Do you think the gray hair makes you any less attractive.
I don’t really give a good goddam.
At one time I did color it; but it got to be more trouble than it was worth to me. I did so again for about 6 months last year to look younger when I was job-hunting, but that didn’t do much good. I have better things to spend my time and money on, now. If somebody thinks I’m old, well, I AM a few years away from Social Security full benefits.
I have no grey at all yet (I’m 28). Since my hair is similar to my mother’s, I doubt that I’ll get any grey at all, or at least not until I’m over 50. We were both platinum blonde as children, turning into light ash blonde (me currently) and medium ash blonde (her at age 54), and she has no noticeable grey in her hair.
I do color my hair, but only because my hair is the same ash blonde color all over and is very fine textured. I like to mostly keep my original color, but I add highlights and/or lowlights to make my hair seem like it has more depth. I also find that coloring my hair also makes each colored strand a little “thicker” and gives my hair more volume.
I think that grey hair can be extremely attractive, especially if it’s a more “silver” or “white” grey instead of a yellowy-white color. My paternal grandmother is a very silvery-white and it looks very nice, but her hair was originally brown and I think that if I ever go grey it probably won’t look as nice as hers does.
[when did you first see the gray]
I saw a few in my very early 20s and really noticed Lily Munster streaks coming in at age 23 a few months after my brother’s suicide. That stuff about emotional shocks greying your hair is true. But [2. Do you color your hair] I had been coloring my hair auburn since I was 19, so I just noticed the roots greying slowly.
[3. If so, at what age will/did you stop]At around age 33-34, my hair was wrecked from chemical dyes, so I let it grow out about four inches and switched to henna. My grey was only about 15% at that point. I kept that up until, hmm, 2003, maybe, when I got sick of the huge mess of coloring my then extremely long and thick hair with henna every four or five weeks, and went au naturel. I was 37 when my hair was fully uncolored and natural. I had streaks at the temples that a lot of people thought were intentionally done.
[4. Do you think the gray hair makes you any less attractive.]Depending on the hairstyle, it looked f’ing hot. My hub loved it and he especially loved my not stressing over coloring it all the time.
I’ve gotten greyer and frizzier in the last few years, though. I also started taking a drug for migraine prevention called Topamax which seriously dried out my skin and scalp, and it was just wreaking havoc with my hair. That, combined with fighting a depression this year, led me to a midlife crisis decision to cut my hair pretty short. That style did NOT work with my greying pattern – I looked like I had white spots on my head – so I started using a semi-permanent caramel brown dye again. I do feel that coloring my hair makes me look younger when my hair is short.
In other words, I felt attractive with greying hair, then I didn’t, now I feel attractive with colored hair, I’ll probably feel attractive with greying hair at some time in the future. It’s not a particularly fraught issue for me. I think I broke the taboo by walking around with visibly white hair before I was 40.
Color me Envy Green. My gray is like metal, and not the shiny kind of metal. If it was shimmery, or a nice white, I’d leave it alone. But it’s dull gray mixed with some white and it looks awful, so I color it. If I didn’t color it, it’d be part gray-white and part reddish brown – not a good combo.
My wife is an identical twin.Her sister colors hers,wife doesn’t,so I have a good reference comparison.
I like the grey.But I never tell her what to do.If she wanted to dye it,so be it.
There’s a model in some TV ads that has grey hair,pretty much pegs my meter.
I only have a few random gray hairs at age twenty-nine. I first started getting them in my early twenties, though I’m not sure exactly when. I only have a few, maybe three or four at a time, and they don’t bother me. They’re silver-gray, not dull gray like my mom’s, so if they keep coming that color, I don’t think I’ll bother to dye them. If they start coming in both heavily and in a weird distribution, I might dye them. My hair is naturally fairly dark, but not a uniform color–I have blonde and red hairs scattered through the brown naturally. (makes coloring it easy–it never looks flat, even with a cheap do-it-yourself dye, since the different colored hairs take color differently) My mom has been dyeing her hair since she was thirty-five or so, since her grays are both dull and come in in weird areas randomly on her head, with the heaviest concentrations just above her ears.
I color my hair a lot anyway, so I may not even notice when my grays start coming in heavily. I wouldn’t mind taking after my father’s mother–she had very dark hair, never dyed it, and to the end of her life, only had a few grays here and there.
My wife’s hair isn’t grey, it’s bright silver. It’s also bunched at the front of her forehead and is a total different consistency (kind of crazy-wirey, not soft and flowing like her blond hair).
It would be useless for her to try and cover it and I’m glad she doesn’t. I love it.
when did you first see the gray - late 20’s early 30’s (my brother and sister were both salt and pepper by early 30’s) I’m not salt and pepper, mostly just some random strands of gray here and there
Do you color your hair - used to
If so, at what age will/did you stop - stopped in my late 30’s mainly because it was such a pain in the ass (I have long hair)
Do you think the gray hair makes you any less attractive - I actually like how my hair looks, I have brown hair with some very light bits, the gray (it’s more white than gray) kind of lightens it all up some more
Also, what Dinsdale said:
I have a female co worker who is apparently offended by women who show grey hair. I guess it’s hideous in her eyes (but then again she takes personal offense to the fact I don’t have my eyebrows waxed). When a group of us were talking about hair color the other day she seemed genuinely surprised that I was aware my hair was like this and I intentionally chose to keep it this way.
She’d probably drop dead if confronted by my existence. Not only do I have a good inch and a half of grey regrowth, but I haven’t shaved my legs or pits for a month. I could get hippieness all over her.
I’m 22, and have found two grey hairs so far. One when I was about 8, and one a bit over a year ago. They were both plucked post-haste, AFAIK, they haven’t returned. I have natural auburn hair, and I love it, and I’m not sure if I’ll grey in my early thirties like my mom, or salt and pepper (forties, I think) like my dad, but I know it’d better be a nice color, because I can’t dye my hair. My hair color is by far the most distinct and pretty thing about me, and if I resort to a bottle, I’m fairly sure I’ll have a melt down. I know that’s terrible, but there it is.
My ex is the same age as me. 50. I didn’t see her for about 15 years and then ran into her at a funeral. She had let her hair go completely gray since I had seen her last.
Not flattering at all. She looked like my mom.
My hair is pretty gray too. I don’t dye mine and I guess it’s sexist but it’s (IMHO) cooler on a guy than a gal.
I want to know (if any of you ladies are brave enough to answer):
when did you first see the gray
College - around 20, 21
Do you color your hair
Yes. I used to pay for salon color, but it’s just too expensive. I buy Clairol number 5 (basic brown) and dye my hair every 4 weeks.
If so, at what age will/did you stop
Currently 38, no plans to stop.
Do you think the gray hair makes you any less attractive.
I’m a pretty youthful looking 38, the grey hair really really ages me and I hate it. If I had beautiful, shimmery, silvery grey hair, I might feel differently. My grey hair comes in a completely different texture, much thicker, coarser, frizzier and curlier. Dying it seems to calm it down and makes my hair look much better (overall smoother and shinier). I also hate the way it looks when my roots start to grow out, so letting it grow out would be fairly problemmatic.
42, female, naturally light brown hair (I guess, since I haven’t seen my natural colour for years)
When did you first see the gray* In my late 30’s. Do you color your hair Yes, a gold-brown colour. If so, at what age will/did you stop I don’t intend to stop. I may dye it a lighter colour, though. I will probably start dyeing silver/blonde streaks through it as I age. Do you think the gray hair makes you any less attractive. Yes, I do, and for me it’s an easy choice to change the colour.
1. when did you first see the gray
Not sure. Probably when I was in my late 20s or so. I’m in my forties now, there’s much more grey, and I’m looking forward to seeing it go completely that way. My mum was going grey from her late 30s, and my father at age 47 was almost completely grey, from photos I’ve seen.
2. Do you color your hair
No.
3. If so, at what age will/did you stop
Never started.
4. Do you think the gray hair makes you any less attractive.
No, I don’t. Then again, I don’t really care. I prefer to go grey, and I’m not out looking for any partners to share my life, so I can do what I want to. I’m looking forward to being a silver-haired history nut. Might eventually get to brandish a walking stick to suit!
It’s all about how you carry it.
About six months ago I was on a trip down the big sur coast, in the morning we met a woman, say about 50, with dark hair and a grey streak at the part, no make up. Attractive, talked to us about our bicycles, I wouldn’t say she was flirting, but I was attracted. Fast forward to that night, there was a woman at the restaurant, with dyed hair, make up, too tight clothes.
Broadly speaking they were same age and ht/wt, but one was owning who she was and looking damn fine, and the other was striving for 15 years ago and the results were hideous, YMMV.
