9 minute read

There’s a movement afoot. A groundswell, if you will. There is a new collective of women aligning around a particular topic and that topic is growing out grey hair.

With hairdressers being closed as a result of the pandemic, it’s been many months since a lot of us had a professional dye and the absence of it is showing (many of us for the first time) the amount of grey in our hair. It is showcasing what we really look like. It’s all-new, quite striking and more than a bit confronting.

For me, last year in lockdown one, I let it grow free with a sort of fascination at the sprouting of each silver segment. For years, I’ve had my naturally black hair dyed every 4-5 weeks, never letting the light line develop and quite devoted to the L’Oreal root spray between appointments that may have been delayed. But after three months of lockdown growth, despite being solely at home with nobody beyond my family seeing me, I hit a wall. It happens apparently - it’s at the time that your roots look like, well, roots! And it doesn’t look intentional in any way. I felt old. So I bought a box of dye and it was good. It brought me back to black and all was well. For a bit.

Then the roots advanced again. I bought another box, but this time, for whatever reason, maybe I was less diligent in my application - but the resulting colour was a mix of black and red undertones - a bit stripey - and my greys were now a sort of copper colour. There’s a reason we go to the professionals! But I tied it up and got on with living, paying it less and less attention as it grew. This was at the time last year, of launching Heyday and I was focused on that rather than cosmetic things, it was summer, I was swimming in the sea every day, I felt free and purposeful. My mind was not on my hair.

More months passed, our second lockdown lifted prior to Christmas and I, like lots of us, practically sprinted to the salon. But as I sat in my colourist’s chair and she was examining the stripey, faded condition of my hair, “so you dyed it yourself, I see” and “looks like you’ve been sea-swimming?”, I felt a weird urge to get out of the chair and not do it. I had three inches or so of soft silver sparkling under the salon lights and there was something about it I liked. But, at that moment, I couldn’t quite tune in to what I was feeling, so I stayed seated. My hair became black once again an hour later.

But I felt strangely like I’d betrayed myself. And I’d paid almost €100 for the privilege, so I also felt I’d betrayed my budget! I’d honestly never really thought about how much I so frequently spend in the hair salon.

At home, I kept looking in the mirror and it dawned on me why I’d felt this betrayal, this sort of cheating feeling. It was because, on a deeper level, I felt as though I was changing internally, but that now, externally, I looked as though I wasn’t. I looked the same as I always did, the same as I have done for years, and I didn’t know if I wanted that.

There’s a sort of earning your stripes vibe to embracing your greys and indeed, to embracing midlife. This time of life is especially reflective, and it’s made even more poignant hitting midlife in the midst of a pandemic. I maintain that midlife offers an additional metamorphosis on a par with the transformation of puberty. You walk into it one version of yourself and you walk out the other side different. It’s celebratory. It’s better.

And it was those feelings, whilst fairly new to me, I felt I denied that day in December when I dyed my hair again.

Now, I can hear you saying “it’s only hair!”. And you’re right. It is. It’s only hair dye; it’s not important, it’s fun, it makes millions of people feel good about themselves, there’s an entire, enormous industry built around it, employing lots of people.

And all of that is right. However, here’s a thing to think about too - what message is that industry saying to those of us who are covering our greys? Is it empowering us or making us feel less worthy? Is it making us feel good and able to embrace who we naturally are? Or is it saying change that, don’t be like that, hide it, look younger - be like this? Spend money to feel better, less inadequate, more relevant…

Those messages take years to exorcise.

And really, who are we dyeing for? Ourselves? Other people? I suppose it’s a bit of both.

For so long, there has been a negative narrative attached to going grey, that of “letting yourself go” - implying you’ve sort of given up on life, happy to fade into insignificance and obscurity, becoming as pale and insipid as your hair. It’s a horrible narrative also suggesting a depletion of attractiveness. There’s nothing sexy there.

And it’s this very thing that the new movement of Silver Sisters, as they are calling themselves on social media, is calling out. And it’s good to see. The new narrative is about strength and not only self-acceptance, but self-love, beauty, sexiness, and the desirability of grey hair.

So much of this is about appearances, but it’s more about what’s happening emotionally on the inside of a person and having their physical self align with that. In midlife, just as our greys are showing more, we are reflecting on far more than our reflection, and having both in synergy can create a sort of sweet spot.

The term ‘brave’ is used a lot in content around the grey hair transformation. It’s spoken of in terms of a change to be embraced. I think it’s a bit of a shame that it needs to be deemed as a courageous endeavour - when all it actually is is the process of allowing nature to take its course and us to look the age we actually are instead of hiding it. Pro-ageing is an attitude. It’s an invitation to rise to the occasion and unapologetically take your place with aplomb. And just get on with business.

Like men do.

But there it is again, “allowing nature to take its course”. The language of permission. It’s so ingrained in us as women - to seek and need permission. It’s so present in terms of our beauty choices too. Isn’t that something to note? I certainly think so. We have bodily autonomy, we make our own decisions, as the Chinese saying goes, we hold up half the sky, so why is it that we feel a sort of shame at something so simple as our hair becoming its natural grey? It’s the antithesis of the positive energy in midlife - that of emotional liberty - that of feeling at home in our skin - deserving and proud of our place at the table.

@JennaLyonsnyc going grey in her inimitably cool way

I am a mother of daughters, and I would like my girls to grow up feeling as though they don’t need to modify themselves physically to feel on an equal footing with anyone else. I want them to enjoy the fun of the beauty industry and to use it to express themselves, their creativity, their aesthetic and their personal style, rather than to disguise who they are. Adorning themselves for play’s sake, should they want to, not adapting themselves to fit an outdated gender-specific societal norm.

I want them to jump in the sea without worrying about having hairless legs and a bare bikini line. I want them to say yes to every experience because they know, and truly feel, that all experiences are open and available to them, as women, and that what they look like does not inform their path. And I want to model that for them so they see it and recognise it for themselves.

The thing is though, it’s hard. I too want to jump in the sea and not worry about hairless legs, but I struggle with that. I almost swam on a whim last week but didn’t because of my lockdown bikini line.

This is reality. I am leaving my hair to grow grey as long as I’m ok with it, whilst I use skincare that claims to be anti-ageing. I hate that phrase - I am pro-ageing, but at the same time I want my skin to look good. The answers aren’t ever straightforward, are they? Part of being human, I guess. We are complex beings.

You might say I have digressed toward far deeper territory than hair dye - and you would be right, but to me, it’s all related. It’s to do with being at peace in your skin. And that confidence seems to comes with age. Perhaps that is the point of the midlife metamorphosis we find ourselves a part of - that new energy around cool women with grey hair being fully visible and therefore changing the narrative around ageing. It’s about seeing ageing as a process of refinement, of wisdom, of vibrancy and of a certain sort of badassery that comes with each year over the age of 40!

A huge part of this magnificent new wave of pro-ageing silver sisters is acceptance and support - there are multiple Instagram accounts set up with the tag #ditchthedye in order to support people are they go through the two or so years it may take to grow out hair dye, as it appears to be a wobbly path strewn with many moments of possible abandonment when the image in the mirror on any given day just doesn’t sit right.

And if that’s what happens, and dye is decided on again, for a long time or a short time, that’s just us, being us - autonomous and sovereign, silver or not silver. In control of our appearance. As we see fit. Seeking permission no more.

Letting Yourself Go (Grey)

9 minute read

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