OK, it’s Saturday night. My dog died yesterday, my boyfriend is on call at work, and I’m just not feeling sociable, so I’m fooling around on the computer, cleaning house, repainting my toenails, that sort of nesting thing.
I’m also colouring my hair (right now it looks like I have a cow patty on my head.) For the umpteenth time, I’m telling myself I should give it up, since I’m almost 43, and let the grey hair take over; go au naturel as it were.
But dammit! I’m generally told I look about 10 years younger than I am. I’ve been known as “the redhead” for decades. My hair would, I think come in a faded washed out red-grey colour.
OTOH, it would be nice not to have to fix my damn roots very two weeks. The SO says it doesn’t matter to him. I don’t want to get to the point where it looks like I’m trying to hard (people are surprised if I tell them that’s not my natural colour, so far.) I would feel WAY brave!
It doesn’t matter to me if a man has grey hair, no matter what age he is, from an attractiveness viewpoint. So…does it matter to you?
I have never understood why anyone would go to the trouble of coloring their hair. I think gray hair looks fine on both men and women, of any age. My mother and aunt looked similar except my aunt dyes and my mother never did. Same story with two of my sisters, except that the one who used to color has given it up.
At a young age (like 43), it doesn’t look any better or worse, just different. But coloring is a lot of bother, according to my formerly dyed sister. When you’re 80 and still coloring your hair, it looks absolutely ridiculous. My aunt isn’t that old yet, but she is starting to look a little funny with dark hair.
I think it looks nice on men and women. It’s so real. And silverish grey is absolutely gorgeous. My dad has beautiful silver hair…I remember crying when he got a bald spot from chemo. But now he’s off treatments with his full head of hair…he looks great for 60.
I think it’s fine for you to keep dying your hair. Just stop after a while though, because, like the others said, dyed hair looks plain silly on older women. This lady in choir has to be at least 60-70 and her hair is jet-black. It looks so phony, and I’m tempted to laugh at her, but that would be mean.
Premature white hair runs in my family; I started getting white hair when I was 19. And yeah, it’s the gorgeous silvery white kind–but I don’t want it now.
Kinda silly, really. I pay an excellent colorist to keep my hair the dark reddish brunette it’s always been. My older sis, who didn’t inherit the premature white, pays to have her hair frosted with silver. Go figure.
I’d say go with what makes you feel good. It helps to go w/ a shade or two softer/lighter because that usually looks more natural. (And don’t forget to do your eyebrows; they’re a jarring giveaway when they don’t match.)
For myself, I plan to give it another 5-10 years or so then have my hair cut short (it’s between collar and shoulder length now), and use temporary color until I can switch over to the pure white. It should look great; my mom’s did. Young face and good skin, but by a genetic fluke I have hair that most people don’t have until they’re 70 or so.
It depends… on some people it is… on some it isn’t… I think the general rule is the younger you are the sexier you look with grey hair. A 20 year old with grey hair is sexy. A 40 year old… maybe, depends on the person.
And they wonder why we color our hair? I was 17, still in high school, when I found my first white hair. As far as I can tell, I only have my own natural blonde and white hairs, none that are a true grey in color. I get my hair dyed because I think I look younger that way. At 41, for some reason, that’s starting to matter to me; or at least that I don’t look older than hubby, who is actually 7 whole months older. I was told recently by a very surprised man that I couldn’t possibly be old enough to have a son in college. <our son just turned 18, and is a freshman at UT Austin> I’ve been told I appear to be in my early 30’s, but when I was in my early 30’s, and not dying my hair, I was assumed to be in my 40’s or so. Go figure.
Yes, it is a hassle, and yes, it gets expensive. But, I found, after going au naturel for a couple of years, that I am taken more seriously in a business/job situation with all blonde hair than with the white showing. I am currently, according to my hairdresser, about 60-70% white, though it’s in patches. So, until I become more evenly white, or reach my 50’s, I’ll continue to dye it. I have had to go to slightly lighter shades of blonde the last year or so, and my white patches are looking more like highlights at the moment. But, I wanted to stick as close to my natural color as I could, even though as a blonde I’m assumed to be rather dimwitted by certain members of the male population. Their loss.
So, for guys, it doesn’t seem to matter much. I, for one, think that Richard Gere looks sooooooo much better with that gorgeous white hair than he did as a brunette. For us female types, it’s usually a detriment in some way. Unless you are blessed to have silvery white hair like Heloise’s daughter. <of the Hints from Heloise fame> I am headed that way, but it’s too patchy still to look good, IMO.
Precisely proving my point, oldscratch.
I don’t want to by the only one with something negative to say but…grey hair on a woman makes her either look: like she has been ill, is old or aging fast, or, if scraggly, like a witch. Give me the dye job any day of the week. I don’t find Mrs. Olson sexy (the old lady from the coffee commercials). As I think about woman on tv with grey hair, I can only think of Heloise (of hints from heloise)–nasty, the above-mentioned commercial actress, Aunt Bea, etc. Grey hair, true or not, is seen by a lot of people as a sign of aging, and in this culture, old is not sexy. Don’t want to offend anyone, just my two cents. As for grey hair on men, it doesn’t matter to me, it is just how another guy looks.
My ::counting:: uh, 3rd girlfriend ago, not counting the :: um, anyway, she had the most gorgeous long grey-white hair and I loved to run my fingers through it.
Quit dying your hair, and don’t constrict it in a bun, either. Grow it long and white and wild down past your shoulders and be witchy and wise and wild.
Grey hair on a confident man, IMO, is INCREDIBLY SEXY!!!
On a woman, I think the same thing applies. It’s all in how confident you are with your appearance. Whatever you do with your hair, wear it with pride and you WILL be beautiful.
For the record, my grandmother still had jet-black hair at 80 and it wasn’t dyed. Pretty obviously not, since it started to go grey in her mid-80s and we watched it to to salt-and-pepper and finally totally white by the time she was 90. (Conceivably possible to fake the whole process with very careful dyeing processes but neither her income nor her priority-set would support such a premise).
Still, it is yet another reason not to dye your grey hair. By doing so you cast aspersions, even inadvertently, on women your age (and older) whose hair is not greying, because if enough people are dyeing their hair, everyone believes that everyone is secretly grey and hiding it after a certain age.
I am profoundly salt and pepper. I am the only one of the four boys to get the Curse From My Mother’s Side. I’ll die with a thick, full head of hair, but it’s likely to be all white and silver by the time I am 36.
I have lately been resolving myself to the idea of dying my hair back to its original color of dark brown. I am somewhat sick of looking 10 years older than I actually am, and I am now in a position of being single again and “campaigning,” so these things matter more than they might otherwise.
It has been interesting to hear the feedback in this thread so far. It’s got me thinking about it …
I’m with you. 34yo and I’ve had gray hair since I was
6yo. Got it from my dads side. But on my moms side,
I should have a VERY full head of hair. I asked about
having it dyed/colored/whatever, and the woman told me,
“I’d never dye your hair, we’d have to bring out the
highligts.” But I’m like, that’s not what I asked!
I want my full brown head back.
I’m with AHunter on this one. I find it attractive on women of all ages, from 20 to 40 and up. For one thing, when you see a woman starting to gray, and she’s not dyeing it, it’s an indicator that she’s comfortable with how she looks, which indicates confidence.
Or maybe it’s just that Rogue from the X-Men comics is so hot that I associate her hair colors with being attractive.
Find a 10 year old girl & duplicate her hair color & highlights if you want to look younger…obviously they are a bit lighter, which is the way to go when one gets older if one wants to look younger.
As for grey hair, all women are grey when lights go off
Seriously though, I have a mega-crush on Anderson Cooper of ABC’s World News Now fame (and now the Mole). He has this wonderful silvery gray hair that makes me swoon.
Carina-
I’ll bet your hair isn’t the only thing that makes you look younger. If coloring it is a hassle, then go natural and screw the people who don’t like it! If it comes in looking washed out maybe you can use some of the coloiring products designed to spiffy up gray hair. Either way I bet you’ll look great. Yes, I think “spiffy up” is an industry term.
And I am sorry to hear about your doggy. <<Carina>>
I’m 46 and have only a few light hairs. The rest is plain brown, the way it has always been, and I hope it stays for some time to come. Women on both sides of my family go gray(if at all) quite late, the one exception being my maternal grandmother. She was younger than I when she was totally gray. But hey, she IS still with us, at 96, lives on her own(we do her driving) and can eat whatever she wants. Sometimes I have pizza with her. I hope that I can eat that way if I reach her age. There is some hope. Not only do we gray late, we tend to be long-lived.
In answer to the OP, yes, gray hair can be sexy. However it isn’t just the hair, but what’s inside the head, that is REALLY attractive.
Thank you very much AHunter. I just might do that. It’s already long, well on the way to white, and I rarely put my hair up at all. I’m glad to see that some men appreciate my hair. (Not that Mr Bear doesn’t, he just rarely says anything at all one way or another.) (hoping that hubby misses this post, unlikely though that is :p) So, how YOU doin’?
Alantus, as I said, I think that is so sexy. If you find women who don’t, keep on looking for someone with taste and class. Got a pic of yourself to share with us?
Silly Rabbit I like that. “wear it with pride, and you WILL be beautiful.” Thank you.
Milo and Rectangle, dye if you must, but please consider that I’m not the only one who finds that salt and pepper look cute and sexy. And, perhaps because I’ve been dealing with this myself, I have never looked at someone’s hair color as an indicator of age. Other factors are more pertinent and indicative of age in any case.
And, Baker, when I read where you said
it made me smile, and hope blossomed. It’s so nice to come across this attitude here, since it is so rare IRL, in my experience.
So, (pretend you don’t see this part, Mr Bear, my love ;)) how YOU Doin’?
I was told recently by a very surprised man that I couldn’t possibly be old enough to have a son in college. <our son just turned 18, and is a freshman at UT Austin> I’ve been told I appear to be in my early 30’s, but when I was in my early 30’s, and not dying my hair, I was assumed to be in my 40’s or so. Go figure.
: um, anyway, she had the most gorgeous long grey-white hair and I loved to run my fingers through it.