This is not my hair, but it is about the right color and style.
This is not really about haircuts, but about hair. Like many women I know, I started coloring my hair when it started showing gray. In my case, I was in my 40s. No one seemed to notice the gray, but people started telling me I looked tired and asked me if I was feeling well. I decided the gray was making me look washed out, so I started coloring it.
There are a few privileges of getting old. Maybe gray hair is one of them.
The problem with coloring is that you have to keep doing it, or you get this two-tone look. I have seen women who can carry off that look, but I am not one of them. I look like someone wearing a skunk pelt on my head. The other reason to keep doing it is that I discovered as I got older that age discrimination in employment is a real thing. Coloring my hair and removing my graduation dates from my resume – as well as summarizing my first twenty or so years of employment with no dates – at least held it off until I could make my case.
But 2020 was not only the year of the pandemic, it was also the year I retired. (Actually, I had been gradually cutting back on the amount of work I was doing for a decade or so, but 2020 was the year I officially “retired.”) So no more fighting perceptions of what old people can’t do, and no one would see me growing it out – at least no one who wasn’t working at my local grocery store.
After the first few months of the pandemic, I started getting occasional haircuts, so that now, a year later, the brown is completely gone and I have all gray hair. The other day in the grocery store, a woman called me “ma’am” and let me in line in front of her. I think there may be some privileges to getting old. Or I may just follow the example of a friend, who colors her light gray hair a lovely shade of purple.
Kathy Porter
That hair in the picture is lovely, Kathy, and I’m sure yours is too. I’ve only had one haircut since the pandemic started – in December, for the Atlanta trip – and that took off half my brown. I think in another month I will get it cut again and get rid of the rest. But when we get together again, we will still feel like teenagers.
Or, if not teenagers, at least college students. Thanks, Suzy.
I have a few purple-headed friends Kathy.
I think it’s not for me but if it makes them happy, why not!
It’s one of the privileges of age — we can look like whatever we want. Thanks, Dana.
Congratulations! Don’t look back! The hardest part is behind you. Now just enjoy the freedom from foil.
I am looking forward to it. Thanks, Risa.
Freedom from foil, hurrah!
Go for it Kathy. I think purple would look great.
It might, but now that I know it takes a year to grow out, I would have to think about it very carefully. Thanks, Betsy.
I have a younger friend who uses some sort of non-permanent rinse. She goes from lavender to pink to platinum and washes it out as she pleases. Maybe your could look into something like that. I believe it is organic.
I could look at that. My niece’s sons colored their hair green for St. Patrick’s Day, and I know she would not let them do that permanently.
Been through the same thing, Kathy, loved your recounting. I’m thinking of lilac for mine, but maybe I’ll try a streak first.
Streaks seem to be very popular also. Thanks, Marian.
Good for you, Kathy. Sorry I didn’t do the same thing over this past year. No one can possibly believe someone my age has brown hair.
Enough of us do it that I don’t think it is about fooling anyone about our age. It is about how we want to present ourselves to the world. Thanks, Laurie.
I enjoyed this combination of personal and sociological history! And the last sentence was a well-chosen killer!
Thanks, Dale!
That’s me with the purple hair, Kathy! Most people figure out that it’s not natural;-)
Nice piece!
But I’m sure it’s lovely. Thanks!