Going grey, and refusing "the bottle"!

I'm 38.

There, I said it.

And another confession: I'm starting to get grey hair.

Not many grey hairs, yet. But I've yanked a couple, mainly from around my hairline at the front, near my temples.

I look after my hair, and it is in good condition, but at my last appointment a few weeks ago, my hairdresser suggested that I might want to dye it.

But I've decided I don't want to dye my hair. I'm going to embrace my grey hair. I'm going to accept my silver! And I want to talk about why.

A feminist perspective

Have you ever noticed how men - get "distinguished" while women get extinguished?

Men can get as old and crusty as you could hope to see, yet they're still stars of action movies.

Look at Clint Eastwood, age 79; Harrison Ford, age 67; and Sean Connery, age 79.

How many 79 year-old women have you seen in movies lately, in anything other than "character" roles?

Why is grey hair on women considered unattractive in society? Yet, if you think about it, grey is just a colour. Nothing more.

I sing in a choir full of people with grey hair, and some of them, particularly the women, have the most beautiful, well-kept hair you could ever see.

These women are anything but crusty! They are active, powerful, beautiful, glamourous women, and I'm proud to call them friends. I only hope I'll look so great when I'm 100% grey!

Slavishly following fashion: selling out our oceans when we buy in to "the bottle"

Then there's the issue of frosting, and high-lights, and low-lights, and all those other unnatural things. My hairdresser is in her early 20s, and has more colours in her hair than I could care to name.

Every second woman on the street, it seems, has fake colour in her hair. I don't understand why.

Fashion is fickle, but in this case, it is downright poisonous.

I happen to like natural-looking hair. I like seeing people who have kept their original colour, and can spot coloured hair a mile off. To me, it looks as fake as those people who sport orange legs in the hope of convincing people they're tanned.

All the while it is more chemicals being washed down the drain, into our waterways, where our frogs are dying out and our insect life is suffering and our fish are being poisoned. We're being warned not to eat those fish and the oysters and the shellfish, because we've fouled everything up so much.

So many heavy metals and chemicals and other rubbish finding its way into our lifeblood waterways, and so much of it all is unnecessary.

Taking a stand

Sooner or later, we have to take a stand. If we don't, who will?

All we see, when we colour our hair, is the gunk running down the sink, and "away" somewhere. We just see our gunk - our little piece of the puzzle.

But imagine, for a moment, all the hundreds of millions of women all over the world, colouring their hair, just like us.

Imagine all their gunk, running down the drain and "away" somewhere.

Where is "away"? Is that my backyard, or yours? My ocean, or yours? My drinking water, or yours?

What you've got is an ecological wreckage, based on vanity and someone somewhere's idea that having coloured hair is a good idea.

Probably that same "someone, somewhere" who sells hair colours. Or "beauty" magazines. Or both.

Yes, I could go for the so-called "natural" hair colours. But henna always looked a bit dodgy with my skin tone. It looks a bit dodgy on most people, to be honest.

And I don't believe the advertising talk on the back of the packages of so-called "safe", eco-friendly hair colours. If a product isn't safe to eat or put in my eyes, I don't want it in my waterways, thank you very much.

Daughter goes grey, mother stays brunette!

I'll feel weird when I see my mother over the next few years, and I go grey and she doesn't.

She dyes her hair, of course.

I wonder if my non-dyeing will make her re-think her hair colour?

Probably not. But maybe, just maybe, it will get a little embarrassing to have a daughter over 20 years her junior sporting grey hair, when she still has sleek, red-brown, bottle-shiny hair.

And there's the issue of believability. I mean, did anyone really believe that Ronald Reagan, for instance, never had grey hair naturally until he died?

If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you!

Rethinking age and beauty

I think older women are sometimes stunning. I think older people, generally, can offer so much to our society, and I dislike the obsession our society has with youth and agelessness.

Sure, I'm as vain as the next person. I look after my skin and wear sun block and moisturiser to keep it looking as good as possible. I like my hair to look nice and well-kept - a real struggle with my bushy mane! And I like to wear clothes that are vaguely stylish and neat and in good condition.

But I am not willing to trash our oceans to do it. I'm not willing to put carcinogenic chemicals on my head in order to live down to a stupid expectation of everlasting youth - which is impossible anyway. I'm getting older, and hopefully wiser, and I like that.

I'm happy with the fact that I will be 40 at the end of next year. It is something to celebrate.

Sometimes the biggest changes in society, and in our world, start with the smallest steps. I will not dye my hair. I have called my hairdresser and told her I say NO to colour. Maybe you'll read this and decide that you want to take a stand too - that's your choice.

But maybe, if we all accept age and grey hair and wrinkles and all the other facets of ageing, we'd all be a lot happier. If we put down the "beauty" magazines, and instead looked in the mirror and accepted ourselves and our own, unique beauty, as we are, then our community - and our planet - would be a much healthier place.

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This post was inspired by Franke James' provocative visual essay, The Beehive and the Hairball.

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Cluttercut - Be the change