Everyday Goddess

Long, Fine, Wavy and Gray: The Care and Feeding of Gray Hair

I got an email recently from Kristen, who wrote:

So, I'm 32 going on 20. I have had gray hair my whole life but in the last 5 years it has been rapidly taking over my head! I'm ok with it. My mom would be fully gray, if not for befriending clairol many many years ago. I'm far too lazy and cheap to dye my hair. Also, I just figure this is what I was given, so I'm going with it. I'm contacting you because I'm hoping you might be able to help me. I'm sure you know, but finding info about gray hair care for a person under the age of 50 is pretty difficult. I know the texture changes but I just don't know how to care for it. If you have any pointers, I would be incredibly grateful!

I've actually been meaning to write a post on this for a while, because it really is such a journey, and there isn't much out there for younger women with natural hair. It's been so rare in recent decades that even most stylists don't have a clue.

Personally, it took me a while to figure it out. And the kicker, of course, is that no one around you realizes you just don't know how to care for your hair yet, they just think you're crazy and your hair looks bad. OK, people probably still think I'm crazy, but my hair looks better these days.

And it certainly looks better for not letting anyone chop it off!

 The secret to gray hair is this: MOISTURE MOISTURE MOISTURE. And styling products.

As someone with fine, wavy hair, I spent my youth on volumizing hair products. I also used as few products as possible, so as not to weigh my hair down. And I lived in Florida, so moisture wasn't ever an issue.

Grow out your gray, and suddenly you have an entirely different situation. (Note, I've no idea about thick gray hair, or straight gray hair, but I suspect that the moisture issue is universal.)

These days I use moisturizing shampoo and conditioner. Don't be afraid if you have fine hair and it says it's for medium thick hair. Then, I spray on and comb through a leave-in conditioner, and if at all possible I air dry my hair, sometimes running a shine product through it when it's almost dry.

I usually style my hair with a curling iron, see pic above. Before I use the iron, I spray on a heat protector, and after I have curled it all, I use the most important thing, a smoothing cream. I rub it on my hands, and then lightly run my fingers through my hair, underside first so it doesn't go on too heavy on top.

Then, hairspray for fine hair, and I use a touch of sculpting gel on my part to try to minimize flyaways. Which there's only so much you can do about those, but when they're gray they're more noticeable, so I do what I can.

You can see me talk about using the gel to tame flyaways in this video book review I did of "Going Gray" by Anne Kreamer, which is an awesome book that I highly recommend. By the way, I'm still using that same tub of sculpting jelly from 4 years ago! When you just use a touch a day, it lasts a really long time.

I also use a purple shampoo and a moisturizing treatment at least once a month. I find the purple shampoos, which keep your grays nice and cool, to be fairly drying, so I always pair this with a deep moisturizing treatment.

So that seems like a lot of products when I write it down. Seriously, the fact that my hair could now withstand, and in fact needs, what's basically an onslaught of products was a huge revelation for me.

Beyond products, regular hair cuts are SUPER important. You don't spend money on dye, but you also can't go a year without a hair cut. I go every 4 months now; that seems to be the sweet spot. You've got to keep gray hair healthy and trimmed, no matter what the length. A trim makes a huge difference in manageability, and if your hair is ever looking raggedy or driving you crazy with tangles and flyaways, the first thing you should think about is, when did you last get it cut.

And finally, my last piece of advice is ROCK IT. I don't get as many compliments on my hair or my looks as I did before I went gray, and certainly some people hate it, and I've had some negative consequences and experiences. But a few times a year someone crosses a room or makes a point in conversation to tell me my hair rocks. Over the years, these people have been young and old, male and female.

If I'm meeting someone new, they're never confused which woman is me. I'll often say, I'll be the only woman under fifty with gray hair. Or I'll call it "cinnamon and sugar." I'm a special snowflake in an urban sea of black clothes and brightly dyed hair. It suits me just fine.

To recap:

• Moisture, and don't be afraid to layer on the hair products.
• Regular hair cuts.
• Rock it.

It's also *really* helpful to seek out opportunities to see pictures of all sorts of women with all sorts of gray hair. It will help you pick a cut, and if necessary, help you convince your stylist that gray hair doesn't mean you can't have a more youthful look.

Good luck! And if you have any more gray hair care advice, I'd love to hear it in the comments. Rock and joy.

 ~

Linky Goodness and great gray hair resources:

Color Me Gray ebook (I'm in it!) from the Going Gray blog.

Going Gray, Looking Great and The Silver Sisters Cafe Gray forum.

Shades of Gray (Hair), the category on Everyday Goddess with all my gray hair posts.

I'm considering a slight Internet dating deception.

So, I am an honest and straightforward person who never hides who they are. My goal with my online dating profile is first and foremost to be authentic and specific, rather than to have a more general profile designed to garner a lot of dates. The other way is perfectly valid if you're at a point where you want to go out a lot and meet a lot of different people, but these days I'm more into quality than quantity.

But. I'm considering changing my profile to downplay my gray hair as much as possible. And then yes, having it show up to the table, because it does have the quality of being attached to my head. 30-Something with Gray Hair: Surprise!

Right now, it's totally out there on my profile, as is my style. I say this:

The first things people usually notice about me:

I’m betting it’s a tie between my natural Rogue-streaked hair and my ebullient laugh.

And this is one of my pics, where my hair looks really white in front of the fountain:

The thing is, I know that the gray hair is a weird thing. A potentially off-putting thing.

And I usually feel most sympatico with and date younger guys, which makes it potentially even more of a thing. Though let's be honest, like the entire age dynamic in dating, it's probably even more of a thing the closer a guy is to my age. Just as more younger guys will date up in age vs. older guys who tend to want someone younger than them. I suspect it's a Gen Y v. Gen X thing, but who knows.

But the point: I love my hair, but sometimes it makes me feel like I'm asking a lot of the universe. I know for a fact that some of the people around me think that.

Back to the online dating profile, whatever you're going to see or think when you meet me in person, it's got to be weird to consider on the page and just looking at pics. I suspect I would have a more attractive profile if I downplayed it, and then just showed up as a full, in-person package. Looking my best and laughing ebulliantly. Because I think once you get used to it, a lot of people do find my gray hair interesting and even attractive.

But I just don't know if I have it in me to play that game.

What do you think? Should I try it?

Gray Hair or Vagina?

One of my favorite life moments of sexism happened when I was an undergrad. I was just starting to change some girl's tire with a sorority sister when a trunk rolled up. "Do you girls even know what you're doing?" a man drawled as he walked up, eyeing us with skeptical amusement.

In my memory, we just threw up our hands and walked away. Hey, man, if you wanna do the work, you go for it. Be our guest.

I've been thinking of that moment recently because I seem to have hit a spat of something that feels similar. It starts with my suitcase for BlogHer.

On the way to BlogHer, my suitcase was 48 pounds. Heavy, but not too bad. On the way back, it was 60. Yes, it would have been cheaper if I had two bags. If this is THAT big a deal to you, btw, you're too cheap to date me.

So, 60-pound suitcase. Here's what happens when you warn the bag check guys (2 of them), the bellman, the cab driver, and the guy at the baggage belt at JFK:

Liz: Careful, it's really heavy

Man: Rolls eyes, grabs bag firmly, almost kills self, feels compelled to grin sheepishly and admit that yes, indeedy, that suitcase is really heavy.

Liz: Told ya.

Each time, though, I thought, Hm... Gray Hair or Vagina?

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm getting more of this sort of thing lately due to my gray hair. It confuses perception of my age - and since older women are often registered and mentally dismissed before a real look, it can have a rather noted effect in casual circumstances - or if it's simply a matter of my lady bits and all the wonderful assumptions they often bring with them.

It doesn't really matter, of course. For one thing, it made for rather amusing encounter after amusing encounter, although I'm glad no one actually hurt themselves on my 60-pound suitcase. And since I'm not planning to give up my lady bits or my gray hair anytime soon, the effects of both are simply life to be navigated.

But today: Grateful when silly assumptions amuse me.

Yes, You can ask me about my hair.

I'm considering whether this would be funny to put across the bottom of my personal business cards: "Yes, You can ask me about my hair." Because I think more people want to than do. What do you think? I do enjoy talking about my gray hair when someone asks, and it would kinda break the ice.

Another hair thought...

I've learned some things of late as my hair's gotten longer, and I've been wearing it down. The importance of brushing on so many levels. First, I remembered how when I was little there was this thing about 100 brush strokes before bed - I think I got it from the Little House on the Prairie books. I remember regularly cleaning brushes full of hair.

Like many people with long hair, I'm constantly dropping long strands. I particularly notice it during gaming when one of my hairs finds its way to the board. So I wondered if more brushing (more than just what it takes to style my hair) would solve this.

I mean, it felt like something I used to know and do, and somehow forgot. And BTW, it's totally true! When I give my hair a good brushing before I go out, I shed less, and my hair is more manageable as well.

Another reason brushing is important: When the wind blows, my gray hair kinks up, sticks out, and I look like a crazy person. One day last month, I didn't actually look into a mirror at myself until the end of the day, AFTER a movie. I was washing my hands, and I thought, Oh, I should look in the mirror, and I literally gasped at what a fool I looked. (Yes, I'm often so in my head that I can stand at a sink and not actually see myself.)

I notice people look at my hair fairly regularly, with various expressions. So it's difficult to realize that on a particular day "gray hair, how odd" has turned to "look at that woman with the crazy-person hair." Total mortification! But seriously, my hair could be perfect and sometimes I get that look just because I've got gray hair. There's no way to really read an expression coming at me and realize something's off.

So now I'm trying to regularly make sure my hair is as tamed as possible, and I'm not rocking the Einstein look. Oy vey!

I totally realized I should have taken a picture of my crazy hair for the blog, but in the few seconds it took to have that thought, I'd whipped open my purse, grabbed my comb, and brushed my hair back down into place in a frenzy of horror that I'd been walking around that way.

You know, when it's windy and it feels great, sometimes you want to think you're rocking some sort of sexy, windswept look. Yeah, Not So Much.

I look old.

And I know that my naturally gray hair does this - tricks the unknowing eye into perceiving my age inaccurately. I know that it's noticeable even as I've lost the ability to see it that way myself and sometimes forget.

And I know that to a lot of people 38 *is* old. But I don't even know what that really means. My age doesn't effect *me* per se, but it definitely effects how people perceive and relate to me. It means things to them I can only guess at because I don't live my life any differently than I did eight years ago when I moved to L.A. I worry about perceptions of my age and how it effects my life in terms of romance, and even my job hunt.

And my gray hair exacerbates the entire situation.

My hair that I love and that I think is wonderfully unique. My hair that I wear this way because I think it's beautiful.

Particularly hurtful: When people think that I grow out my natural hair because I don't care about my appearance. Like clearly I don't care about being attractive because if I did I would dye my hair.

Instead, it's that I'm caught between what I perceive as attractive, and the fact that I'm not an idiot.

I once dated someone who was sometimes amazed by my ability to both feel bad that he was upset by something I was doing, and my refusal to change when it was something that was important to me. "If you really cared," he would say, "You would change."

Well, I do care. I care a lot. I don't want to be perceived as 10 years older than I am. I don't want to be put into a category I don't currently belong in. And I want to be as attractive and as sexy as I can be. I absolutely do care - for better or for worse - about my looks.

But I also don't want to dye my hair when I damn well don't want to dye my hair, just to cave to society's perception of youth and beauty. I don't want to have to spend that time in a salon, I don't want to spend the money, I don't want to have half as much hair because it's all falling out, and frankly, *I* find plenty of dyed hair unattractive. And sometimes even aging.

In a vacuum, in my mind, I don't look a day over 38, because I am 38 and this is what my hair looks like.

In a vacuum, in my mind, I think my gray hair is beautiful and sexy and I love it. And I believe that there are other people who see it that way, too.

But IRL, sometimes, I know I just look old.

Two more drugstore brands later, I gave in.

Here's an interesting post from Wise Bread: On choosing and defending your luxuries.

Gray-Haired Girl

And then one day, my gray hair was completely grown in, and I fell in love.

I've realized that I hardly know how to write about it anymore because now it's just become part of who I am. I think it's beautiful and cool, personally. (And yes, maybe this means I'm living in my own La La world.) But more often than not I kinda forget about it. Or at least, I forget about the issue of it. That it's different from what most women do.

I mean, I've got next to no idea what anyone in my life thinks about it, because if you ask, people usually refuse to be honest with you, and the average person doesn't walk up and start talking to you about your hair no matter what they think. I do still occasionally notice people looking at it, and I've been treated with odd disdain by a couple of clerks in the last few months, but who knows what that's about.

The other day at work a friend snapped a pic of me at my desk. What's interesting about it to me is that it's a day that I simply washed and air-dried my hair. So this is 100% natural right here:

I am also very much enjoying the increased health of my hair. Entire areas of my hair line have started not only growing back, but now there's some additional length there (wispy length, but still) that I have actually been able to clamp with a curling iron. I am loving that!

I will say that one thing that's definitely changed in my life is that no one ever tells me that my hair looks nice, which hurts a little. But sometimes peeps tell me that *I* look nice, so I guess I'm OK. I know the gray hair is really difficult for people to grok, and I can only imagine that some peeps do not find it attractive or wise.

End of the day: I love it.

So, that's the gray hair update. I guess I'll only blog about it again if something happens like I'm accosted by some horrified reality show make-over person, lol. Hey, I live in Los Angeles. It could happen.

Meanwhile, here's a great post from Los Angelista who has beautiful natural hair: My Natural Hair Is Not A Fashion Trend. Rock on.

I love my hair.

It was very cliché.

My heart smashed into a million little pieces, I walked into the salon and told my stylist, "I'm done. We're cutting it off." I wanted to be done with this time. I wanted to feel shorn.

She looked at it dry first to see where the line was. Then wet, she cut it about an inch down from that and blew it dry. I frowned at myself in the mirror, seeing only that last reddish inch on the bottom.

But then she chopped it. She coarse cut into the bottom inch to maintain as much length as possible, and when she was done, my hair was one color. Well, no; my hair was rich, purple-y brown and white and various other shades of beautiful.

It was natural. It was all mine.

It wasn't even *that* short.

And 1 year, 3 months, and 15 days after the last time I dyed my hair one solid color to cover my grays, I was free.

 

More pics on Flickr.

Why I Stopped Dyeing my Hair. Now With Some Items I've Been Forgetting To Mention.

1. I have better things to spend my time on than regular, lengthy visits to the salon for hair color.
2. I have better things to spend my money on than regular, expensive visits to the salon for hair color. (Hair dye from the drugstore was looking worse and worse.)
3. My hair was falling out and thinning dramatically. It covered my hands in the shower.
4. My natural hair is healthier and feels even more fabulously soft when I don't dye it.
5. I think natural hair of all types is often prettier than dyed or treated hair. You can't buy my natural silver highlights. Well, maybe you can, but it'll cost you.
6. I don't think that my gray hair actually makes me look older than I am. We can certainly discuss and consider the very real issues and effects of societal and individual perceptions, but at the end of the day, in a world just populated by me, I would think that my hair makes me look exactly 37, which is fine with me since that's exactly how old I am.
7. While I absolutely most worry about how my gray hair effects my attractiveness to men in the romance arena, at the end of the day, and in my heart and soul, I care more about being true to myself than I do about conforming to societal norms to make it easier for someone to be attracted to me. I think being true to yourself is the best way to be open to true love.

In other news, I had a hair revelation while watching a screener of Raising the Bar (premieres Sept. 1 on TNT). Melissa Sagemiller plays assistant district attorney Michelle Ernhardt and in the show, she has the sides of her hair pulled up and back, with the front loose and the back long. You can kinda see it in this pic:

I stopped wearing my hair like that because of my hairline when I was losing hair and because I thought it was too cutesy or something. But Melissa Sagemiller looks really professional and sharp on the show.I guess it doesn't make you look like a little girl once you're clearly an adult.

So this is my new work hair. I think it looks better for work than a ponytail (and it's better for my hair, less pull). And no need to spend a ton of time in the bathroom in the mornings to style it to wear it down. That's all sorts of win.

As much as I prefer it longer, I'm going to get it cut to just below my shoulders in September, and then there will only be a few inches left to go. At this point, it's looking like at two years there still may be some of the dyed hair left.

I just sighed heavily. But it's getting there.

Raising the Bar is really good, btw, and I'll blog more about it before it premieres.

It's been two months since my last hair cut.

And I have damn near convinced everyone in my salon that I am totally insane.

And I have become obsessed with Christina Ricci's hair.

But at the salon they say, if the only reason for the short cut is because the dark hair is driving me insane, then I shouldn't cut it short.

But the dark hair is driving me insane, and The Ponytail Plan is no good, judging by the amount of hair in the sink.

People, I BOUGHT A WOMEN'S MAGAZINE. To look at hair.

Glamour says (in an issue where these are almost the only short cuts in the whole magazine):

They say!

Internets! What say you?

There's a pic of me on my about page for reference...