<p>So, I’m sitting at a family party, looking around at all of my female relatives. I am the baby at 55 years old. I am also the only one with gray hair. Even my 92-year old aunt has brown curls! A few days later, in the NY Times there is an article about how people who have gray hair are really into it, and there are dozens of posts by readers to agree. Now I have to admit that I started to gray in my mid-twenties and really never gave it a thought. Although I am not known to spend major time on myself, I think I look fairly good. I would be interested in hearing your funny/sad gray hair stories, and I will start you off with two of our family favorites.
Age 34–my nursery-schooler daughter comes home with a portrait of me that she made for Mother’s Day and lets me know that her teacher had no gray crayons, so she had to color my hair with purple.
Age 38–Post mastectomy, pre-chemo. I am convinced that I will wake up one morning with no hair at all. I go to a wig store, which is, I think, akin to choosing your own casket ahead of time. I let the owner know that I am in the market for a gray wig. I thought he would pass out. Why, he wants to know, I would look so great as a blonde. Because, I answer, if I come down for breakfast as a blonde, my kids, ages 3 and 7, would not know who I was. Do you believe that I had to pay EXTRA to get a gray wig? He told me that there was no market for it.
And I will not even mention the sweet young thing down the street who asked me how the “grandkids” were!
I look forward to hearing. As DH says, better gray than none at all!</p>
<p>Fafnir, I love your spirit!</p>
<p>I am blessed by my mother’s genes to have, at age 46, not a single gray. So I have no stories. But I love the purple hair story you shared!</p>
<p>Here’s one. My hair is still mostly a very dark brown but gray streaks have been creeping in for at least 10 years. I’m 47.</p>
<p>So prob. 10 years ago I was sitting on the curb at the sch.bus stop w/ S2 and lots of other Mom’s and kids. S2 is standing beside me and keeps picking at my hair. I finally asked “what are you doing?” and he says loudly, “How did you get all this string in your hair? I’m trying to get it out.”</p>
<p>Practically every woman I know who is my age (and many much older) colors her hair. Even my MIL at 79 continues to dye hers an unnatural rusty color.</p>
<p>I have never colored mine and refuse to start.</p>
<p>I’m 51, have very dark brown hair, and have just a little gray here and there, also thanks to good genes (my mother still had some natural brown left in hers when she died at age 82). Like PackMom, I may be the only one of my friends who doesn’t color her hair, and I have no plans to. People always tell me I look younger than I am, so I’m sticking with what nature has given me!</p>
<p>Well, thanks to good genes I have quite a bit of lovely gray hair. You all can join the facebook group my friend started–
[Women</a> Who Don’t Color Our Hair | Facebook](<a href=“Redirecting...”>Redirecting...)</p>
<p>I took the plunge exactly one year ago. I got sick and tired of the smell of the dye and having to touch up the roots every 5-6 wks. It took about 1 year to grow and cut and grow and cut through the growing out process. I am now the proud owner of thick mostly gray (with some dark evenly blended in with it).</p>
<p>My husband loves it. I’m not kidding! I thought our kids would hate it but they actually think it looks cool. I make sure to get a good haircut every 5-6 weeks. I keep it short (sometimes even a little spikey when I’m feeling rebelious–LOL), but I’m careful to have the cut still look feminine. It’s a nice contrast to my olive complexion and I’ve been blessed with smooth non-wrinkly skin thus far. I’ll be 49 in a couple of months.</p>
<p>Oh–there is one person who hates it. My 80 year old father isn’t a fan of women with gray hair. Back in the day, he worked as a hairdresser from 6-11pm after he put in a full day’s working at a factory. If it were up to him, every woman would be a blond.</p>
<p>I’ll have to go join the “women who don’t color their hair” - I never have, never will. for me, it would be a waste of time and effort and money, not to mention all those nasty, stinky chemicals - and if my hair looks too good, they’ll notice flaws somewhere else…</p>
<p>I’m convinced my mother’s and MIL’s hair is thin and brittle because of all the years of bleaching. I’d rather have reasonably thick gray hair than thin and brittle blond hair.</p>
<p>When I look in a mirror, my hair appears to be a mix of gray and blond, and looks lighter in the summer. However, in photographs, it always looks completely gray. I’ll admit I like the blonder look better, but not enough to spend the time and money fiddling around with it. Also, my hair grows very fast, and there is no way I could keep up with “the roots”. (And I think “the roots” look is really awful.)</p>
<p>My mother hates my gray hair, by the way. She loves that people think she is years younger than she is, and she cannot get away with the deception if I look close to my 57 years.</p>
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<p>Mine, too. In a mirror, my hair looks sort of mousy light brown. But in photos, particularly ones taken outside on a sunny day, it looks REALLY gray! I’ve had it highlighted in the past but I didn’t like how it looked so I grew that out and went natural again. I’ve never been comfortable in a beauty salon so I really don’t want to have to start having root touchups or full color. My 87 year old mother (who looks 15-20 years younger) has colored her har her whole life and wouldn’t think of going out in public with gray roots showing. She thinks I’m crazy.</p>
<p>I started going grey at 22 and was completely white when I stopped dying my hair at age 37. I’d had strawberry blonde hair and I just could never get a color that worked (I am very pale and they all made me look washed out), so I quit trying. At 54, the discussion invariably goes to “but you have <em>good</em> white hair” when people start talking about how they’re going to start dying their hair now that they’ve got some white… Then they look kind of sheepish, because they realize how hypocritical they sound.</p>
<p>However, I am not completely undyed. I use Special Effects Cupcake Pink ([Special</a> Effects Cupcake Pink Photos](<a href=“http://www.amphigory.com/se_cupcake_pink.html]Special”>http://www.amphigory.com/se_cupcake_pink.html)) to put in a few not-at-all-discrete streaks of pink. The other day a homeless drunk walking past me stopped dead, stared at me, and said “your hair looks pretty! I mean it!”.</p>
<p>I always had that shade of hair that my father referred to as dishwater blonde. Now that the gray has started to come in, I look a lot lighter. I like it. I won’t color mine either. I am too much into low maintenance.</p>
<p>I’m with you! I would consider coloring hair a waste of time and money, and I just don’t care that much about looking the way our society seems to think I should. I have a lot of gray “highlights” in my light brown hair. At a recent family get-together, my BIL’s mom, who has some age related issues, kept saying to me - “I don’t normally like gray hair, but yours is very pretty”. She must have repeated this a dozen times throughout the evening!</p>
<p>The woman who cuts my hair always tells me how healthy it is - not only do I not color, but I don’t bother with blow-drying, curling, etc.</p>
<p>Gray and proud. I earned every fuzzy white hair.</p>
<p>Anybody seen the Jaime Lee Curtis commercials with her short gray hair?<br>
I love it and think she looks beautiful</p>
<p>Looking at my roots in the mirror and knowing that there is another week and a half to go until my next touch-up appointment, I am seriously considering taking the plunge and going “au naturel”. I started graying at 17 (family curse) so it will be quite the change for me. I am going to ask my colorist how I can do it gradually…they all rave about how thick and healthy my hair is at the salon so maybe it won’t be that bad…</p>
<p>Now I got to start thinking about what to do with all the $$ I will be saving : )</p>
<p>I have also never dyed my hair–can’t be bothered and it’s money I don’t have to spend. I, like mamabear, have light brown hair with gray “highlights”. Yeah, the white hairs are a little unruly, but so am I! :)</p>
<p>I had very black hair until my 30s, when it began to go gray/white in streaks. I dont usually think about it much, but the other day, I mentioned casually to my husband that it was time to get my hair cut, and he said, Why? I like that Bride of Frankenstein thing youve got going.</p>
<p>HAHAHA, Mary13! That’s a riot! :D</p>
<p>I admit that I have been having my hair colored for so long now that I have no idea how much gray I have. My Mom’s aunt and grandmother went gray in their 20’s and their hair was actually silver and they were both beautiful. If I knew mine would look like that I would stop coloring in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>I wonder why the gray hairs are coming in so thick and kinky/frizzy? My regular dishwater blonde was thin and straight. Now I have all this frizz. Weird. Goes along with the rogue white eyebrow hairs that grow an inch and a half long if I don’t prune them regularly.</p>