Beauty

[SAVANAHGIRL]

Interesting thread. I've been growing out my bangs AND my color for months now. My hair is white, white, white. The last time i was at the hairdressers, I had her do a full head of highlights. Now, as it grows in white, it kinda of looks platinum. I NEVER thought that I'd do this, but I'm sick and tired of coloring, the coloring wasn't holding so good any longer, and I'm tired of all of the money involved as I retired about a year ago. If I hadn't retired, I don't think I'd have done this because of then, perhaps, looking older than my co-workers, although my face is young.

[pattypeep]

Thank you to those that have chimed in. It makes me even more excited and ready for this venture when I hear how you all love your hair. Sunnybrook, I hear you about waiting until you retired. I retired six years ago but was a little slow getting on the grey hair bus. What finally did it for me I think was when I attended my 50 year HS reunion last year and noticed that everyone but me had gone natural (grey). Yikes ! I felt really weird. It's never been so much that I didn't want to have grey hair, but I really like red hair. (More of a strawberry blonde/apricot red).

[kate2357]

Good for all of you ladies embracing your white/gray hair. I've kinda put myself in the same situation. I've not gone to the colorists in 6 months and have been using a bit of semi perm color mixed w/ Wen to get myself over the hump. Right now it's a pretty platinum color w/ still a bit of gold. I'm not getting the demarcation line of grow out so I think it's all just sort of fading to white.

Just not sure if this all white look will fade me out in the winter. White hair on pasty white skin. LOL. But at this point, not even tempted to pay my colorist $100+ to foil my hair.

[brewhaha]

I hope your family will accept you for who you are.

[Forever Grateful]

twopeas, glad to hear you are liking your new look. I have been gray (silver white in the front) for about 5 years. I have always liked the way it looked when I looked in the mirror, but hated the way it looked when I saw a picture of myself. I was at a gathering a couple of weeks ago, and there were two women whom I know sitting across the room for me. When I looked at them I thought to myself if I didn't know they were sisters (one has dyed hair and the other is gray) I would think that they were mother and daughter even though there is only five years between them. I immediately thought of my sister and I, she is 5 years older than I am and dyes her hair and I wondered if people have thought that I was her mother. My hair stylist has always complimented me on my gray hair and said I shouldn't dye it, but when I told her about the two women she said yes even though gray hair can be very pretty it does age you somewhat. She said that when you see gray hair you automatically think of an older person and I guess I would have to agree with her. I know that my husband preferred my hair when I colored it, in fact when I shared this story with him he said my gray hair makes me look 10 years older (yikes!). I am 59 and I have decided to go and get my hair colored. I hate the thought of going through all that again as my hair is short and would have to be dyed quite often which would be a hassle as well as the expense. I hope I won't be sorry with my decision.

[Mystical]

I don't think I would ever let myself go completely gray unless I ever get too sick to dye it. I've been dying my hair since I was 16 and I'm 74 now. Luckily, I have thick curly hair so it's survived through all that abuse. I dyed my hair fuschia and was letting the hair in back go gray since I don't have to look at it. But actually, I do have to look at it when I hold up a mirror to comb my hair, and then that gray hair started depressing me even though it's in the back. So now I'm going to either dye my hair completely fuschia or go back to dying my hair blonde as I've been doing for quite a few years. It does get tiring to keep dying your hair, but that's life as I see it. I really don't want to look older than what I already am. I just can't do it!

[151949]

On 9/8/2014 twopeas said:

On 9/8/2014 happy housewife said:

This is how my natural auburn hair actually turned white - in streaks. Sadly though, it started when I was about 25. My father left for WW11 with red hair and came home with hardly any hair left and what was there was white. He was 27. imagine my Mom's surprize! Anyway, I guess i came by it naturally. I love my white hair and how it shines in the sunshine. white is so much prettier than grey IMO. I still , at 65, sometimes have hair fall out that is halfway dark and then has turned white, as I still have a little dark in the back.I still have red eyelashes and eyebrows.

I bet your hair of beautiful. Both my parents had gorgeous white hair and my brother, whom I lost last year, had a beautiful head of thick, white hair. Did you notice that your hair has less body now or about the same as before? My mom still had a bit of auburn hair at the nape of her neck when she passed away at 83. The rest of her hair was pretty much totally white.

I have always had fine straight hair and still do. Your Mom and I are the same - still some traces of dark in the back but otherwise snow white.

[151949]

IMO - anyone so shallow that they can only see the color of my hair when they look at me is not worth my time and certainly not worth the effort to have to keep coloring my hair for.

I also wholeheartedly believe that anyone who thinks everyone doesn't know you are coloring your hair is only fooling herself. Exp if you are in your 70's. Trust me - everyone knows you have grey hair under that dye job. People are not that naive.

[pattypeep]

On 9/8/2014 Forever Grateful said:

twopeas, glad to hear you are liking your new look. I have been gray (silver white in the front) for about 5 years. I have always liked the way it looked when I looked in the mirror, but hated the way it looked when I saw a picture of myself. I was at a gathering a couple of weeks ago, and there were two women whom I know sitting across the room for me. When I looked at them I thought to myself if I didn't know they were sisters (one has dyed hair and the other is gray) I would think that they were mother and daughter even though there is only five years between them. I immediately thought of my sister and I, she is 5 years older than I am and dyes her hair and I wondered if people have thought that I was her mother. My hair stylist has always complimented me on my gray hair and said I shouldn't dye it, but when I told her about the two women she said yes even though gray hair can be very pretty it does age you somewhat. She said that when you see gray hair you automatically think of an older person and I guess I would have to agree with her. I know that my husband preferred my hair when I colored it, in fact when I shared this story with him he said my gray hair makes me look 10 years older (yikes!). I am 59 and I have decided to go and get my hair colored. I hate the thought of going through all that again as my hair is short and would have to be dyed quite often which would be a hassle as well as the expense. I hope I won't be sorry with my decision.

I loved reading your story. I definitely think you should go ahead and color your hair. You need to do what makes you comfortable and you are still very young !! There may or may not come a day when you wish to go gray. I may only end up going partially gray. I will take it one step at a time. Good luck. I would love to hear from you after your color appointment.

[pattypeep]

On 9/8/2014 happy housewife said:

IMO - anyone so shallow that they can only see the color of my hair when they look at me is not worth my time and certainly not worth the effort to have to keep coloring my hair for.

I also wholeheartedly believe that anyone who thinks everyone doesn't know you are coloring your hair is only fooling herself. Exp if you are in your 70's. Trust me - everyone knows you have grey hair under that dye job. People are not that naive.

HH, yes, you are correct and I agree with you. That being said, I do believe that most of us (myself included) color our hair and do whatever else it is that we do because it makes us feel better about ourselves, not that we are concerned about how others view us. At least that's my take on it.