Going grey: the NI women who embrace it... and those who don’t
Celebs like Glenn Close, Helen Mirren and Sharon Osbourne have debuted grey hairstyles recently. Leona O’Neill finds out what four NI women really thought about showing off their natural shade
‘I’m allergic to dye so there was nothing else I could do’
Office manager Nichola McCabe (46) lives in west Belfast with her partner James and their daughters Summer (13) and Erin (15). She says an allergy to the chemicals in hair dye forced her to embrace the grey long before she wanted to.
“I started going grey about five years ago,” she says. “I always had dark brown hair so I dyed my roots. But then one time it started to get itchy and my hair started coming out in lumps.
“I then took a severe allergic reaction and my head started to swell and there were weeping sores. I went and got a patch test done and they said that I was allergic to the paraphenylenediamine (PPD) in hair dye. I was devastated.
“I had been grey from my 30s and I just kept dyeing my roots when they came through. The worst part of being allergic to PPD was that I had to grow my hair out. I had to use sprays and powders to cover the grey until it was down long enough for me to get it cut. Then I just let the grey come out itself naturally.
“I had to change my hairstyle completely. I had to get it cut up really short to get rid of my dark brown hair. It was a nightmare, it really was.”
Nichola says the change in her hair left her feeling self conscious.
“I was really devastated,” she says. “I just couldn’t accept it. But I have accepted it now. I just had to get on with it. But at the time it was so hard. It was the whole topic of conversation everywhere I went. People would say to me, “everyone is paying money to get their hair dyed grey” but it didn’t ease my burden.
“It really affected my self-confidence. I would be talking to people and I could see that they were looking at the top part of my head and the grey coming through.
“I saw myself explaining to people what was happening. I was seeing people I hadn’t seen in years and thinking ‘oh my
God, I have grey hair’. It really did make me feel self-conscious.”
Nichola says she eventually accepted the change, essentially because she “had no choice”.
“I think I had to just accept it,” she says. “There was literally nothing else I could do. I did go to a few different hairdressers who used natural products in their hair colours. But then they did the patch tests and every single thing gave me a reaction.
“I went and got my blood tested and it showed that I was at the start of the menopause. So I don’t know for sure, but it might have been connected to that.
“I’m okay about it now, because I have no other choice, but I do sometimes look in the mirror and think that I hate it. And there are other days I think it’s not that bad.
“I still don’t like it, but I just get on with it. I’m also saving myself a fortune at the hairdressers.”