Essays

June 11, 2021

The Surprising Thing About Going Gray

To grow out your gray, all you really need is time. It can take a full two years to go from your last dye to your natural silver state, but the first year is perhaps the most painful. Thanks to the pandemic, many of us have been granted this time — away from the curious eyes of work associates and acquaintances — to get through the initial awkward phase. A silver lining, if you will.

Go cold turkey and you’ll get what is referred to as the “skunk stripe” of gray emanating from your part. A kinder term for this is “grombre” — now a major hashtag on Instagram, where women trade tips and help mentor others through the process. If you don’t want a noticeable demarcation, you can go to the salon for highlights and lowlights, or you can cut it all off and start fresh.

While going gray may seem like a purely aesthetic decision, women who have made the plunge say that the real transformation happens within.

Before she decided to stop dyeing her hair, gray-hair influencer Tracy Reid of @silverismynewnormal spent half a year following the progress of other women who were posting to #silversisters on Instagram. “I wanted to stop dyeing it, but some people would say, being 54 you are still young enough that you don’t have to stop dyeing your hair,” she says. “But the gray was coming in thick and fast, and so I needed to dye it more frequently, and my hair was getting thinner and thinner because of all the chemicals. Also, I’ve got fibroids and women of color talk about the chemicals you put in your hair and how the toxins help to feed the fibroids. I haven’t processed my hair with any relaxer since 2014, and my last dye was January 1, 2020.”

The in-between phase can be challenging because gray hair doesn’t necessarily behave like dyed hair. According to Harper’s Bazaar, “As hair loses its melanin granules, it can begin to change shape and become deprived of its elastic properties.” During the grow-out phase, you may be managing two distinct textures of hair — undyed vs dyed.

“I never treated my hair this well before,” says Reid. “I have a steam cap I bought from Amazon. I make a mask of bentonite clay, castor oil, coconut oil, olive oil, aloe vera juice, apple cider vinegar, and an essential oil (rosemary or peppermint) and put it on my hair. Then I put a plastic cap on top and go under the steam cap for about 30 minutes. I probably do that once a month.”

In addition to babying your new growth, silver hair comes with a risk of unwanted yellowing. “Yellowing is this weird thing you worry about,” says Tracey Runeare, 52, who started growing out her gray in December 2019. Products you used to swear by might now leave an unpleasant tint. “Once you go gray, you learn about transfer. I will sometimes do a hydrogen-peroxide rinse — one part hydrogen to two parts water — to help with yellowing,” says Omisade Burney-Scott, 54, creator of Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause.

To stop dyeing your hair is revolutionary in a quiet way. You’re making a statement, whether you intended to or not, by just letting your body do what it wants to do without fighting it.

“I have mixed feelings about people saying, ‘You are brave,’” says Runeare. “But there’s something to it. Because everything’s so secret. Are you doing Botox, are you dyeing your hair? If you’re not, you’re different. So in a way, it is brave to just let yourself be yourself.”

“Many years ago, I had a conversation with a close friend that led me to realize that every emotion and thought that I ever had surrounding gray hair was never my own,” says Whitney L., 40. “Over time I … began to feel resentful for being made to feel that something as natural as my own hair color was something to be embarrassed about or that needed to be covered.”

“I was in the cycle of dyeing my hair every two weeks, and I just…I was pissed off. I couldn’t do it,” says Runeare. “I was resentful of the dye and of the process. It was like breaking up with someone. I just could not do it. It was over. And that was it. I was 51.”

The fact that you’re essentially showing your age in public can make the process tricky to navigate. For women in high-profile jobs, the question might not be “should I grow out my gray,” but “how can I?”

“Months three to five were the hardest,” says Runeare, a high school principal who in part relied on scarves to camouflage the early stages of her gray growth. “Up to month three you can cover it up with spray. You wonder what people are thinking, like: ‘Did she just forget to dye her hair? Does she know she looks like that right now?’”

“A couple of women pulled me aside and would quietly say something to me like, ‘I see what you’re doing there and I think it’s awesome,’” she says. “Or they’d point to their head and give me a wink.”

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“In a culture where visible aging isn’t rewarded, women who let their hair go gray are, in a way, projecting a truth and a vulnerability”

Women might be complimentary of others who take the leap, while very much doubting that they could do it themselves. “There’s still a beauty standard when we talk about gray hair,” said one 40 year old. “The ideal seems to be thick, gorgeous, all-over silver hair. I’d be more likely to stop dyeing my hair if it looked like that, but my grays are coming in scattered all over my head, so it just looks sort of dusty. It’s not as aesthetically pleasing.”

Reid relied on braids and twists during the first months of her growing-out process. “Now I am pretty comfortable with my silvers,” she says. “I’m out of the skunk stage and into the salt-and-pepper stage.”

“All the reactions have been positive,” she continues. “I’ve had women come up to me in the supermarket and tell me how beautiful my gray hair is. Men across the street, shouting, ‘Your silvers are beautiful!’ Even my daughter’s friends are like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t wait ‘til I go gray.’”

In a culture where visible aging isn’t rewarded, women who let their hair go gray are, in a way, projecting a truth and a vulnerability. There’s something else, too, about going gray: As Burney-Scott says, it’s a reflection of your heritage. When you look at her hair, she continues, “You are looking at my mom and dad.”

 

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