This blog was initially meant to be a survey of the current state of the myth of hair…but as often is the case, if you focus on a specific topic, your become aware of your own personal relation to the subject at hand and hence I ended up exploring my own hair issue… Which made this blog entry two: this first part deals with my personal issue, the second a more general discussion.
Due to recent experience I was confronted yet again with a fundamental question: to dye or not to dye?
The power of nature
Those, who know me, know that my grey hair began sprouting naturally in my midtwenties – at that time I still dyed it…I wrote the whole story down in my old blog “Powergrey” (see below). At that time I was of the firm conviction that you could change the conditioned perception of grey hair = old and thought, that the many people who dye their hair grey for fashion reasons, are an encouraging expression of that. For wanting to dye your hair grey you really need to invest a lot of time and money – it´s not easily accomplished with a ready-made lotion from the drugstore.
I finally stopped dyeing my hair nine years ago and find it most delightful in many ways: no more financial and time stress with the organic dyes. For there are some exquisite ones, that look awesome afterwards and are no strain for the metabolism. But for someone like me, whose white roots show after less then ten days – an expensive endeavor and since it takes four hours for the colour to sink in…also a lot of time. Besides: I really love naturalness and authenticity…
Naturally grey and shoulderlength
Fortunately I´m lucky. My hair is strong and voluminous and after having worn a pageboy hairstyle, I felt like something else and so by now I have something like a silver fox mane of more than shoulder length. Luckily it suits me and as my facial features seem younger than I actually am, it is a wild mixture that many people like or at least notice. As a matter of fact sometimes people turn around in the street or stare at me a little too long on the subway…
Women seem the most impressed, and some men who consider my avowal to my grey hair courageous for various reasons. I seem most attractive to men who are already close to or far into retirement age… And that´s my problem: I often notice that most men generally are attracted to younger women, and/or those who radiate innocence, youth and a certain freshness…
The power of conditioning
I knew when I stopped dying my hair that I would immediately seem at least ten years older than I actually was…and I thought that now, with almost fifty, it might seem rather coherent. But far from it: for now I have a bit of the aura of a “wise, old native American woman” which is certainly attractive in a general sense, but which excludes me from the “prey categories” (we have an actual word for this in German…) of most men, that I find attractive in turn.
But the subconscious conditioning “woman with grey hair=grandmother” also works in men, who should actually know better. But we do not choose our potential partners with our mind – some cryptic multidimensional chemistry gets becomes active…which to decode perfumers, fashion designers, dating coachs, sex therapists and matchmakers have tried since the dawn of our couple culture…
Out of sheer cluelessness we call it magic and we might be able to strengthen or weaken it a little but it can´t be manipulated fundamentally and in the long run. Dynamics are in effect that we have not come to completely fathom yet and in a way that´s also most pleasing, for then also the question of hair only has an inferior role… if it fits, it fits, if not – well then it doesn´t.
Increasing chances!
But in order to find out if “it” is a match or not, a certain contact has to come about and that´s exactly where I am stuck at the moment. For even though I don´t want to dye my hair in the least bit, I am even less inclined to end up in the pensioner´s column, when it comes to dating categories.
Therefore I decided to get some input from my friends and of course some suggested to definitely dye or at least to tinge or highlight my hair. Others declared that by no means should I corrupt myself for a potential partner just because of the “demands of the market”. And the very smart ones declared that it the actual factor was my own sense of feeling attractive: if I felt attractive and sexy myself – no matter how – this would convey itself to potential men. And then there were a few who carefully hinted that I might have to give men I was interested in a more clear signal of availability so that they could consider a silver fox among all those bunnies, gazelles, lionesses and other animals of prey…
Self-confidence helps
I mulled it all over and decided that dying my hair is really out of the question for me. However, I carefully checked my clothing style as not too appear either as a “late girl” nor a “dynamic granny”, decided to occasionally use more make-up and also decided to appear more self-confident about my appearance… with the intention of evoking less the image of the wise, old, mellow native woman, but that of a prudent, curious, adventurous and sensual woman in her prime!
POWERGREY
My first article on the topic from my old blog „Notes of an every day goddess“ on March 28th 2013.
Today I noticed for the first time an ad in the paper for “power grey”: German shampoo company advertises their men´s product with the slogan: “The new grey men”. So far I´ve always associated the grey men with the time thieves in Michael Ende´s novel “Momo”.
But not so the shampoo company. They recommend the use of their product to get rid of the “shabby yellow glow” by turning it into the aforementioned “power grey”. Further they say that more and more men in public are making use of power grey. Subtext: it makes them all more sophisticated and sexy. The grey temples from Cary Grant to George Clooney are always considered ultra attractive!
Grey hair makes men become respectable, but women dowdy?
But what about women? What about power grey for power women? Those who know me personally, know that I turned rather grey before the age of thirty. It actually started in my mid twenties. At that time I furiously dyed my hair – considering myself far too young then. In the following years I was a redhead, a blond, a zebra (blond and dark brown mixed…)
At 33 I finally had the guts to publicly admit to it: since a young face and steal colored hair do have a certain charm. But only if one doesn´t happen to look pale. With that look I was in China in 2001 and unfortunately did not always look as fit as I wished: jetlag and the bad air in the Chinese hotels took their toll. The consequence was that many Chinese always stared at me and on one occasion a woman asked via the translator whether I intended to die early…
I also learned with certain interest that if women have great hair it´s nature’s way of communicating that a women has lost her fertility. And so men who still want to procreate tend to be turned off consciously or subconsciously by women with grey hair.
A direct effect on flirting
That made for some interesting reactions from men concerning my oh, so authentic hairdo: from some I got some really nice compliments. As a matter of fact even men on the subway or in line at the post office have commented my hair positively.
On the other hand while online dating I noticed that as soon as I had sent my picture the contact was broken off – even by the previously most euphoric men. Usually the older they were, the faster…
2005 I dyed my hair for a while again – because I felt like a profound change and the 50ies effect with a new hat or new shoes is so uninteresting in our day and age. Thanks to a great organic product I had great dark chocolate hair.
But the effect only worked for ten days – since my hair grows so fast, that the roots could be seen in no time again and I soon lost the enthusiasm to constantly die my roots. (dying it blond would have not really lessened the effect: the roots were too white). Besides organic meant that dying my hair myself at home meant four hours and 25 $ for the color per session.
My laziness and my need for authenticity finally won and after a courageous phase in which I had grey hair in the front and chocolate brown in the back, I had the dyed parts cut off and had a short and sexy haircut – all in grey. Now I wear my hair a little longer – and maintain an elegant haircut.
Little children like addressing my as “Grandma” and there is often the notion of a witch on the minds… That matches the mythological point of view: admitting to one´s own grey hair is considered an expression of great wisdom and inner peace: people with grey hair are in peace with themselves and life and don´t try being something, they´re not… I like that!
Grey hair will be ever more with us
My insight: we grey people are growing in numbers – at least in Germany due to the demographic situation. Theatre actors have been calling their audiences “cotton fields” for a while already. I wonder whether grey hair will receive a re-evaluation – away from old, biologically unfit and mean witch towards wise, of mature sexuality and magical… I´m certainly willing to do my part!
