This is a revision of a previous post with new pictures.
1950, Already Beauty's Slave
1953, Easter White Gloves Require Curly Hair
Sweet 16 and Never Been Kissed
1972, My Husband Refused to Sleep With a Wife in Curlers
1974, Family Renunciation of Scissors
Good Permanent--8 Months-Pregnant Mother of Two
1987, Mom Can't Bear to Look at My Last Permanent
1993--Social Workers Can Be Gray
12/01 New Wife of Younger Husband Can't Be Gray
2007, "How Do You Get Your Hair Like That" Me--"Shampoo"
Until I was 23, all my days were bad hair days. I was grimly determined to curl my absolutely straight hair. I started wearing curlers at age 5. I either set my hair every night or had permanents until I got married in 1968, and my husband refused to sleep with a wife in curlers. Some permanents were so hideous, I crept upstairs and washed it 5 times before facing my brothers' cruel mockery. Until 1987, age 42, I still resorted to permanents occasionally, and at least half my days were bad hair days.
My aunt found my first gray hair when I was 12. When I was 24, a colleague asked me whether I streaked my hair because I had so many gray hairs. My mom had dyed her hair from the time she was 30; I vowed to let my hair go gray like both my grandmothers had done.
My last permanent in 1984 proves my wisdom in renouncing them for all time. At age 35, I sold out and periodically attempted home dye jobs. At age 42, depressed over my dad's death, I started to have my hair dyed professionally. A woman in the supermarket asked me if I had purple hair. I I started to have it dyed professionally when I was 42 (depressed over my dad's death). It was expensive and time-consuming; about a week after I walked out of the beauty parlor, I would have dramatic silver roots.
At age 47, I impulsively decided to go gray. If you use permanent dye, you have stark choices. You can cut your hair very short and endure looking like a skunk while it grows out. Or you can bleach your hair ash blonde and let it grow out a bit less conspicuously. I opted for the latter. Walking into my social work field placement and my classes as a blonde, I was the focus of attention that I had never experienced before. It took a year to grow out while my hair felt like straw, but I was pleased with the results. My hair was silverish white.
Two years later, I was meeting my mom in Manhattan for a Broadway show. As I watched her walk down the block, I thought, "I can't stand it. She looks much younger than I do." So I dyed it dark brown again in 1995. My 28-year marriage ended in 1996, and gray hair did not seem the best advertisement for a new husband.
My mother died on Good Friday, 2004, almost 83. We asked the undertaker to touch up her roots because we knew she would have hated mourners seeing her gray hair and realizing she was old:) My 5 brothers made tasteless jokes about hair growing after death and needing touchups six feet under.
That was a moment of truth. I went the bleached blonde to silver route and have not changed my mind in 6 years.My husband is 16 years younger than me, and I dreaded being asked whether he was my son. That hasn't happened, but he is not allowed to shave his beard off and look younger. Andy calls me his silver princess.My mom hated my gray hair; it is no coincidence that I only went permamently gray after her death.
I can spend a whole day in Manhattan and never see another woman with long, straight silver hair. I have been asked if my hair is platinum blonde; I have been asked who is my hairdresser. Being silver is much more fun than being brunette, naturally or artificially. I feel I have earned every silver hair; why hide my hard-won lessons?
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Comments
Rated.
Hair's to you. Puns are running wildly today. Sorry.
Meander61, thank you and welcome to my blog. As a result I discovered yours.
Fernsy, my family has permission to call my shrink if I ever get a permanent or dye my hair again.
Scanner, I think men with white hair are very sexy. I rejoice over every gray hair on my husband's head or beard.
I would LOVE to have straight silver hair like yours; it's gorgeous!
R
Donna, my mom never knew what color her hair really was once she started coloring it at age 30. She didn't want to look at mine and remind herself.
Nolalibrarian, I have been delighted to discover your blog. I am at peace with my hair, but I still dread being mistaken for my English husband's mother, who does color her hair.
Mine is not only thick and curly, it has a million cowlicks and a tendency to not just tangle but mat. One day in the wind, and I'll be yanking knots out of it. You have no idea how many bottles of Johnson and Johnson's No More Tangles spray my mother went through trying to drag a comb through my hair.
I've had gray and white hairs since I was a teenager. I like them, as they make my mother feel old;).
Not trying to be something I am not is a very recent and very tentative victory:(
Linda, I would love to hear about other people's decisions about gray hair. My gray hair is a much better topic of conversations with strangers than my common brown hair ever was. How much are women influenced by their mother's decisions?
It's the salt & pepper stage I'd love to skip ;)
Nikki, Joan, Tink, I appreciate the kind words.
I have fought with my hair all my life. Blonde as a kid that turned a mousy (and to me boring) brown as a pre-teen I joined the ranks of those who pay for dye as soon as I hit 15. As of now my hair has turned progressively white.
I have been every color of the rainbow. Right now, I dye my hair a furious red, just because. It is pretty and it is fake. I do not pretend to be a redhead (it appears more as an artistic whim).
I'm planning on going naturally white at some time. And short. Very short.
And damn if I don't hope it'll turn out as good as it does on you.
r
With this routine, I can go 6-8 weeks between coloring jobs. I can live with that for now. I don't have any significant wrinkles, and I really don't want my hair to look 10+ years older than my face.
At some point down the road, when it's time, I'll figure out what blonde shade will work to let it go gray.
When my mom died at 50, she had only started to show a hint of gray. I never got to see what she'd look like with gray hair. Her father went gray in his 50s and was effectively silver by his mid 60s. It looked good on him. His mother went gray in her 60s, and was salt and pepper until she died at 84. I hope my hair looks half as good as yours when it's finally gray (or silver).
I'm with you. thanks to some encouraging words around here, I've decided to let it grow out. yesterday i got a cut and I was hoping the last of it was gone but my hairdresser says it's going to take a few more months before it's long enough to show entirely grey. I actually can't wait because I'm eager to see what i've got going up there. and the idea of never ever dying my hair again is so fabulous.
you have gorgeous hair. I'm sorry your family put you through garbage over it, nomatter whether it was straight, grey, silver, whatever. we have issues in our family but fortunately hair isn't one of them.
I too am married to a much younger man. I just wish he'd get a few greys because he's relentlessly dark and handsome in contrast to my wizening old lady act. but this is life in the slow lane...
great post.
In retrospect I realize it would have made much more sense to go blonder rather than to try to keep my hair its lifelong dark brown. My mother's keeping her hair too dark prejudiced me against the older face, young hair look. But for me, going blonde seems far more traumatic than going gray. In the midst of my transition from brown to gray, I had no choice but to be blonde, and I hated to look in a mirror.
If I had gone the lighter hair route, I might have been able to maintain it with a box from the supermarket. Having to go to the salon monthly and sit there with brown glop on my head seemed unendurable.
Watching my grandma go gray helped me adjust to the same timetable.
vseijo, as I commented on your blog, I tried to go red when I was coloring my hair, but it wouldn't take over all that gray. I joke that if people start mistaking me for my husband's mother, I will be so traumatized that I will instantly turn red.