious, too. I decided to see what happened if I didn't color it. Maybe I would be gray enough this time. Maybe it would be life-changing.

It turned out that my hair doesn't really look that much different now from when I used to highlight it There is finally enough gray (i.e. white strands) among the drab ex-blonde strands that overall, my hair still looks light-colored. It almost looks highlighted as a few little ribbons of white streak through the rest of the beige-blond.

Gray or blond? It's greige.

I call the color "greige," a combination of gray and beige. 

No one has seemed confused about who I am since I stopped coloring my hair. No one has even commented on my freedom-embracing gray. 

Is it "life-changing"? Not sure, but perhaps in the last year or so, I've felt more comfortable with the fact that I am no longer young, maybe not even really middle-aged. I've started to think about some of the advantages to being older: so much experience to draw on, patience with the ups and downs of life,  layers of knowledge I've built--and, ok, sometimes can't always seem to access. 

Other advantages: No mortgage. Adult children.

Those white hairs remind me of who I am, what I've been through, where I'm going. So yes, Grandma, I do "feel gray." But that's not bad, really. It's time to embrace it.