Grey Hair: Losing The Battle Within

Cat is out of the bag. I colour my hair. I know. You all thought my lovely locks were really sun-kissed gold, admit it! I can still hear my mother begging me not to start dying my hair when I was in my twenties because “one day you will have to do it for real, not just for fun. Enjoy your natural hair colour!” Of course—like any good daughter—I didn’t listen to her.

I discovered my first grey hair in my early thirties and cried out to my husband, as if a giant spider was attacking me. “I’m too young” I whined. Although—truth be told—one of my sisters started going grey in her mid twenties. My other sister recently entered her forties and is just starting to complain about ‘having’ to dye her hair.

Why? Why this obsession? I know, we have the means to look younger, but most people in their forties ‘have’ to dye their hair if they don’t want to be void of colour. So, why don’t we all embrace our grey (actually white) hair?

I, for one, am losing this battle quicker than I can blink. I used to ‘have’ to go every six weeks. Now after one damn week I see regrowth. Yes, I have products that I use in between visits to my favourite colour specialist (my very talented god-sister, who owns a salon off Yorkville). As much as I love seeing her and chatting up a storm, I dream of the day I don’t ‘have’ to colour my hair.

I really, really want to feel ready to let my hair grow out naturally, but deep down I am not ready. It’s this hesitancy that I question…often. Why do I feel this way? I guess I would feel unattractive, and this makes me feel guilty as well. I want to feel beautiful in my natural hair colour but instead I feel shame.

I see some Hollywood stars beginning to let their hair grow out and I’ll admit I do judge them. To me they look older. At the same time they are freed from the rat race and so I feel a little envious, then guilty for thinking they don’t look as good as they used to. Truthfully, I think I’m conditioned to believe they are less attractive. How many times do we hear ads or read the words ‘to fight the signs of aging do this…’ Simply put, women with white hair in our society are seen as useless. It’s an internalized beauty standard that has been imposed on us. It didn’t come from within.

We are always battling something with our looks and frankly I’m just tired. ‘Embrace, love, enter with dignity and grace your older—and hopefully wiser years—because you are still beautiful’. This is the message we should be receiving instead. I do not think I’m ready to give up dying my hair yet, but I am seriously questioning why not…and the truth appears to be quite ugly indeed.