Why Is It So Hard To Embrace My Grey Hair?
I declared I’d never color my hair again. Yet here I am staring at my freshly dyed roots.
Oops, I did it again.
I colored my grey hair, and I’m back in the game.
Just a few months ago, I had declared in my weekly writer’s group that I would stop coloring my hair.
I told them it was a feminist statement, a big F-you to the beauty industry. I was going to embrace my greying strands.
At 51, it came from a place of wanting to embrace aging gracefully, save time, and, most importantly, accept myself as I am, grey hair and all.
Yet here I am, sitting in front of the mirror, looking at my freshly dyed roots, wondering why it’s so hard to embrace my grey hair.
The societal whisper
This time, I went without coloring my greys for a record three months. I announced this was my last time, so I’d be held accountable.
Then life happened: an Easter family party, the first gathering since I colored my grey strands. I had to dye my hair or use a color spray can to hide the greys temporarily.
Let me rephrase that — I didn’t have to. It was some kind of invisible power — no, it was more insidious than that — a societal whisper telling me I had to.
It’s partly because growing grey hair is not a quick or easy process.
It’s a gradual process with an awkward middle stage, and the stark contrast between my natural black and grey hair made it aesthetically challenging.
It’s not like the family would’ve cared. I could've laid bare and shown up as myself, an aging woman. Nothing would’ve happened — absolutely nothing.
Even when I’m an older mom with a son who just turned five and a husband 17 years younger. His family (we live in Germany) accepts me without judgment.
So, what is a societal whisper?
I’ve caught my son poking fun at his friend and calling him an old man. At such a young age, how does he know old is bad, young is good?
Societal whisper starts young.
In February, we celebrated the 93rd birthday of my son’s paternal great-grandmother. I snapped a picture of her with her two daughters, one on each side.
When I showed her the picture, she frowned. “Oh no,” she said. “I have dark circles,” pointing under her eye. She asked me to retake it after her daughter applied makeup on her.
Societal whisper lingers.
I was surprised, though. I thought by that age one becomes indifferent to such things. The same was true for my Nepali maternal grandma. She wore makeup and jewelry until she died at 87.
It doesn’t matter where you’re from or how old you are. The beauty industry has you believing your natural self is not enough, and like the roots of a tree, that narrative becomes our foundation.
After all, they’re counting on our low esteem and discontent to make them rich.
Celebrity gossip reinforces this. Imagine the headline and chaos if Jennifer Lopez was spotted with grey hair.
Oh wait, the Daily Mail has already captured her in 2015 with this headline:
She looks so different without makeup! Jennifer Lopez, 46, dares to bare her naked face while showing off grey roots on Shades Of Blue set.
Compare that with how the Daily Mail described George Clooney in 2011 (he was 50) when he did an advert for Mercedes Benz.
They both look best in silver! George Clooney smoulders in Mercedes Benz advert
Societal whisper discriminates.
Nothing new here: our society celebrates youth and stigmatizes aging, particularly for women. Grey hair is seen as something to hide than to celebrate.
And the constant barrage of media images of middle-aged celebrities who look decades younger can chip away at you.
Say Sandra Bullock (59) stopped dyeing her hair. Would she still be marketable?
She would make headlines, mostly negative (like you saw with Jennifer Lopez). And if it’s positive, the news angle would be about her hair making some kind of statement.
Like older women on TikTok embracing their grey hair and telling us to forget the narrative that grey hair = old.
While I’m happy these women are loving their grey hair, the truth is 61% of American women aged 40–59 color their hair, and 75% do so to cover their grey hair.
Many feel the pressure when they land a job interview or — I’m guessing here, but I don’t think I’m far off — to keep their job.
No matter whether you embrace it or not, it seems that for middle-aged women, having grey hair is about portraying a certain image by either conforming to the beauty standard and thus looking younger.
Or fighting it and making some kind of statement.
Ask any middle-aged woman. I’m sure at one time or the other, they’ve struggled with the decision to grow out their grey hair. I’d be happy to be wrong. If you’re such a woman, I envy you.
But from where I stand, it feels like aging naturally, especially allowing grey hair to show, is not easy for women.
No longer taut, not yet a hag
I’m on the cusp of aging—no longer young, but not that old. Is it so bad that I want to bathe in the illusion that I’m not that old for a few more years?
It’s not just about vanity, though.
Sure, I love my black hair. It’s my identity and a significant part of my self-image. Changing its color, especially one that society tells us signifies aging, feels scary.
It’s about how I see myself and believe others perceive me. As a woman in her early 50s with a husband in his early 30s, it makes me wonder whether I’d look like a grandma standing next to him.
Many tell me they can’t tell the age difference, and even if they don’t mean it, it’s a welcome compliment.
Dyeing my hair allows me to choose how I present myself to the world, to control one small aspect of my aging process, and, in some ways, to hold onto a version of myself that feels familiar (and better).
As I age, the difference will be much more noticeable — that’s a guarantee. Perhaps that’s why letting nature take its course is so hard?
But the question is, would I not color my greys if my husband was closer to my age? I can’t be sure.
What’s sure is we will either age or die. And I know aging is a privilege. Many women have died before they turned really old, like my mom. She was 65.
But knowing that doesn’t mean I need to like the process, right?
What’s bizarre is when she died, the coroner asked whether he should color mom’s hair and put on makeup in preparation for the funeral.
Humans are afraid of a corpse that looks like a corpse. And humans are afraid of a woman who looks her age or, worse, looks older than her age.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see a woman celebrity who looks her age, though? Imagine if that was the majority.
Like Jennifer Lopez with full-on grey hair? Or say Jennifer Aniston with grey roots? Simply a natural woman with natural greying hair?
I don’t mean older women in their 70s, where grey hair is considered acceptable. I mean women in their 40s and 50s—the age group when we’re not supposed to age.
I mean middle-aged women celebrities shown as they are without having to look unusually young for their age.
Celebrities like Nicole Kidman (56), Halle Berry (55), and Julia Roberts (54).
Warning: don’t click on the links if you don’t want to see women in their 50s not looking their age.
This kind of depiction is why adults aged 40 to 54 account for nearly half (49%) of all cosmetic procedures, both surgical and minimally invasive.
But the beauty industry has it all wrong — three of four American women say beauty and personal grooming ads featuring real people “make them feel better about themselves.”
Yep, you heard them. American women want to see “real people.”
What better way to serve them than to normalize the aging process and redefine beauty standards by showcasing more grey-haired women?
Perhaps then it wouldn’t seem so foreign for middle-aged women like me to embrace grey hair.
And we will respect and value women of all ages, recognizing their worth beyond their physical appearance.
That would be a dream come true.
But the harsh truth is the likelihood of that ever happening in a society so afraid of aging is slim to none.
Besides, celebrities who do so can say bye-bye to their careers. Women in their 50s are grossly underrepresented in TV shows and films.
When they do appear, they’re frequently cast in supporting roles where they are “consistently portrayed as grumpy, frumpy, or senile.”
Fellow writer Charlie Brown says this in her excellent article about embracing her crow’s feet: “That’s the prerogative of aging. You get to give less of a fuck.”
She’s right. I don’t really care if people like me or not. I don’t live to please a man. I don’t apologize if I don’t have to.
With aging comes freedom, or the permission to be whoever you want. You’re finally allowed to be bitchy. No one’s gonna mind ‘cause you’re old, and you’ve earned it.
Someday, I’ll wear my grey hair like a crown. At what age, I’m not sure.
But I sure hope it’s sooner than later.
June Kirri is the founding editor of Bitchy. She writes about feminism, women, and motherhood.