Hmm, the stress of finishing my MA seems to have given me I have gray hair coming in over my temples at the excessive age of 28. *shrugs* I refuse to dye my hair so I suppose it is the only way I am going to get it to change colour. By god though, I am going to have uber curly hair if those bits of gray are anything to go by.
The folks at the longhair community know hair the way we know fandom. I think they're onto something. And yeah, I know I'll never spend the time to do "the bottle."
I dye so frequently, I probably won't be able to tell when I do start getting them!
Yes, my mother always dyed her hair so never knew when it turned gray. Then she needed to not dye her hair for a while. Oh, was that a surprise.
She thought fluffy, wispy white was rather pretty, but men? Nope.
Truly they do (after wandering around), but any amount of effort for my hair is too much effort, even given that it is quite long. It is why I can't wear it short, to get the waves to not stick up vertically takes time. That and I think that no matter if you colour out the grey, people can still pick you age easily enough from skin tone and other cues. Then again, my grandmother (a red head) never went grey at all. Weird.
Agreed. Hair should not be work.
Fortunately I don't have Joe Flanigan hair. It does flat relatively well, with only a few persistent cowlicks.
Most people can't tell my age from my skin. Generally, people guess my age at around 28.
I started going gray in college, so I've been coloring for ages. I never thought I would, but when I was 1/3 gray at 30, my principles fell by the wayside. And I've had the best results staying one or two shades lighter than my natural shade--if I go three lighter, which I've tried, it doesn't take very well at the roots. It works better if I use a darker color and then highlight afterwards.
Good luck finding a routine you're comfortable with. It might take some experimenting, but I'm sure you'll figure it out.
I think you were the one who recommended the longhair community, way back when. We discussed WG's graying hair in chat.
I saw no need for him to dye his hair, but men see things differently.
Nope, wasn't me; I've never heard of it before. I might check it out, though; I can always use hair tips.
I started going grey at fourteen, but that's pretty normal in my family. These days my natural hair colour is more red than anything with patchy grey beneath, although right at this moment in time it is ultra light ash blonde thanks to L'Oreal.
Wow, somebody who started graying earlier than me! I started going gray at seventeen (inherited from my mom's side - I have an aunt who was completely gray by 28).
kindred spirits!!!! I started noticeably graying at 16.
Used "Natural Instincts" medium-power dye for several years starting in my late 20s - did a good enough job sticking to grays to color them, but by leaving them lighter than the surrounding hairs, left a lot of dimensionality so the color never looked flat. And because it's a "wash out" color, it doesn't show roots so noticeably. (It does show up right now, as a line in my hair where things change color, because I stopped coloring about 15 months ago.)
Got tired of the time, expense, and sorta-nominally-patriachy-knuckling-under-ness of it all a couple years ago. Really waffled for a while about the dating thing, and totally do agree: guys notice. I'm pretty sure my responses went down on an online dating site when I started listing my haircolor as "a few grey hairs" or whatever their set answer was. But I also think there's a tipping point, where if the grey is pretty solidly grown in or distributed and you look young, there's a bit of a short-circuit, and some guys don't quite know what to do about you. Or if they're cool, like the current guy I've been dating, they say something like, "whatever, it's your hair!"
Coloring is has also been strategic wrt professional impressions, too (Icarus, you're looking for work, yeah?) I kept coloring when I was _in_ law school competing for legal jobs with 26-year-olds. Lawyers are (on the whole) pretty superficial, and appearance matters a lot. Strategically _stopped_ coloring when I started applying for university positions where my competition was largely 50+ - I'm 34 - and have not gone back. I think the grey definitely nets me some additional credibility when talking to older faculty members, and surface appearances are less important in this setting.
Hard to believe the level of meta to which these kinds of thoughts can rise! The grey is now well past my ears (long, straight, used-to-be-dark hair), but my current plan is, when I cut out the last of the "covering the grey" color, I'm going to get all the ends tipped with some improbable shade. I think my boss may have a conniption, but since it will all be easily hidden in a bun when I have to look uncontroversial, I don't think they'll have grounds to complain. :)
Yep, I'm looking for work. I've run into situations (on the hiring end) where qualified women were being turned away for various excuses, while less-qualified but young-looking women were being asked back for an interview. *shakes head*
That's what I'm looking for: turning the flicks into highlights.
When I was unusually stressed at age 28 I got this gray streak that looked remarkably like the streak X-Men's Rogue got at the end of the movie. But that went away when the trouble stopped. Now it's just normal 40-year-old flecks. Though perhaps a few this year have WG's name on them.
Argh, you have my complete empathy. I got my first few grey hairs in my late teens and started coloring not long after turning 30. I hate the expense and the constant upkeep, but at 38, I'm not ready to feel as old as I do when my witchy grey roots start growing out. Maybe in twenty years, I won't care anymore. (But I probably will.)
I look and don't see them unless I'm under florescent lighting. Then the sparkle is there. But I've now heard from three different men over the past year or so, I'm looking to date and looking for a job.
Yep. Time to get out the ... shampoo. I can't seem to bother with a bottle of hair dye.
Sadly I can only agree with the henna thing. I've been using and loving it for years, because it makes my hair feel like silk, but after like two washes the gray is right back. Thankfully, so far my gray hairs are all concentrated in one streak on my forehead and I choose to interpret that as an interesting highlight.
I guess if the henna were in a daily use shampoo it would work.
Hey don't worry -- I'm still 28 and my hair is turning grey. Well,half of it. Runs in the family -- by the time I'm 30-35 I'll have a massive streak of platinum.
But I did give up trying to dye it a year ago -- turned my hair (of which there is much but which is extremely fragile) into straw. End up straightening it now, and people always say how nice the silver bits look. And some special people ask if I have done it on purpose.
Anyhow, that is my saga of the grey hair, age 28.
I'm not worried. But I do want to date and if this is something guys notice -- fine. I've heard it from three different men now.
If you saw my hair you'd splutter. "What? Gray where? There?! They're complaining about that?"
I've had my first grey hairs at 22, and they've progressed, mostly in two strands down the front. I like it. It definitely looks better than my original not over-exciting brown. There's dumb people who go to the hairdresser's to have that sort of thing done on purpose. The only person it bothers is my mom, who's very careful about dying her own ;).
When I'm stressed I tend to get a few gray hairs at my temple, right where you're describing. But those tend to go away once things calm down.
It's funny. Women look at me and wonder how I look the same as I did 15 years ago. Men on the other hand look at the barely noticeable lighter strands.
My dad has always been a visual person. That's how I knew if I wasn't fashionable enough. He would get irritable if he didn't like what I was wearing. Not even aware that he's irritate either, it's like sand in his shoe.
Granted, he's happy with nose rings and purple dreadlocks if you pull off the look successfully.
While grey hair shouldn't alter your chances of finding a nice time or a nice job statistics show that it does. If your hair is very long you may need more than one bottle of what ever form of color you decide on to get good coverage. My sister (Riann not Siobahn) went very grey before she hit 40 and has hair long enough to sit on. She uses one bottle (first) on the root area and (second, about 5 minutes later) a second one worked thru the mass. She has good success in covering her grey. She is a redhead, like the rest of us.
Best wishes on the decision and the journey!
Plus? I think it's awesome that dad did the John tour with you. You mentioned once that he was going to read OoB. Did he? Did he say what he thought of it? Care to share?
My hair's barely shoulder length. But no hair dye for me.
With me, maintenance is an issue. Anything I do with my hair has to be EZ. Because when it comes to my hair I am Lay-Z.
So.
- Shampoo in color to blend in those little strands - yes
- Sit around with dye in my hair - no way
My dad tries to read Out Of Bounds but I think it's too long. He just doesn't have that kind of time. What he's read are the sections I asked him to beta review for info about Toronto.
Good news though: I cut 40 pages from Out Of Bounds the other day. Now I have to read through it to see how it works.
Cut them? Editing down? Or all in one place?
On the hair front...I'm sure you'll look lovely without the extra hassle of dye. It's one of the draw backs of dark hair, but the trade off is that it's very flattering! I have often wanted to dye my hair something other than red but the thought of red roots showing with brown/blond/blue was always enough to hold me back from anything too permanent. But when I start covering the grey I may rethink that!
Slicing out entire scenes. I've been ruthless.
I just need to blend away the little sparkles of gray. I don't see them unless I'm looking hard, but the men (and possibly the employers) apparently do.
I'll have to re-read the whole thing, now! Evil plan, that.
Taller? Different light? Who knows, but they always see them.
Bastards.
Interesting. I have only a couple of random stray grey hairs even though I'm 49. On my father's side of the family people tend not to go grey until in their late 50s or even 60s, so it's not that unusual. I still plan to color my hair or do something once it becomes necessary, though. I like this idea of using a color shampoo. I've never even heard of that. | 
well-considered![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
