There’s some grey area when it comes to our hair
Research raises some concerns about hair dye as more women let nature take its course
With influential people like Billie Eilish dyeing their hair grey, people of all ages are incorporating the look.
When Keanu Reeves walked into a Los Angeles gala last year holding hands with artist Alexandra Grant, fans applauded the 55-year-old actor for choosing an “age appropriate” romantic partner. Most striking about Grant, then 46, was her steel-grey hair.
Why wasn’t she colouring it? On Instagram, she explained: In her 20s, she began greying, and she covered it with dye until she could no longer tolerate the chemicals.
Grant is among a growing number of women who are naturally fading to grey. More than 350,000 women have posted Instagram photos using the #grannyhair hashtag. Between 2017 and 2018, Pinterest saw a significant jump in the search term “going grey.”
“With influential people like Billie Eilish dyeing their hair grey, people of all ages are incorporating the look, and many who are naturally grey are no longer trying to cover it up,” said Swasti Sarna, Pinterest’s insights manager.
Grey’s the new blond, or black, style writers began declaring five years ago. Last year, L’oreal Paris and Vogue crowned silver the hair colour of the year. In addition to teenage musician Eilish, celebrities from Lady Gaga to Jennifer Lawrence have walked the red carpet in silver dos.
Ironically, while young women spend as much as $1,000 to bleach and colour their hair titanium, blue steel, smoky grey and gunmetal, older women continue to feel compelled to cover up their silvers.
At the same time, longtime users of hair colour are ditching the dye.
In Facebook groups called Gray and Proud, Going Gorgeously Gray and Silver Revolution, tens of thousands of women share photos and tips on how to quit colour and avoid looking like a raccoon. They ask if revealing their true colour would mean losing their sex appeal, their credibility at work, their clients, their jobs?
New research adds another question. Is there a risk of harm from the chemicals?
A study published recently in the International Journal of Cancer reported that African-american women who coloured their hair with permanent dye every five to eight weeks were 60 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than women who didn’t colour. No cause and effect was established, and all of the women in the study had a family history of breast cancer. For white women, the numbers were less striking but still elevated. Those who dyed their hair every five to eight weeks were eight per cent more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, researchers found.
Researchers followed 46,709 women between the ages of 35 and 74 over an average of eight years. All participants had at least one sister who had been diagnosed with breast cancer but none had been diagnosed themselves when they enrolled in the study. The majority, 55 per cent, reported using permanent hair dye.
During the course of the study, 2,794 African-american and white women were diagnosed with breast cancer.
Black women who coloured their hair with permanent dye at any point in the year before joining the study were 45 per cent more likely to be diagnosed, while white women were seven per cent more likely.
To put the numbers in context, study co-author Alexandra White estimated the heightened risk as five additional cases of breast cancer for every 100 black women and one additional case of breast cancer for every 100 white women.
Breast cancer rates generally are similar for black and white women. But black women tend to be diagnosed with more aggressive forms of the disease, and it is more likely to kill them.
White, an epidemiologist who heads the National Institutes of Environmental Health and Cancer Epidemiology Group, described the new findings as “concerning” but far from definitive.
“We wouldn’t make any recommendations off these findings,” she said. “We need more evidence.”
Some doctors advise women not to colour their hair while pregnant, or at least not during the critical first trimester, according to the American Cancer Society.
White and her team found little to no increase in breast cancer risk in women who coloured their hair with anything except permanent dye. But women who reported applying semi-permanent colour to their friends’ or relatives’ hair at home experienced an elevated risk of breast cancer.
Permanent dye causes lasting changes to the hair shaft and stays in the hair until it grows out. Temporary dye washes out after a shampoo or two, while semi-permanent tends to hold for up to 10 shampoos.
Regina Berenato Tell, 52, zealously covered her grey hair from 25 through 50.
Then, rather than break a date with her hairdresser, she missed her best friend’s birthday party. That is when she realized she could no longer be stuck in a salon chair every three weeks.
Tell said letting the dye grow out hasn’t led to the ageism some professional women fear. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I think people take me more seriously now.”