Big white hair
The debate among my friends is: to cover or not?
I asked a hairdressser how I would look like if I let whatever's under my red show up. "Practical", he said.
But look at these white and grey-haired beauties: 1. Carmen del'Orifice, model; 2. Cindy Joseph, model; 3. Emmylou Harris, singer/songwriter
And here's that famous Dove ad.
Of course these women have beautiful bone structure, enviable styling and flattering photography. The debate continues. 95% of my women friends colour their hair. The simple reason: they don't want to look older, and grey, they think, also drains them.Here's Time Magazine's altered photo of Condoleeza Rice with her presen
t hair colour and as a grey-haired woman.They grey isn't very flattering,and looks fake. (I wonder what Condi thought.)
The problem is getting to that Carmen meringue-white; no dye can do it.
Below is a photo I grabbed from flickr, of a woman whose tag is Philosopher Queen; she posted this to show her mom her gray hair. I'd like to meet her, there's such life and intelligence in her face.
Wonder if she's kept her gray.
Rona Maynard, a local magazine editor and writer, described her journey from medium-brown to her natural mixed-brown-with-gray, possibly the drabbest colour you can have. Some months later she reverted.
I figure I'd have to shave my head and sign on for an Amazon raft trip for two months.
How in the world do you make the transition? Not that I'm quite ready.
Comments
I had three brothers, two are naturally grey and it looks so good on them. One has dyed his hair and it looks very strange against his skin coloring.
I am between minds in letting mine be white but as it comes through, the white is a different white to that of my siblings- mine looks aged and worrisome.
The only reason I want to stop this is because I have tied myself to going to New York to have it done and have to have help to get me there and help while I am there and help getting home. And then I am so fatigued for another day. But if I stop it I will frighten small children away and scare myself:) lol
Oh, and I do have have that kind of white Carmen has. My hair is whiter than my 80-something mother's. It is not fair!!!
Belette: Wow, lucky you, when the time comes, to know you can have it.
my mom's family were women who were mostly redheads (real red - carroty kind) and her mother, who was the only one of 4 sisters with chestnut red. the true redheads faded to pink; my grandmother turned a beautiful shade of silver in her late 20s/30s. my mom got her father's hair - very dark, wiry and thick. her sister got the chestnut red. result: mom's hair went gray late, here and there, mixes of brown and gray and dark and light. so she dyed it. continuously. my aunt with the chestnut hair went pewter, then silver, then brushed aluminium, then white.
guess what i got? chestnut red hair. at 31 my hair started to go grey. 2 years later, it was completely grey -- pewter coloured. a decade later, it was silver. i'm now up to brushed aluminium and fully anticipate snow-ice white in another decade. i don't do anything to it. no dyes, not treatments... i use a shampoo for silver hair once a week. otherwise i leave it alone. it's thick and shoulder length -- about the colour of emmy lou harris's. i found that by always being grey, a lot of people find it impossible to guess my age -- i've looked pretty much the same for the past 15 years or so. i've often asked my haircutters if i should dye it and there is always a resounding "NO!"
materfamilias: When Rona Maynard tried it (and documented her journey) she had her mid-brown hair "pearled"- high and lowlighted so the grwoing-in gray would not be such a stark contrast. But she capitulated back to colour, a mutual friend told me she felt drab.
My hairdresser says there is a brightening rinse that keeps grey hair whiter, that only needs to be done every three months - so it lasts twice as long as the retouching roots business.
In answer to your question, duchesse, I would say the way to make the transition is to relax and enjoy it.