"Gray hair: should women go natural?"

[Ellen Forradalom]

GUH? I had never considered anything but going with what Mother Nature gave me. Yet apparently it is open for discussion, according to the latest issue of "The Week."

Anne Kreamer, a member of the white female professional classes whose every move is chronicled by The New York Times, the newsweeklies, women's mags and numerous other publications, has published a book on the subject of firing her colorist, "Going Gray." She says that she'd assumed that gray would convey a "loss of sexual viability and power, and render her a has-been at work" but she said "I began to think that maybe gray hair is an advantage...It's a kind of a signal that says, 'I am confident with who I am.'"

Well, yeah. I am astonished that we are even having this discussion. But perhaps the custom of dying hair should be put on the front burner as a feminist issue. Certainly it's a good example of the possibility becoming the obligation.

[musette_sf]

1. i enjoy being a (dyed) blonde

more than i enjoyed being a (natural) nowhere light brown, and immensely more than i enjoy being (about 60% at this stage) grey.

i think it's personal preference. my H would much rather i go grey. i'm not ready, and if i am never ready, i don't think it has anything to do with my feminist cred.

on edit: if i had that marvelous pinky-pale skin tone and grey-blue eyes that grey hair looks so well with (Emmylou Harris, for example), i might consider it. but tending more towards the yellow and sallow (some might call it "golden") with brown eyes, it just doesn't look so great with grey.

[ThomCat]

2. If it really is just a matter of personal taste then I have nothing against

anyone dying their hair.

Unfortunately, I know a lot of women at work who dye their hair because they consider it a job requirement. My aunt (an executive secretary for many decades) told me that any woman who allows her Gray hair to show at work is treated as if she's less professional and less competent. Failure to dye your hair is like failure to dress professionally.

I find that offensive, that some women MUST color their hair as part of their corporate jobs.

[Ellen Forradalom]

6. It's the latter phenomenon: the choice becoming the necessity

that I find so tyrannical. It's unprofessional to have gray hair? In that case, how 'bout those guts and balding pates, gentlemen? No? I didn't think so.

[Control-Z]

3. Doesn't matter

Well groomed gray hair.
Well groomed colored hair.
Either is good. It's a personal choice - just like wardrobe, car, sexual partners...

It's the ROOTS that matter. If you're gonna color you've got to touch up those roots before they show. Period.

[bliss_eternal]

4. Here's a link to an article...

...about a woman that was scouted to be a model AFTER deciding to stop fighting the grey:

Aged to perfection: Role model for beauty
By Gail O'Neill
CNN
Sunday, March 9, 2003 Posted: 10:52 PM EST (0352 GMT)



Cindy Joseph went from makeup artist to model -- and was surprised, given that she doesn't fit the image of models today, who are generally young, tall and very skinny.


(CNN) -- When actress Meryl Streep recently became a French commander of the Order of Arts and Letters -- one of highest honors given to artists -- she thanked her fans in France for "loving women of a certain age in movies and in life."

The French expression "woman of a certain age" refers to middle-age, and the French -- and Europeans in general -- have long appreciated the beauty of older women.

But as 53-year-old Streep said that day: "America doesn't reward people of my age, either in day-to-day life or for their performances."

Those words resonated with her fans back home -- getting older has a bad rap in the United States, especially if you're a woman.

"As human beings we all want to be valued," says former makeup artist Cindy Joseph. "But the sad truth is that women are judged based on their looks, and in this age-obsessed society our value goes down as our age goes up."

--------------------------snip------------------------

Which is why Joseph thought "it was a joke" when a casting agent approached her on an East Village street in Manhattan nearly three years ago, asking if she wanted to model for an upcoming campaign for Dolce & Gabbana, the hip couture fashion house.

For one thing, Cindy, a single mother of two, was 49 at the time and ready to retire from the fashion business. Twenty-three years of painting some of the most famous faces in L.A., New York, Paris, and beyond had been fun, but the Seattle, Washington, native was ready to swap city living for a life "in the wilderness somewhere out West."

But in truth, the biggest roadblock to modeling was the little voice inside her head.

"Like everybody else, I suffered from all the prejudices about what a model should look like," she laughs. "I was not 18 years old. I wasn't 6 feet tall. And I wasn't really, really skinny." A perfect size 6, Cindy is 5-feet-7-inches tall and her weight ranges between 125 to 130 pounds.

--------------------------snip-------------------------------


taken from:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/03/07/older.beauty.models/

I was excited when I started seeing Cindy Joseph's image in various ads. The same way I was excited the first time I saw Emme and Kate Dillon and models of color w/textured hair, freckles and less than perfect bodies.

:)

[Katherine Brengle]

5. I don't think hair dying itself is the problem -

it's the expectation that one (ie, women) should fight aging at every opportunity and attempt to hide the fact that we do, indeed, grow old. And of course we know who/what to blame for that.

I like dying my hair for the fun of it, but if I found myself doing it in a quest for approval or acceptance, I would feel very differently about it.

[MuseRider]

7. I mess with my color because it is fun.

I am 53 and I let my hair go natural for about 6 months. I had about 4 gray hairs. If I had enough to notice I probably would have let it go. I was very pleased to see that it is coming in very bright silver instead of the yellow I was expecting. Even so, with gray hair I could add lavender highlights just for fun. I feel feminist making that decision all for myself and really, I could not care less what anyone else thinks. I just want to look in the mirror and reflect who I think I am and exude the confidence I have learned (earned?) with age.

[Ellen Forradalom]

8. Now that's the way to look at it

"I'll dye my hair magenta if it pleases me to do so, thank you very much!" instead of, "OMG! Gray! No one will ever love me any more and everyone will treat me like an old hag!"

[MuseRider]

9. People will only treat you

like an old hag if you let them!

I occasionally remember back when I was young and my mother and other older women used to scoff at the women who had longer hair. I guess when you had kids and reached a "certain" age you were supposed to cut your hair or people might think you were "different". The shame of that! LOL, I always loved those women. They also worked when their kids went off to school and some of them used to have fun for themselves! Why some were even divorced! Those things made me what I am today, an "old hag" with a mind and a will of her own thank you very much. It is grand to be an individual, not a shadow of your husband or the will of society.

Magenta sounds cool. When I am an old woman I shall dye my hair magenta!

[Katherine Brengle]

10. People will treat you the way *they* see you,

not necessarily the way you see yourself.

That said, fuck 'em. I have better things to worry about.

:)

[MuseRider]

11. :)

I like your attitude! :hi:

[defendandprotect]

12. Dying my hair -- but guilty about environment. Anyone live near a L'Oreal factory -- ????

We had one for years in a community near us -- I think they were environmental horrors from the stories that came out of there --

That's one question about hair coloring --

The other is the real one of POWER --
women are discouraged from going gray -- yet, it used to be a symbol of wisdom.

I'm still dying my hair -- staying away from the darker colors in hopes of not getting brain cancer --

I'd like to be able to stop --

[defendandprotect]

13. If they can -- here's the problem . . .

If I use a natural blond dye . . . I look normal --- I have hair --

If I let my hair go to its white color, I look bald!!!

[Chovexani]

14. I will be using Manic Panic and Special FX into my 80s

:P