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| "Supermodel" Cindy Joseph photo credit |
To gray or not to gray?
Years ago, silver hairs started popping up randomly on my head. By the time I was in my late 30's, they were too numerous to ignore.
I started coloring my hair, trying to find in a bottle the dark color I had been born with.
Finally, it became a losing battle. The dark hair coloring didn't look natural, and before too long gray roots would appear.
I had determined I would "not go gently into that good night," to quote Dylan Thomas.
And I still feel that way. I'm not ready to give in to the gray. My solution was to go lighter. At any given time, I have various amounts of blond highlights in my hair. It's working pretty well right now, because the highlights are more forgiving when the gray starts to reappear. There's less of a contrast, and it blends it better.
Personally, I think gray hair ages me even beyond my years. When gray starts appearing, I feel it makes me look haggard and old.
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| Singer Emmylou Harris photo credit |
Giving in to the gray
Some women give in to the gray, and it ends up being beautiful It's hard to imagine model Cindy Joseph, pictured above, looking prettier with any other color of hair. She was 60 when that picture was taken. (She is now 63).
Cindy says she stopped coloring her hair to hide the gray when she realized some things about aging: "This is going to sound so repetitive and so old and so unsurprising. Life has proven to me what I heard before and didn't understand, and that is, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Absolutely, entirely, and 100 percent."
(I'll be featuring Cindy Joseph again later in this series, by the way.)
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| Actress Helen Mirren photo credit |
For me, going gray is not the answer at this point in my life. Frankly, it makes me feel old, and how I feel is going to come out on my face.
If you're considering going gray, here is an article about styling and maintaining gray hair beautifully.
What about you? Have you decided to give in to the gray...or are you still fighting it? I'd love to hear your comments!
I'm participating in "31 Days: A Writing Challenge," in which I 'll be blogging on the subject of Gracefully Aging every day during the month of October. Click the button below for more information and links to each post as they become available!
