Grey-ce and beauty Fashion tips for an age-old dilemma
Although we’ve come a long way from dyeing hair with gooseberries, fig leaves and lead, going naturally grey is becoming more common, Virginia Fallon writes.
They look like silver rivers winding over my head. The grey hairs began popping up this year, first a small shock at my temple and then random white threads scattered over my head.
I wasn’t sure if their sudden appearance meant I’d finally achieved some sort of middle-aged wisdom, or the sign of some beautiful metamorphosis; regardless, I liked them.
‘‘You look like you’ve walked through a cobweb,’’ a small child informed me a few days ago. Cheers.
Going grey can be a big deal, especially for women. In a society that can value youthful appearances above life experience, the decision not to dye is heralded as brave or even radical. Conversely, in the typical lose-lose of modern beauty standards, those who do dye are likely to be labelled vain.
It’s a double standard since almost time immemorial, according to Erin Griffey.
The Auckland University professor says modern beauty culture was born in the 16th century; based on the written texts and cosmetic recipes she studies.
‘‘Generally today we associate it [dye] with vanity and there’s also been a very long-standing tradition with this critical view that these are the whims of women.’’
Although women have been long been lumped as the drivers behind the use of hair dye – and cosmetics in general – concerns with appearance were perennial and shared by both men and women; though men didn’t get off easily either.
‘‘... Critics of the practices of adornment tended to locate them with women generally, and vain foppish men. The (cosmetic) recipe books tell us by contrast men were absolutely a market for these recipes, or why would we have so many for dyeing beards, beard growth and baldness? They cared.
‘‘The stakes were really high... because your appearance was so closely related to ideas about your health. (They thought) if you have grey hair what it means is your inner moisture is drying up – you’re getting old.’’
People in those days took a humoral view of the body and grey hair was quite literally a sign it was decaying. For men especially, the loss of colour was linked to a lack of virility.
The dye recipes weren’t just for the wealthy. While they were written in Latin – indicating they were for the learned – printed books cost about 1 pence.
‘‘That suggests to me there is a really broad market... what we would call the middle class seemed to be preoccupied with this.’’
The recipes may have been accessible, but they weren’t safe. A recurring ingredient was highly toxic lead, and although it might have ultimately poisoned the user, they’d have had got rid of their grey hair for the occasion.
‘‘We dyed real human hair with this recipe, dyed it a nice shade of black then we put water through it to try and decide if it was water fast, and it was. It was totally effective.’’
Victoria Munn says while some recipes were deadly, others were just plain weird.
‘‘They were using some strange things like earthworm blood and dog milk, but then there were more natural plants like walnuts. If you pick a walnut from the tree when it’s still in its shell it’s green, but it will dye your hands black.’’
Tannins from gooseberries and fig leaves also dyed hair black. So did lead, iron filing and lye.
The Auckland University PhD candidate has been researching Renaissance hair although, like Gaffey, says the desire to dye grey hair began well before then.
‘‘Even in the Middle Ages there were specific techniques going back to Pliny, the classical period.’’
The Renaissance was the time of Socrates’ four humors theory: a belief that personality and behaviour were based on four separate temperaments associated with four fluids – humors – of the body.
While red hair was thought to mean you were internally hot, erratic and full of vice, grey hair meant you were, well, past it.
‘‘One of these 17th century English texts talks about impotence, so people didn’t want to show their beard was grey because it meant they were growing old and therefore couldn’t conceive a child.’’
This was the time of the printing press, which meant the Books of Secrets, containing recipes for cosmetics, cleaning products and medicines were able to be widely disseminated for the first time; as were portraits.
‘‘It would have been pretty hard for the elite not to know what the ideal woman looked like because of all these pictures circulating – and that’s what we have today right?’’
Vickie Chandler’s hair began going grey while she was in her 20s; she stopped dyeing it when she was 44. ‘‘I wanted to cease dyeing because I noticed at 38 I had quite white hair. When I found out I was carrying Lily it was the perfect opportunity.’’
It took about 18 months to strip and grow out the dyed hair and while Chandler loves her natural colour she’s been surprised at some reactions it has garnered.
‘‘People call me ‘brave’, which I think is a funny sort of thing to say. I’ve found some reactions are mixed; it’s women in their 70s who say ‘why would you do that?’’’
Victoria Harach says lockdown prompted some clients of her Badaro Salon in Wellington to embrace their greys.
‘‘My one rule is if you go grey you have to have a sharp haircut, you can’t just leave it in a messy bob or tie it up, you want to maintain a good sharp modern haircut, and then it doesn’t matter what colour it is.’’
Other things to take into consideration are the cost of maintaining a dye job – ‘‘it’s a slippery slope once you start’’ – and how obvious the regrowth will be between appointments, but mainly people should do whatever they want.
‘‘The most common thing they ask me is ‘should I grow old gracefully?’ And my comment is growing old gracefully is just doing it well.’’
As for me? I have no intention of growing old gracefully – whatever colour my hair is – and I’m joining the women bucking a century’s-old trend by letting my hair age along with the rest of me.
They look like silver rivers winding over my head.
‘‘Generally today we associate [dye] with vanity and there’s also been a very longstanding tradition with this critical view that these are the whims of women.’’
Erin Griffey Auckland University professor