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)
The blonds in Malibu would always ask me 'who' did my hair because it was so natural looking. I hadn't even noticed.
So then I started alternating 3 different shades of blond and indeed, it does look natural and I'm clearly a genius. Now I tell everyone my trick.
The one time I let it all grow out and it became ash again I kept it for about a year. One day I'd had enough of the ash and asked my boyfriend if he thought I should go back to being more blond.
"You won't get mad?" He asked. I assured him I wouldn't and he said:
"Oh GOD yes."
Go for it girl!
(I would go for trying to get it dyed to what might possibly be your natural color to make the transition a little easier)
Unlike you, I did not gray early. (my mom had her raven locks (if not her mind) until she was 50; & I'm assuming my timetable was similar but I don't know because I have not seen my actual color for about 25 - 30? 40? - years. . . started fooling around with hair color during my twenties and continue to do so to this day, in my XXXties)
One early experiment with "frosting" sent me screaming into the woods - THIS is how I will look with GRAY Hair? Yikes!
It all kinda blurs, but I do remember a longish henna period during which my hair got more and more auburn/purplish which was ok because it came across as vaguely fashionable at the the time in NYC where I lived.
And then I married the future father of my children, who was seven years younger than me, and I spent a lot of time trying to recreate the color I was born with. . .later, (how hopeless!) the colors our daughters were born with.
My daughters are adults now (told ya!) and have survived their teen years of dying and redying and etc. . . well, one of them is still a platinum blonde, but then her sister was too, until she went to work. . .so I have hopes she will recover in due course.Anyway, I have not seen the actual color of my hair since about 1997. I keep trying to match (the historical) it (I usually look at one of the daughters' heads and think "mine was sort alike that, wasn't it?"
But at the moment I am still chestnut ash brown, with gray roots sometimes.
I would so love to go with the gray. Many of my friends have and they are lovely. . .but I just can't seem to get past the stage of bad roots, weird transitions.
All I'm trying to say is, kudos! Good for you.
Post pictures!
i hate the commitment of salon color and normally opt for a demi permanent color gloss (purchased at sally's). i caved and got low lights and high lights (varying shades of chestnut, bronze and strawberry) in salon this summer and already feel froggy about the slight commitment.
good luck. you're brave.
There's a great book about the adventure you're embarking on:http://www.amazon.com/Going-Gray-Embrace-Authentic-Grace/dp/B003STCRG0/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282618094&sr=1-8
I don't dye my hair because I don't want the expense and bother of keeping up with the roots (my hair grows about an inch a month too). I was blond as a kid, but it's now that bland, mousey "dishwater" color, but that's OK; it's what nature intended for me.
I think people look best in whatever their natural color is (I mean whatever their color is NOW, not when they were a kid or when they started dyeing). Our coloring (hair, skin, etc.) changes with time; people who fight this by dyeing aren't fooling anyone. Their hair looks fake and doesn't complement their skin tone. I realize I'm probably offending a lot of people, but hey, it's my opinion! If you WANT to dye (and look fake to me), it's your right. :)
I'm 52 and finally starting to get a few gray hairs. I do not plan to dye them; I'm looking forward to having a full head of gray (or salt-and-pepper, whatever it turns out to be). My problem is that my "regular" hair is smooth and straight, but the grays are wiry, kinky, and unruly (sorry Stephanie, they're NOT curly!). So when I finally have all gray, it will be a wacky afro.
The teachers at the beauty school say that there's no product or treatment that will make gray hair un-kink. I guess if that's what nature intended for my hair to do, I'd rather live with it than spend lots of money fighting it.