Going gray is something that one expects with age. I just wasn’t expecting it at age seventeen. When I got my first gray hair, I was in study hall. My best friend shrieked, “You have a white hair!” and promptly yanked it out of my head. I don’t know if, as the wives’ tale tells, two grew back in its place, but I do know that twelve years later—judging from the roots that show when I’ve gone too long between colorings—about half of my head is gray.
Going gray in one’s twenties is, in some ways, not as bad as going gray later on. In your twenties, you don’t feel or look old, you don’t have laugh lines or crows feet, so the gray hair is kind of cute. And at that age, looking older is sometimes a plus, especially in the workplace, where twenty-four-year-olds who look sixteen tend to not be taken that seriously. But as you get older, the novelty wears off.
I’ve been dyeing my hair regularly since I was nineteen. Recently, I’ve begun to resent it. It’s expensive, it dries out my hair, herbal dyes don’t work on my stubborn grays, and the chemicals in permanent dye can’t be healthy. But mainly I resent it because there’s an unspoken expectation that a woman will and should dye her hair.
My dad’s hair is completely white, and it has been since he was thirty-five. Fortunately for him, he’s a man. Other women are always telling my mom how handsome he is, and comparing him to (a younger-looking) Kenny Rogers. (My mom’s friends seem to have a thing for Kenny Rogers.) Men end up looking dashing, debonair, wise, and powerful when they have some extra salt with their pepper. Take George Clooney, Richard Gere, Paul Newman, Harrison Ford, Warren Beatty, Anderson Cooper, Jon Stewart, Sean Connery … the list goes on.
Women just look old. What sexy gray-haired female icons do we have? Uh, Emmylou Harris? Judi Dench? Any newscasters? Can’t think of one. High-profile politicians? Hm. And how about any hot gray-haired ladies younger than fifty? Because you know they’re out there, hiding under some Clairol.
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