What's at the root of our hair choices? Three writers unravel the state of their strands—read the stories below, here, and here.
Earlier this month, I bought a Nice’n Easy hair color kit. It’s been sitting on my entryway console ever since, as I mull over whether I should actually break down and use it. I say “break down” because I’ve been going gray for 25 years now and haven’t dyed it yet.
In my late 20s, when the grays started coming in, I didn’t explicitly decide to not fight them. It’s more like the decision was made for me, because at the time I was an early adopter of the Japanese magic perm straightening treatment (which predated the widespread availability of the Brazilian blowout), and they didn’t really know if the straightening would make color-processed hair fall out. (It certainly made my grays less wiry, and almost gave them a shiny sparkle.) Since I valued straight hair over brunette hair, I went with the straight.
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In my mid-30s, I got together with my now husband, who, importantly, has always loved my gray hair. In fact, he says that of all the things I’ve gone in for over the years—Botox, permanent eyeliner, laser hair removal (all the set-it-and-forget-it treatments!)—dyeing my hair would be grounds for divorce. (If I did find myself single in my 50s, I would hightail my ass to a colorist.) When people ask me why I let myself go gray—and Jesus, do they ask!—I always explain that “I caught my fish, and my fish likes my gray hair.” My fish also had the good sense to rapidly go gray himself in the past five years, with a full-on Dumbledore situation in his beard.
Another gray-friendly formative event occurred in my mid-30s: My mom, who’d been dyeing her hair for as long as I could remember, decided to let her sparkling white hair take over. That growing-out phase was ugly and awkward. Watching her gingery, light brown short hair slowly grow out to become a Mary Berry–style platinum white was moooonnnnths in the growing and waiting. One morning, my dad carried on a full conversation with what he thought was my mom, still in bed, before realizing he was in fact talking to their mottled marmalade cat nestled on her pillow. Seeing my mom’s hair transition, just as my own grays started regenerating with rapid speed, I remember thinking, I don’t ever want to weather a growing-out phase like that. I don’t want to have a big old stripe of Anderson Cooper roots along my part as my hair grows out.
If I occasionally/increasingly feel like my gray hair is at odds with how I imagine my brunette self, it does jibe with my inherent practicality and thrift: I simply do not feel like I have the spare time or money for salon dyeing. I used to share an office with a woman who would disappear for a full afternoon every month to get her hair colored. I was always gripped with the certainty that I would be fired if I ever tried any such thing (and broke if I had to pay several hundred dollars for the color). The one person who would be really good at home-coloring my hair is my husband—as a professional cabinetmaker, he regularly mixes and titrates wood finishes and stains—but, as established, he is not interested in helping me.
Of course, I realize how lucky I am that my decades of going gray has more or less coincided with young women actually choosing to dye their hair gray (and a resultant proliferation of really good brass-cutting shampoos and conditioners). My hair has come of age just as some foundational ideals of beauty and aging have changed, and I’m grateful for that, too. But also: I get so very many compliments on my gray hair the way I never did when it was brown. Maybe it’s dog-whistle stuff and the subtext is “You are so brave for becoming an old bag with such dignity” or whatever other nonsense they mean. But on the face of it, they are saying something nice, and I say “Thank you” and go on with my day. It gives me just enough confidence to walk past the Nice’n Easy in my entryway for a few more days at least.
Rory Evans lives in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter, dog, and a still-unused hair-dye kit.
