WOW POWDER is a product that I have used for several years now to color my gray in between salon coloring. There are numerous products on the market, but this lightweight powder I discovered at Ulta works best for me and looks the most natural. It doesn’t cake up like liquids and the liner type products and blends naturally into my hair.
Since I can no longer rely on my own eyes, I rely on others. I can tell that it’s time to powder up when I am speaking to someone and they’re staring at my scalp and not my eyes. In a way, it’s flattering. They’re basically discovering what I’ve been hiding. In my case, premature gray runs in my family, so my hair said I was older than I was for years. I first saw a few strands in my late twenties and more in my thirties, but I really didn’t care much about hiding them. It was obvious I was just a young woman with premature gray. No big deal.
Now, I go through great lengths and expense to hide it because now, it’s a BIG DEAL! So, why now that I am actually older and have earned every single strand, do I feel the need to cover them up? From choosing hairstyles with the fewest parts, (to shorten the time spent powdering my parts) to never pulling my hair back so I wouldn’t have to color in my entire hairline! My entire face would be framed in WOW POWDER.
My daughter (aka my hair stylist) and I have discussed and debated my styling options. When I suggested wearing my gray years back, she argued, “Mom, that will make you look older!” News flash. I am older. She told me I had to wait until I was Fifty-five before I could let my gray grow in fully. Fifty-five became sixty. As I now approach 60, we are still renegotiating. “Mom, you can’t just be gray!” I would love to tell you about the “OMG, a gray pube call.” Oh wait, I just did!
She did drop some knowledge on me. Your hair color is due to the pigment (melanin) that hair follicles produce. As you age, they produce less. Also, we produce some enzymes that break down peroxide yada yada yada. Genes play a role, but another cause can be low B12 levels, so an increase in foods high in B vitamins may help slow the process. The good news is gray hair is typically thicker and stronger, so you might lose less of it due to maintenance. (Thinning is a whole other traumatic post!)
Anyway, I ended up testing the response to my gray, but not by choice. She didn’t have my color and I had to leave town. As an alternative, I tried using colored edge control. I pulled my hair back for the first time in my gray life to eliminate parts, but fully exposing my now gray hairline. The edge control (it’s a black thing) only covers some of it. So it was out there for the world to see. My age and my hair color finally matched.
Most of the people that I knew were unaware that my true hair color has been gray for years. Those are not highlights. Those are dyed grays that shimmer golden brown in the sunlight. (No, that is not the start of some beautiful poem!) I was curious and a tad anxious about what the response would be. It was a combination of fear and liberation. Will I be treated differently? Discriminated against? Will I go from “miss” to “ma’am?” Will baggers at the grocery store suddenly offer to push my cart to my car?
I started to wonder how many jobs I might not have gotten with my gray hair! It felt honest, but scary. I looked in the mirror and I saw the real me. Well, the partially exposed, real me. With my hair pulled back the fine lines in my forehead were also exposed. My thinning, graying brows that I now have to color in, were exposed. (After being Groucho my entire childhood. Menopause!) My slightly sagging face was exposed. It was an aging coming-out of sorts.
I’ve seen some beautiful women proudly sporting their beautiful flowing gray hair. I always felt gray was cool, but only if your hair was short. That felt “sharp” to me. The idea of long gray hair always felt a tad witchy. Maybe it’s all in the attitude. Like I should be walking around with the expression on my face that says, “yeah, that’s gray hair! And? ” I’m just not quite there yet!
I recall sitting across from an old male friend who I met for a drink. For some reason he felt the need to point at my scalp and remind me, it was time for some color. Did he think I was unaware? (Hell, a week after I get color, it’s time for color!) Was it bothering him? Was it about him? Like people would think the best he could do was the “old chick!”
Is coloring my hair just a way to deny my age to the world and myself? I’m already in shock that I’m as old as I am. Damn, I was just thirty-five fifteen minutes ago. And why bother hiding my hair when my hands and my neck are going to tell on me anyway?
Transitioning. I know. You say that word and the first thing that comes to mind is transitioning from one sex to another. I had simply Googled “gray hairstyles.” I needed some ideas and inspiration on how to go gray without looking crazy.
I had no idea I would stumble upon a jillion YouTube videos that referred to letting your hair go gray as “transitioning.” The videos offered up styles and techniques to camouflage the “transition” period. I was amazed.
I had never given it much thought. My idea was simple, stop dying it! Bad plan. It had only been a few weeks and my head looked like Pepe Le Pew was resting on top of it.
Okay, again, for you young’uns, Pepe was a French skunk in Looney Tunes cartoons in the 60’s and 70’s that would regularly announce, “I am Pepe Le Pew, your lover. You are my peanut, I am your brittle!” Pepe was constantly in search of love and appreciation. (Many of us are Pepe) Now that I think about Pepe, that was racy as hell back then and Pepe would have been one #METOO’d ass!
Okay, didn’t mean to go off on the skunk tangent. But that’s what the hell I was looking like!
One woman on Youtube spoke about having to consult with her husband and her family about her decision to “transition.” I guess her concern was her husband and whether or not the gray hair might be a turn off. (As if most married people actually have sex…) Why she had to consult with the kids is beyond me.
Look, no one wakes up and says, “I wish my hair was gray!” Actually, I stand corrected now that young girls are wearing gray hair among other outrageous colors trends. Sure they might think that gray is cute now, but come 50 or 60, not so much.
My point is what a huge deal this whole transitioning thing obviously is. It represents a turning point for women to embrace what is. It is accepting this stage of life, because that is exactly what it is. Gray hair is a part of life. It is being our true selves and hopefully, displaying our wisdom. It is scary. Maybe because we look in the mirror and it is not just gray hair that we see, but our mortality.
Of course, there was that question of whether people will still find me attractive. Will I still feel sexy and alive, or will I just see a ticking clock where my full head of brown hair used to be?
Letting it go IS a huge transition. Based on the number of YouTube videos on the subject, I am definitely not alone in my feelings. It seems unfair to take the seriousness of changing sexes and comparing it to changing hair color by calling it a “transition”, but for many, it can be pretty damn traumatic and right or wrong, life changing. To Gray or not to gray! That is the question.
You are still putting a smile on my face, thanks for that! I only know of one woman personally who rocked her gray hair, I admired that!
Regarding Pepe Le Pew, Abe Levitow is Pepe’s creator. His daughter Judy is a good friend of mine. She has his sketches of his work all over her house. Yes his ass would have been MEETOO’D!! LOL