I have gone grey (stopped dyeing). Not everyone likes it, am I too young?

[TimTamTerrier]

I'm 49 and I've been dyeing my hair for a long time as I started going grey in my early 30s. I'm sick of it, so I stopped having it dyed about 10 months ago and I've just had the last of the colour cut out (it was very faded anyway as it was semi-permanent). A few people have said that they much preferred it coloured and that I'm too young to go grey. It did suit my colouring better when it was brown, and my hair is a bit fine and the dye thickened it up a bit, but I don't think I'm too young to be grey, am I?

For me going grey was primarily about vanity, IMO I look more attractive with natural hair

If I am rebelling against anything then I am rebelling against the idea that grey = frumpy and unattractive

I'm growing out my grey, about 2 inches of grey roots now and at the difficult stage but don't want it chopped off. I'm really looking forward to the end result when all the coloured bits have grown out and gone, and wish I'd done it years ago. I'm dark blonde, with silvery streaks at the front and temples, with about 50% grey on the rest. Just discovered the wonder that is Refectocil eyebrow tint in Graphite - highly recommended!

This may sound a bit wanky so apologies in advance.

I think the urge to decorate and adorn yourself is timeless. You could argue it's one of the distinguishing features of the human race. However this has got hopelessly entangled with looking young. What I'm trying to do is disentangle them, at least in my own head. I do struggle with it sometimes because I'm vain and frankly going grey, is the easy bit.

Yeah my reasons are partly political but they're also practical (fighting age is a losing battle) and partly philosophical. I'm getting a strong feeling that time is starting to run out. I may live another 20 or 30 years but on the other hand, I have friends and peers who are already dying or in poor health. My face serves as a daily reminder that I need to get my arse moving.

I think you're right flo, well put. Looking nice has become far too linked with looking young.

I'm vain and frankly going grey, is the easy bit
Absolutely!
Those 40 somethings worried about grey hair....you ain't seen nothin' yet

I think one of the difficulties about getting older, is that it's harder to get affordable mass-market clothes that look good.

Obviously people can wear whatever they like. But I don't think that clingy, skimpy, flimsy stuff is terribly flattering when you grow up- only the young can get away with it. So there is this pressure to alter yourself - via make-up, Botox, fad dieting - so you can wear the horrible high street clothes that are everywhere.

I go for very basic plain T shirts, jumpers and jeans. Or vintage - by this I mean stuff that really is old (not just 80s tat)

SirCh eyeliner if I'm properly tarting up for going out, with eyebrow pencil & tinted moisturiser then as well.

Ooh, good point, nothing wrong with wanting to look good, and I think we need help from makeup more and more as we get older. It's not about wanting to look young, it's that eyebrows and lashes fade and get sparser, colouring changes, eyebags and shadows appear, etc, and you can start to feel a bit 'invisible' - it's more like wanting to look healthy, and as if you take care of yourself. This will make me sound old, but when I see gorgeous young girls covered in tons of makeup I think how strange, when they don't need it yet!

Me too, whenever I see my gorgeous niece I want to spit on a hanky rub off all the make up.

...but I resist the temptation Partly because I'm not a complete arse but also because I think that would be an example of confusing youth with the urge to adorn oneself. My niece likes experimenting with her appearance just as much as I do.

However this has got hopelessly entangled with looking young

I agree to a point - and now I'm going to try and disentangle my thoughts on why it's only to a point (bear with me please, whilst I attempt a coherent response rather than my usual stream of consciousness ). We're now living longer than ever before, enjoying better health, having children later in life and working longer - at 50 my Granny (born in 1909) looked much older with the hair styles and fashion of the time which defined women of a 'certain age'. Now at almost 50 I am a mum of a 9 year old, working full time and have a level of disposable income and freedom from domestic drudgery that she could only dream of. I can shop for clothes from Top Shop or M&S Classic - the choice is mine, and no-one defines what I should or shouldn't look like.

I think we are younger than previous generations. I hope I still have another 30-40 good years ahead of me whereas my Granny's life expectancy was much lower, and I think that translates into wanting to look as young as I can for as long as I can - if that's hair colour, or makeup, or anti wrinkle cream then I'll happily take it. Not embracing the grey is just a personal choice, just as wearing clothes that I like or a lipstick colour than I feel suits me better.

Oh dear - that ended up being my usual stream of consciousness

It's all to do with the shade of grey.

If you have your colours done you will get a good idea of what colours of hair suit you.

My hair goes mousey, dull grunge without highlights. Very unflattering.
However I would think if my hair was a pale soft grey, like you get some sweatshirts, I would suit it. That is the only shade of grey that I can wear according to the House of colour so no surprise there.

So get a shade of white/grey/blonde that flatters you rather than just accepting the natural one. White looks great on many people I know (but hair needs to be straight I think).

In between highlights I bleach a few bits of my fringe so that the area next to my face is brighter. Def makes a big difference.

I also agree to a point and certainly about it being a personal choice to do whatever you wish to your own hair, body and face. And fuck, yes to wearing whatever you like and shopping wherever you like at any age.

However, although we may live longer, I don't agree that we're younger for longer. I think we're old for longer. I don't regard 'old' as a personal characteristic or even (contentiously it seems on these boards) as a 'state of mind'. I just see it as a life stage. You could say that's another of my mental contortions I guess!

Sorry cross post. That was to you, my good sir and to anyone else who may be interested.

Old (or young) is a state of mind though imo - and it depends on when you see old age beginning. Nowadays, when I hear of someone dying in their late 60s or early 70s I tend to think 'they were still so young' - it's really only when someone gets into their 80s or 90s that I think of them as being 'old'. If anything we have longer life stages, ie we're younger for longer, middle aged for longer and then later middle aged - but the lines are more blurred that ever.

Margie - that is so true. I'm blonde and seem to suit certain shades of grey, but that dirty dishwater mouse and grey that I see at the roots of my (frizzy, wavy hair) does nothing for me whatsoever!

A lot of looking good is to do with finally working out what suits you, whether colours, shapes, patterns, whatever.

Agree Margie about shades of grey - my grey hair is a mid-toned silvery grey, a colour I would actually wear.

As a PP above did, I've had to sling anything brown, orange, khaki, beige, sludgy green my favourite as they no longer suit me perhaps they never did

Yes I guess the middle point of life has shifted (although I always have a laugh at 40+ posters who insist they can't be middle aged because they're just back from T in the Park). But how is 'old' a state of mind? I just see it as the number of years you've been alive.

I think energy levels start to decline with age (I'm starting to notice that already) and eventually strength, health and if you're unlucky, mental capacity. But I strongly disagree that young people have a monopoly on curiosity, tolerance etc.

But how is 'old' a state of mind?

I suppose I see it equating with what we physically and mentally think of ourselves as being able to do and achieve - that 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks'. You're right though, age doesn't give you a monopoly to think and act in a particular way - perhaps it's more experience that shapes our outlook, and whether or not we're open to change or whether we're happy to use our advancing years as an excuse to behave in a certain way.

Sorry OP - I've gone wayyyyy off topic there

Do eyebrows get sparse? That will be brill if it happens!

Yes they do Lorelei One of mine is a combover job.

(Your pubes do too although that may be too much information.)

When does the pube thing happen then? Because mine don't appear to have heard that one (which may also be too much information)

I like mine in the mirror - mostly - but not in photos. My plan was to Henna occasionally, but its so messy I have not bothered.

I'm not sure when I first noticed it Sir but it started at some point between 55 and 60. I can't say it's something I've talked about much with my friends but it happened to my mum too.

I sometimes wonder if posters on here would be quite so keen to go hairless if they knew it was an older woman thing.