Hating Grey is SO Passe!

So, Check out this picture of Jennifer Aniston. She has some definite grey coming in, and I'm pretty excited about it! She's been a hair icon for nearly two decades, and if she started to go grey, we'd have quite the statement on our hands.



I'll never forget a comment that one of my fellow stylists made to me when I was working in Santa Barbara.

"Have you ever noticed that men age better than women?"
"Mehh?" I asked, quite articulately.
"Yeah, you know, like them." She pointed to a couple passing in front of the salon. The "couple" was actually two of my clients. And the "couple" was actually mother and son. Denise looked at me blankly like she'd proven a point. Once I'd made mine, she suggested, "Okay, well then, what about Harrison Ford and Karen Allen?" The most recent Indiana Jones had just come out.

I pondered her example, and had to admit she had a good point. But then I realized, that in terms of a romance on film, you rarely see these older debonaire men with women their own age. An older Harrison Ford is always paired with someone his junior, and so we become accustomed to seeing older men next to younger women, hence making their ages seem closer, and making older women look much older.

The same can be said of grey hair, in terms of a double standard. If a man starts going grey, he is considered mature and even "dignified." When a woman goes grey, 'mature' becomes a hushed euphemism and decrying hair dye seems to indicate she has no self-respect. The value we place on youth, and the fact that this value is higher for women than for men, makes older men appear younger, simply because they haven't lost "youth value" as quickly as the women have.

Living in Santa Barbara, I began to see a refreshing shift in public opinion. The number of women who would come to me for cuts (but no color) was increasing. Practically speaking, the upkeep of dying their hair for 25+ years had really gotten to them, but there seemed to be an "existentially speaking--," aside in there, as well.

In New York City it's a different story. Career consciousness and age consciousness coexist in women's minds like competing alpha cats living in the same flat. The snarling is almost audible, and the main concern seems unanimous: if I go grey, I will be less desirable in my job. So I suggest this: imagine a world where every woman went grey, as soon as the first tell-tale strands came in. 10% of women in their early 30s would be 100% grey, and the number would increase to 30% for women in their early 40s. If we all went grey, might this misperception and fear finally subside?

We've come such a long way, that it's about time "aging gracefully" meant doing it without dye and scalpels. In 2000, Eve Ensler reclaimed the word 'cunt', and it has been wicked-powerful. Let's reclaim grey, too.