I think mostly what feels good about going gray is not caring, actually, whether I look sexy. Regardless of hair color, most men in their 20s or 30s aren’t going to find 50-something women that attractive. (Except maybe women who look like Helen Mirren, Jamie Lee Curtis, Emmy-Lou Harris, etc.) Clinton looks great as a blonde, but many older women look hasrsh and aged with dyed hair, especially if done out of a bottle without low- and highlights.
It also feels great not to spend about $80 a month getting my hair done and worrying about roots showing.
I tried the same thing about 11 years ago - cut my hair short, planned to let the gray grow in. Back then it was more salt and pepper and brown…it looked awful and I re-colored after about a week. Now it’s mostly silver. It looks great with my tan.
I like it! I’ve reached an age where I care more about what I’m comfortable with, rather than caring what random mens’ opinion of how I look. jamiemcgarry - I’m OK with you not finding me attractive, LOL. (We’re practically neighbors, BTW…maybe we’ve passed eachother by at Kroger or back when you were going to Hurley.)
I spent quite a bit of time lurking around this sitebefore taking the plunge.
Gray hair is fine by itself, but it’s usually combined with other features that indicate age. And while I wish I could look past it, I still tend towards the natural trend of finding younger women sexier.
I’m 29, and have a similar gray distribution to Angel of the Lord. Unlike her (him?), I love my gray hairs. VThey give my hair a sort of gilded look that I find really interesting. It actually prompted me to stop dying my hair (which I used to do for fun in a variety of colours), because I was sad about losing the silver threads.
I live in a very hippy-dippy town, and one of the first things I noticed when I moved here was the number of women with gray hair; so many more than anyplace else I’ve ever lived. Women here just do not dye their hair.
However, I also noticed women in their 20s and early 30s with gray hair, something I’ve never seen anywhere else in great numbers. I’ve been told that many younger women of the crunchy persuasion actually dye their hair gray, because it makes them appear more “natural” and “earthy”. Does this happen anywhere else?
At what age is it “normal” to start showing gray? My mother started dyeing rather early, and kept on very late. It looked silly, because she was very wrinkled.
On the other hand, I have great skin and think I would look younger dyed–but just don’t know what age is normal to be gray.
What’s coming through is more white than gray, if that’s more of an issue.
It varies, because I’ve seen people in their 60s who still have dark hair but most everyone in my family started getting gray in their late teens/20s. I’m lucky enough to have ashy blonde hair so the gray blends right in.
As to whether it’s attractive, if the shade of gray works with your skin/eye coloring, it’s styled nicely, and not brassy, I’d much rather see that than obviously dyed, overprocessed, scraggly hair with roots showing.
chiroptera, reverting to your natural grey hair may make you look like you’re in your fifties, but you are in your fifties. And you say you’ve still got a kickass body, so you must look like a woman in her fifties who takes great care of yourself and looks good for her age. Keep the red, and you might look like an attractive redhead who’s starting to look… not so fresh.
There’s a difference between “looking good for your age” and “trying to look good for an age you’re not”. Helen Mirren is 65 - looks like a genetically blessed woman in her mid-sixties who takes great care of herself, we should all be so lucky. Madonna is 52 - she doesn’t look good for 52. She looks a haggard 42. Some things you can’t hide.
But where I’m going with this is, wouldn’t you rather people think you look incredible for 53 than think you look really old for forty-something? And only frumpy, dowdy people look frumpy and dowdy.
I doubt that they are dyeing their hair. Many women in their 20’s, including myself and several other women in just this thread, have gray hair. It just isn’t noticed because most women that age color their hair, not to cover gray, but as part of their beauty routine the same way they would wear makeup or get a stylish haircut. Starting at age 16, I dyed my hair red, then later very dark brown. I stopped coloring it a few years ago because I like the way my gray streak is growing in in front.
I think the phenomenon that you are observing is hippie chicks who DON’T dye their hair, as opposed to the typical population of young women.
I’ve known a hell of a lot of hippie chicks in my time. And was kinda one, myself, for a while, but I blame that on West Coast living. Anyway, no hippie chick I’ve ever known would dye her hair with anything other than natural, organic, biodynamic, fair-trade, harvested-by-the-light-of-the-new-moon henna. Certainly not peroxide followed by grey hair dye. Like Pyper, I think it’s a case of avoiding hair dye and showing natural grey.
I’m a 58 year old grey baked woman, and I’m considering having white highlights added, just because the grey is in addition to what has sadly become khaki. I hate what the the remaining color has faded to. Does that sound as vain and shallow as it feels? I don’t do anything else for myself. This feels like a small indulgence. Is it petty and ridiculous?
Oh, thank you! I love validation! Seriously, no snark. I was feeling like an asshole for wanting to do this. I needed someone to tell me I’m not a narcisstic asshole.
NO it’s not petty or ridiculous! Just because we’ve decided to be au naturel doesn’t mean there’s no vanity left…vanity in measured amounts is not a bad thing, IMO.
I was thinking of having a turquoise streak added in somewhere, but one stylist I talked to said it would be difficult with gray hair because it’s so resistant to color.
beartato, zackly right…i don’t ever want to look like one of those middle-aged women desperately trying to look younger! I don’t mind telling people my real age…I think I look pretty good for 53, in a crunchy-granola sort of way. Although I think Madonna looks pretty good, from my perspective. If a bit…stringy.
I don’t know how to post a photo link without starting a whole new photo album…I don’t feel like sharing my extensive webshots album with teeming millions.
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umlaut**, if you look at the link I provided earlier, seems a lot of women start greying significantly in their 20s and 30s. I saw a few gray hairs in my late 20s, but it didn’t really start progressing until my 40s.
TMI - not graying anywhere else except my head, so far. I think gray pubic hair will give me a minor freak-out. Wonder why hair elsewhere on the body takes longer to start losing color? Something to do with sun exposure, maybe?
Jamie, I did upset you, didn’t I? Given that well styled silver hair suits an experienced face a lot better than strong colors, I do tend to assume people who insist it isn’t attractive are succumbing to social pressures.
Red heads in particular seem blessed with gorgeous silver hair. Though not a redhead, I have been blessed with two perfect locks at my temples that I love, but they do take maintenance.
My father had 3 sisters–2 with almost black hair & 1 whose hair was silver at a rather young age. Many years later, it was revealed that the two aunts had been dying their hair. Black Irish–born with dark hair that goes white rather early.
Alas, I inherited light brown hair from my mother’s side of the family. But hers stayed the same color most of her life, while I started getting white hairs rather young. Mixed with brown, the effect was dull beige, not silver. To the henna I went, mixing shades over the years to get less than a fire-engine effect.
Please yourself! White hair might have an aging effect, but other maintenance can keep the frumpy & non-sexy effects at bay…
Regardless of hair color, most men in their 20s or 30s aren’t going to find 50-something women that attractive. (Except maybe women who look like Helen Mirren, Jamie Lee Curtis, Emmy-Lou Harris, etc.) Clinton looks great as a blonde, but many older women look hasrsh and aged with dyed hair, especially if done out of a bottle without low- and highlights.
