I found my first grey hair when I was 19.
I stopped colouring it aged 31. I am now 42.
I love my silver hair and whenever I go to the hairdresser they always comment about the colour and how much they love it. I'm often asked if it's highlights because, yes, apparently this is fashionable now, I'm ahead of the trends darlings! Haha!
It's pretty long these days, despite growing very slowly! My last visit to the hairdresser was 17th November 2022. It's just not a priority anymore and more often than not, my hair is piled into a bun on top of my head anyway!
I thought I'd re-publish my old thoughts from my lifestyle blog which I started back when I got married in 2011 and ended up documenting our IVF journey (hence why that is mentioned). Here are my blog posts and old photos from back then...
Sept 2013
The last time I coloured my hair at the hairdresser was the 13th April 2013. I would always get a trim and colour to hide my roots as they were becoming more and more grey. I'd coloured my hair for a long time, initially because I wanted it to be a more reddish colour and then when I went back to dark brown for our wedding in 2011, it became more obvious when my greys were growing in and I would get it refreshed more often to hide them.
I've had grey hairs for many years, even when I was 19 I remember finding one or two. Since wedding planning and then the stress of our fertility problems when I was 30, it definitely became worse. Obviously it could just be age related but I really think the stress increased the greys exponentially.
Lately I've not been quite as bothered about hiding them. I decided I would quite like to see how it would look if it was all grown out. I think it just looks really bad at the moment as my parting looks like a stripe of grey. In photos, depending how I have styled it, it looks like a grey streak almost like Rogue in X-men!
If I scrape my hair back (my go to lazy style) it's not as obvious but if I do my usual side parting when I straighten it, it's very obvious and I often tie up the top while it's growing out. It also seems to be less noticeable if I wear it curly which you may have noticed I've been doing a lot more lately.
I may well end up giving up and colouring it again or may grow it all out only to find I look 10 years older and decided to go back to hiding it again but I want to see it. I want to know what I will look like naturally. I think I'm generally pretty relaxed about growing older. I have quite a few wrinkles around my eyes and have no interest whatsoever in anti-wrinkle treatments so why was I so bothered about hiding my greys?
It was costing £55 each time for a cut and colour at the hairdresser and although I find getting my hair done quite relaxing, it also takes about 2 hours. (My old hairdresser was cheaper (£38) and quicker and gave just the same results but I always had to plan so far in advance to get an appointment and travel into town whereas my new one is not far away at all, I can park right outside and have been able to get appointments with just 2 days notice.) The other thing is, if I don't grow it out now and they all go grey, it will be even more obvious if I decide to go natural in the future and I might be stuck having to dye my hair forever.
I will go for a trim soon to tidy it up a bit, but I've decided to grow it out a bit anyway and since I rarely wear it down at the moment, it isn't a priority. The thing is, I doubt any of you have noticed so far, the only people who have mentioned noticing how many greys I have are colleagues at work. I recently found this article about other women deciding to stop colouring their hair and they talk about it being liberating yet terrifying.
I don't have any strong feelings about it, I'm more curious to see how it looks. The thing is, they are 48 and 64. I am only 31. Should I be concerned about apparently aging so early in my life? It has certainly made me wonder about my fertility issues as I have an unusually low AMH which equates to that of a 45 year old woman. I suspect my hair could also be that of a 45 year old woman. Am I heading for an early menopause too? Will I look 50 when I'm only 40? I think it's best just to not think about it, lol.
I know it will become more obvious as it grows through the lengths but who knows, I might like it, maybe I'll look wise and distinguished ;)
Does anyone else have a lot of greys before they expected to? Do you hide them or proudly show them off? Have any of you noticed my greys peeking through?
August 2014
As you know, I stopped colouring my hair last April. 15 months later, after just one haircut in between, it had gotten pretty long and the greys were finally down past my ears. It became much more subtle once it was past the stage of 'roots' which made quite an obvious stripe. I enjoy having long hair for a short time and I love being able to wear it in a big top knot but it takes much longer to straighten and tends to look unhealthy much quicker, even though I rarely spend time heat treating it - I often just tie it back when it gets this long.
I always planned to cut it once the greys were down past my chin and I was toying with the idea of dip dying the ends blonde before I chopped them off! As it happens, with everything else going on at the moment and my plans for a maternity shoot, I decided just to get a longish bob and although the greys are ALMOST to the length where I could tie them back, they're not quite down to my chin yet.
The result is an easily manageable, much tidier haircut (when my hair gets that long the ends become quite straggly as it's very fine) that is still easy to pull back out of the way for when the twins arrive! As the ends are still the old colour, it does look as though it's been dip dyed about an inch or two if you look closely but I am liking the overall effect now being my natural colour. It entirely depends on how it's styled and how the light catches it how noticeable the actual greys are but I like them anyway, they're more silver than grey and I never have to worry about roots again! Not to mention the cash I'll save on the colouring.
So, here are some photos of before and after, it was hard to get the right angle/light to show the greys when taking them in the mirror but you get the idea!
And so here I am now, with super long grey hair and I love it. It's easy to maintain and I actually love the colour.
;)
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