Still dyeing to turn back time
always a little unnerving when you catch someone staring at you, but when it’s your husband of 27 years you know something is really amiss.
Yet there he was, gazing at me over the breakfast table. Was he thanking his lucky stars for a lifetime of happiness? Or sizing me up to see if he could bury my body beneath the patio?
At last he came out with it: “God you’re grey. When did you get to be so grey?”
I might have said ‘since being married to you darling’ which would have been accurate if harsh, but truth to tell I have been grey for years and years. And I’ve been dyeing it for years and years until this particular morning – with a much longed for hair appointment in the offing – when I had abandoned the root spray and touch-up wand and revealed my true self.
Nothing epitomises the double standards between the sexes than grey hair, does it? On a man, grey hair says silver fox. It speaks of maturity and wisdom.
On a woman – despite it being 2021 – it just says old.
I’m not talking here about those trendy 20-somethings who dye their locks a gorgeous silver on purpose. Or, for that matter, the Helen Mirrens of this world with A-list Hollywood heft.
I mean women like me who, as we slip into our 40s and 50s, feel the inexorable, unyielding pressure to retain our youth.
Because youth, for far too many firms and organisations – and society in general; for that matter – says desirable. It says employable and vital and still relevant.
Grey says the owner’s best years are spent.
Don’t believe me? Then take a look at the enormous array of products on the shelves – overwhelmingly aimed at women – to tackle grey hair.
‘Cover’ and ‘conceal’ are the marIT’S keting buzzwords, not ‘celebrate’.
Look around you in the office or shop or factory and see how many women over 50 are grey and glad of it.
I know things have improved since the days when we all donned a pinny and perm the moment we turned 40 but not nearly fast enough or universally.
And I know ageism affects men too. But older women – and nothing says older than grey hair – are simply not recognised as they should be for their life experience and hard-gained knowledge.
So maybe, I reasoned, it was time to make a stand.
I’ve been dyeing my hair for more than a decade. Every six weeks I part with a shameful amount of cash to keep the grey at bay.
But lockdown gave me the double gift of freedom from the tyranny of the hairdressers and freedom from anyone seeing what started as my roots and then became most of my head.
By the time lockdown eased I had a choice to make. I could carry on dyeing or I could accept my days as a brunette were long gone and embrace the real me.
Friends were encouraging. My husband was horrified. The kids non-committal.
But it was my hairdresser who sealed it. “Grey? It can be very ageing,” he said.
It’s a constant fight, this war against the slippage of time and it’s one I feel I shouldn’t have to be in.
But battle has commenced once more.