Grey Hair

I am not convinced I have quit dying my hair yet. I hope that if I write about it and announce it to the world, I will clarify what I genuinely think about dying my hair. I have scheduled and canceled a hair dye appointment twice in the last two weeks. But that is better than before when I would go in and get dyed, only to feel regret while I sat in the chair with the dye on my head.

I started dying my hair because my mom told me she saw one grey hair on my head. She said she feared I might never dye my hair. I had not even noticed the grey hair. My older sister was there and she agreed I should dye my hair, or look old.

My older sister is a hairstylist and when we were in high school, she would get upset because I did not want to wear makeup. I could not understand this. Maybe she was trying to protect me from some prejudices against women who don’t wear makeup or dye their hair. She would also get upset if I drank too much milk, so I am unsure if my sister being upset about any particular thing says too much. Nonetheless, it influenced me.

I started dying my hair when I was about 28. I am 33 now and have not dyed it since April. For at least a year before this, I thought about not dying it. I could not think of a reason that was genuinely my own for dying it. A guy I dated said I would “look like an influencer” if I dyed my hair and that I should try harder to look nicer (what a gem). My dad told me and my sister that a woman he knew looked so old because she had let her hair go grey and he could not believe she had done it. Another person exclaimed, “Your hair used to be so light!” in a tone that I understood as, “Why don’t you dye your hair?” Should I be blonde because my hair was light when I was little? If we wanted to follow the reasoning of that argument, a bald head would technically be the most youthful look.

My hair is dark blonde now, with grey hair coming in around my temples.

I calculated that in my lifetime, I would spend at least $15,000 to dye my hair if I continued doing it at the same rate. I would prefer spend that money in more meaningful ways. I also want the time I spent thinking about what my hair looked like back, to spend that time creating or learning.

Having written this, I see I do not want to dye my hair. Hopefully, I can remind myself of this when I feel some outside pressure to do it.